Before They Were Heroes at King's Mountain

 
The Battle of Kings Mountain, fought October 7, 1780, was a turning point in the War for American Independence. Patriot militiamen from the Overmountain region of North Carolina and Virginia marched over the Appalachian Mountains and joined with militiamen from the North Carolina back country, Georgia, and South Carolina to track down, surround, and defeat Scottish Major Patrick Ferguson and his army of American Loyalists. This was a fiercely fought contest of Americans against Americans—Whig rebels against Tory loyalists—in which the horse and the rifle played prominent roles. These were citizen militia; not a single man or officer there was a Continental soldier.
 

The men who fought at King's Mountain were experienced fighters. In addition to the story of the campaign and the battle, Before They Were Heroes at King's Mountain tells six years of Revolutionary War history in the South from the militia side. These men were fighting Shawnee along the Ohio River, Scots Tories along the Cape Fear River, campaigning against the Cherokees in '76 and the Chickamaugas in '79. The fearsome reputation of the "shirtmen" had grown at the Battle of Great Bridge. They demonstrated their skills against the loyalists at Ramsour's Mill. Some of the men patrolled the Carolina and Virginia countryside, chasing bands of Tories, whipping some and hanging others.

In the sixth year of the American Revolution when the British were marching north from Charlestown, executing with skill their Southern Strategy, Lt. General Charles, Lord Cornwallis was advancing through South Carolina. The Southern Department of the Continental Army had been twice defeated in three months. No army stood in the way of Cornwallis's advance. This "ghost legion" of backwoods militiamen, which appeared unexpectedly and seemingly from nowhere turned the tide toward victory. Just 12 months and 12 days after Kings Mountain, the British surrendered at Yorktown. The victory by the mountaineers and the Patriot militia reignited a spirit of patriot resistance.

Before They Were Heroes at King's Mountain puts the story on the landscape, taking the reader to scores of sites across the South where these events are commemorated.
 
540 pages plus preface, index, end notes, and bibliography, 200 images, trade paperback, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
 
2011 Willie Parker Peace History Book Award, North Carolina Society of Historians