Browse Items (36 total)

Responding to the call for a muster, the militiamen from North Carolina's overmountain region and those from southwest Virginia gathered on September 25, 1780 in the flats adjacent to Sycamore Shoals and next to Fort Watauga.

During the muster,…

On the evening of September 26, after completing their first day's march, the Overmountain Men arrived at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. They camped along the Doe River at a meadow known as "the Resting Place" and stored their gunpowder…

The Overmountain Men marched over the mountain barrier following a narrow path known as "Bright's Trace." It followed a route used by Indians and created over centuries by migrations of deer, elk, and buffalo to cross the mountains. That path offered…

After camping along the North Toe River at Grassy Creek, the Overmountain patriots marched up Grassy Creek on September 29 to reach the crest of the Blue Ridge. From Gillespie Gap, they could look far into the Catawba River valley. They faced there a…

On Friday, October 13, 1780, the patriot force and its loyalist prisoners marched six miles to descend upon the plantation of loyalist Captain Aaron Biggerstaff. He had been mortally wounded during the battle and left for dead. On the 14th, the…

Colonel James Williams was the highest ranking officer killed at the Battle of Kings Mountain. He was wounded in the last minutes of the battle on October 7, and tended by his son, Daniel. His men carried him carefully on their withdrawal on October…

After crossing the Broad River at Cherokee Ford, the mounted patriot militiamen gathered information from locals about where Major Ferguson and his loyalist army might me. A young woman shared that she had just that morning taken eggs to the major's…

During the morning of October 7, 1780, the 900 mounted patriot militiamen who had left The Cowpens late at night, arrived at the Broad River. Believing that Ferguson might well have set an ambush for them across the river, they rode downstream to the…

On October 6, 1780, the mounted backcountry patriot militia rode hard from the ford at Green River for 22 miles, arriving at The Cowpens, a place for fattening cattle before taking them to market. It was owned by one Saunders, a loyalist. There, the…

On the evening of October 5, 1780, the patriot militiamen reached the Green River but had lost the trail for Patrick Ferguson's retreating army. Nevertheless, good fortune intervened. A large band of South Carolina militia had withdrawn into North…