Ranger William talks about the Over Mountain Men and the trip they took to get to Kings Mountain in the fall of 1780.

William: Hey everyone and welcome to Southern War, a podcast about the Southern Theater of the American Revolution.

[sounds of musket shots, horses, men shouting]

William: I'm Ranger William from Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail.

Adrian: And I'm Ranger Adrian from Ninety Six National Historic Site.

William: Together we will explore some of the well-known and not so known stories from the American Revolution here in the American South. Time to make the history.

Intro: [sounds of men shouting, musket shots, horses]

Adrian: Hello, welcome, and thanks for joining us. Today, Ranger Will with Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail is going to tell us some about the overmountain men and the trail that they took to get to the Battle of Kings Mountain. And you said from Kings Mountain as well, right?

William: Yeah. So we are telling the story of their journey to the battle on October 7, 1780, but then also their return back home.

Adrian: So starting us off, who are these men?

William: So our name, you know, the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, it kind of comes from the term overmountain men. That is the kind of the nickname that was given to the Patriot settlers, the frontiersman who live in what is now Eastern Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, places that were over the Appalachian Mountains, technically across the boundary line, in many cases from the Proclamation Line of 1763. But also as that line had been kind of increasingly pushed West with the following treaties. They're still considered over the mountain men, backwater men is another name for them. But yeah, these guys from like beyond the frontier. So our focus is the primary route. That's the trail and where the trail follows the primary route they used to get to the battle. But you also saw men coming down from Southwest Virginia. So around the Abington area. There were several hundred who came from what is now the Yadkin River Valley of North Carolina, kind of for those who are familiar with Western North Carolina, Elkin, Wilkesboro, Lenoir. But then also you had a lot of South Carolinians and some Georgians who were kind of following in a separate path. Many of these guys were actually refugees from their home states who had fled up into North Carolina to escape the many British victories that had been happening the summer of 1780. And so they're gonna be kind of following a roughly parallel route, joining up with these guys at a few different times and finally combining their forces right before the Battle of Kings Mountain.

Adrian: OK so, if they're, you know, outside of really civilization, it sounds like, why do they care?

William: Right. So for a lot of these guys, when you look at their service records, some of their leaders in that Overmountain region, Isaac Shelby, John Sevier, William Campbell those are gonna be some of the big names for those Western guys. Isaac Shelby. He is actually off doing his own thing. He is at the time of the Southern Campaign, really kind of kicking off with the British capture of Charleston, SC on May 12th, 1780. Biggest British victory of the entire war. They're pushing inland. You've got the battle at Waxhaws, which is spun into a huge propaganda victory by the Patriots. Telling the story of a British massacre of surrendering men, that story spreads like wildfire. So it's either the news of the fall of Charleston or it's the news of Waxhaw that finds Isaac Shelby as a surveyor way up in Kentucky, and he returns back to his home, his home district in North Carolina raises the militia and comes down to help. He had seen some prior service with the Continental Army, mostly as a quartermaster supply kind of guy with the western frontier. And so he's gonna come down and be involved in numerous skirmishes and raids in South Carolina. But John Sevier, another one of those big Overmountain leaders, his service doesn't really come over to the eastern side of the mountains until this story. Most of the time he was staying there in what is now East Tennessee worrying about fights with the Cherokee Nation, who had been pretty strongly allied with the British. There had been some splintering going on after 1776 and 77, but there are still elements of the Cherokee Nation who are very pro-British wanting to view a British alliance as their best way to defend their homeland. So they're going to be fighting against the settlers who are creeping ever westward from the mountain line. And William Campbell, at first he refuses the call to aid the call to join in with this mission. He says no, his hands are full. You're looking at a lot of these frontier areas have a lot of loyalists. And William Campbell is in charge of keeping the Loyalists suppressed, so keeping them so intimidated, so scattered that they're not able to organize and pose a threat to Patriot control. So a lot of these guys are very kind of…

Adrian: So it's hard to do if you're gone, right?

William: Exactly, especially if you're like, not just me, but you want to bring my best men to go on this little goose chase. Like I've got stuff to do, man. In fact, one nickname that William Campbell had, he was Washington County, Virginia, is where he was located. One of his nicknames was the bloody tyrant of Washington County because of how strict and harsh he was on the area Loyalists. Of course, that is a loyalist nickname for him.

