Kings of Kings Mountain

 I began idly clicking one day through the section of our family tree that branches off from Sharon's father and ran across an entry that was accompanied by the picture, below right,  of a postcard stamp honoring the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. As best as I can tell, the USPS issued the stamp to mark the 200th anniversary of the battle.

I showed Sharon the picture, and because it showed up on the tree entry of one her ancestors, Capt. John Weir, mistakenly assumed that he was the soldier pictured. Once I began reading about the battle, I understood that he was not the soldier pictured. Still, I had to look up the battle, as I don't recall having ever heard of it before. This is not surprising because I've read little about the Revolutionary War, and if my school texts mentioned the battle, I either missed it or completely forgot about it.

The National Parks Service administers a national military park in South Carolina at the site of the battle and and its website states that the battle was unique for several reasons. If I may put on my editor's hat for a moment, I'd have to point out that the site only mentions two reasons, and neither instance is particularly unique.

The first reason they mention is that this is one of the few battles of the war that almost exclusively pitted Americans against Americans. The exception was Patrick Ferguson, a British major in charge of the "loyalist" troops. We don't often think about it, but not every American cared for independence and many of these loyalists formed militias to fight against their neighbors to preserve British rule. Americans living in the South seem to be particularly divided on the issue. Sound familiar at all?

The second reason mentioned on the park website is that an unusual number of rifles were used, with the revolutionary side firing mostly rifles and the loyalists countering with mostly muskets. The site doesn't give a source for this information, so I'll speculate that either extant records or archaeology or both provides this information.

The loyalists occupied the mountain itself, which being the high ground should have given them advantage. But the revolutionaries fought more in a guerilla style, fighting in clusters, using terrain and plant life as covers and mounting charge after charge.

Loyalists outnumbered revolutionaries, but by most accounts not by much. Loyalist forces numbered somewhat more than a thousand, depending on the account you read, and revolutionaries somewhat less than 1,000.

The battle took about 65 minutes. Loyalists suffered significant casualties while the revolutionaries lost about a tenth the number in deaths, and about 60 percent fewer wounded.

At some point in the battle, pockets of loyalists began raising white flags. Maj. Ferguson would have none of that and rode around cutting them down with his sword. A bit later in the battle he was wounded, fell from his horse with a foot caught in a stirrup, and the horse dragged him over enemy lines. Some revolutionaries found him, and one demanded his surrender. Ferguson responded by shooting the man. This brought a volley of shots from the revolutionaries, killing him.

Three different presidents, the closest in time being Thomas Jefferson, have pointed to this battle as a pivotal point in the war. Recruiting new members to the loyalist cause became almost impossible, and the victory lifted the revolutionaries' spirits. 

The next year, Gen. George Washington defeated Gen. Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown, ending the war. Cornwallis became known as the man who lost the American colonies, though the title didn't hurt him on his return to England, where he served in the government and was elevated from earl to marquess. 

What was great-whatever Capt. John's role in all this? Well, upon hearing of the battle, he mustered a number of his townsmen and headed for the battle but arrived after the shooting was over. Still, he saw plenty of action during the war as a scout. He was captured once, whipped by loyalists, and left tied to a tree in the woods. Friends found and released him.

His family suffered as well when loyalists captured his wife and whipped her after she refused to divulge her location. 

Weir died of natural causes at 76.

Primary sources for this piece are: Kings Mountain and Its Heroes, Lyman C. Draper, LL.D., published by Peter G. Thompson, 1881, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the battle; Battle of Kings Mountain, author unknown, posted to the Family Search website; and the Battle of Kings Mountain entry on Wikipedia, (which differs little from other accounts).