The American Revolution in South Carolina - The Loyalists and Their Militias




The American Revolution in South Carolina

The American Volunteers

Engagements:

1780 - Moncks Corner

1780 - Siege of Charleston

1780 - Cedar Springs

1780 - King's Mountain

Late in 1780, with General Clinton's reluctant consent, Lord Cornwallis set out on the invasion of North Carolina. He sent Major Patrick Ferguson, who had successfully organized the Tories in the upcountry of South Carolina, to move north simultaneously with his "American Volunteers," spread the Tory gospel in the North Carolina backcountry, and join the main army at Charlotte with a maximum number of recruits.

Ferguson's advance northward alarmed the "over-the-mountain men" in western North Carolina, southwest Virginia, and what is now east Tennessee. A picked force of mounted militia riflemen gathered on the Catawba River in western North Carolina, set out to find Major Ferguson, and brought him to bay at King's Mountain near the border of the two Carolinas on October 7.

In a battle of Patriot against Tory (Ferguson was the only British soldier present), the patriots' triumph was complete. Major Ferguson himself was killed and few of his command escaped death or capture. Some got the same "quarter" Tarleton had given Buford's men at the Waxhaws.