Adrian: Right.

William: But you're looking at not only locally minded, but in Southwest Virginia you have a lot of lead mines and it's gonna be the lead mind in these communities that is sent to George Washington's army up north. So there is a big picture impact of if they leave and if their home districts fall into loyalist control. If British allied Native warriors are able to coordinate with these loyalists and help attack the Patriot garrisons, patriot communities, there's a lot of concerns to keep these guys home. But the real kind of the line in the sand, the catalyst, the last straw. This comes when the British are able to start pushing into North Carolina. South Carolina had been pretty well pacified as far as they're concerned. Of course, a few holdouts remain. But one of the British plans to succeed in the South was use of Southern loyalists. Local loyalist settlers, especially Frontier loyalists. So Patrick Ferguson is a British major with the 71st Highlanders. He has given this kind of experimental group called the American Volunteers who are actually from New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia, this small like 90-95 men. These guys are sent out to be kind of the backbone of a loyalist frontier army. So they're going to be recruiting local loyalists. They are the left wing, the western side of the British advance from South Carolina into North Carolina. So he is pursuing all these small bands of Patriot partisans. He's getting up into the Blue Ridge Mountains. And he is being very effective. He's very good at raising this loyalist army. He actually views loyalist militia as, as people as subjects.

Adrian: Yeah. Which is pretty unusual, isn't it?

William: Right. You see a lot of British officers that they, they do not have a great relationship with loyalist militia, partly due to poor past performance. Loyalist militia had been ambushed several times, defeated several times. They've surrendered key outposts either through siege or intimidation. So British officers are some of them are just like, look, they're not worth the effort. These guys are useless. And Patrick Ferguson says no, they can be great soldiers, they're loyal. They're passionate. You just have to support them well.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: There's a lot of his letters to Cornwallis that survive, in the Cornwallis papers. And one of them even points this out. He says, of course, they have a bad reputation. You threw them into a fight into a campaign without giving them proper equipment or officers or training. Of course they're going to do bad. Give me the chance.

Adrian: That's like telling a 5-year-old to go, you know, do something that an adult has a hard time doing.

William: That first grader messed up my taxes. I don't trust first graders. Yeah.

Adrian: Yeah, exactly.

William: So he's saying no, you just have to give them the proper officership and you, you can't use them like you would a regular British Army. You have to use the skills that they're bringing to the table. And Ferguson lays all these out in letters. He's like, look, they are good horsemen, they're good marksman. They're inured to hardship, is how he puts it. Use those abilities.

Adrian: I would think that they know the land and that would be a huge asset.

William: Especially. They’re local people, they know the roads, the mountain gaps, the good river crossings, but also the British are having the hardest time with men like Francis Marion, men like Thomas Sumter, men who have mounted militias, who know the terrain, who hit and run. And Ferguson has the idea he's pitching it to Cornwallis, he says the Loyalist frontiersman have these same skills. They're also great horsemen and marksmen. Let us use them that way.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: So this is kind of his time to shine. This is his experimental campaign where he's given permission to go prove it, put his money where his mouth is. So one officer says that Ferguson is easily recruiting up to 4,000 men in the Backcountry are signing back up with the King's militia.

Adrian: It's amazing what a little respect will do.

William: No kidding. And again, you have 4,000 men, but this is under well, this is after years of living under patriot control.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: So the fact that you've got 4,000 men are willing to step up bear arms and risk their neck, their property, their families. That's very impressive. There's a few times that Ferguson's officers who keep some diaries and journals, they even talk about there was an issue in camp where the militia officers disagreed with something. So they stop the column, like Ferguson orders a halt to to meet and discuss with them and clarify everything, smooth it out and then they keep going. You're not gonna see other British officers engage in a town hall meeting with people who they feel are beneath them.

Adrian: No.

William: So I could talk about this guy for way too long. But yeah, because of how successful Ferguson is, because of how he is getting closer to the Blue Ridge Mountains and these settlements he kind of becomes identified as enemy #1, because of how good he is at raising a loyalist army, which is one of those big concerns of these frontier leaders are those local loyalist communities. They think, man, if he gets here and these people are given the chance to take up arms, it's gonna be “Bad News Bears” for all of the Patriot leadership who's trying to hold on.

Adrian: Yeah. Okay. So what is it in particular that Ferguson does other than being good at recruiting that really finally kicks these men? I mean, you had, what, 2/3 that were pretty much homebodies that, OK, we, we've gotta actually step up. We gotta travel. We gotta leave these areas to in the long run, I guess protect our own homes?

William: So this is where I've got a little bit of a different opinion.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: The usual story about what really puts the pedal to the metal for these frontiersmen to start chasing Ferguson is that he threatens them. The story goes that he sends a message and he's threatens them with hanging their leaders and laying waste to their country with fire and sword and all these different things. And that's why they realize, hey, we have to get this guy now before he can cross the mountains and get us.

Adrian: Yeah, I can see where that would drive people.

William: Ohh yeah, it it's a great story.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: The only problem is we can't prove it. So, this story, the earliest reference I can find to this happening is on July 1st, 1822. So, 40 years after the battle, there are some letters there's being passed back and forth between Isaac Shelby and John Sevier, and some of these are put together in a pamphlet and they get published and I actually have it here in front of me. I'll read from it. It says, quote, he paroled, being Ferguson, “He paroled a prisoner one Samuel Phillips, a distant connection of mine and instructed him to inform the officers on the western waters that if they did not desist from their opposition to the British arms and take protection under his standard, he would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders and lay their country waste with fire and sword.” End Quote, so that's the story.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: However, we have Ferguson's letters to Cornwallis, and because Ferguson knows that the spotlight is on him to put his money where his mouth is and prove that he can do this job, he is constantly sending Cornwall this updates and every little detail of what he's doing, what he's saying, where he's going. So we know that he does send a message. He does release some paroled prisoners to carry these messages back to their frontier patriot leaders. But he includes a copy of the message that he sent.

Adrian: M-hm.

William: And it is one of the nicest things you'll ever read, very conciliatory, very explanative going on and on about how the Congress has lied to the frontier Patriots. What's really happening in the war? What peace offers are being offered by the British? The harshest thing that he says, in the entire proclamation is that if you fail to take this offer, if you fail to return to the loyalist militia, we will still protect your property, your women, and your children. That is the harshest thing, he says.

Adrian: That's a huge difference.

William: It is, it is. So the question comes, what really was the message, you know?

Adrian: Yeah.

William: The same time that Ferguson is saying that he'll be nice and he'll keep you safe you have other loyalist officers and British officers burning homes, burning churches, executing prisoners. So potentially when Isaac Shelby received this message, he didn't believe it.

Adrian: Yeah, yeah.

William: And he says, yeah, sure. You're gonna be nice. Uh-huh, I've seen what happened with Thomas Brown at Augusta with James Wemyss in the low country.

Adrian: Right.

William: I don't believe you for a second. So yeah. Did Ferguson say it? We can’t prove it.

Adrian: Right.

William: Not according to all the evidence.

Adrian: It doesn't really sound like something that he would say just, you know, based off of what you've already said about him and you know things that I know about him and it really does not sound like something he would say.

William: He's a very much a velvet glove approach.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: And part of this is because he is Scottish, he his family is lower nobility. So he's been involved in a lot of political debates before the revolution about the rights of man, the rights of Britons wherever they be, whether they be Scottish, English, American, whatever. So he's very aware and conscious of he's very much that, like an Enlightenment kind of thinker.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: He grew up in that circle. His parents were big figures in that in Edinburgh. So for him to kind of switch gears, the argument is made that he just finally gets frustrated and he can't catch these groups of frontier partisans. They keep striking his army. He's he just snaps. It's like, fine. I've had it. I'm gonna come after you. But I think if he had sent some really harsh terms, he would have let Cornwallis know.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: Cause again, he's wanted to document everything he's a bit of a suck up.

Adrian: Do you think it's possible that not just the actions of other, the other leaders, British and loyalist leaders, but also are, do you think that it's possible that maybe the couriers the messengers maybe rewrote the message or tampered with it somehow? Something of the sort?

William: There's a possibility of that. The one idea that kind of follows that is, you know, if you have been captured in arms by the British Army, by the Loyalist militia by Ferguson and he says that he only is paroling the people who have taken an oath, and they prove trustworthy like he's not gonna send out some shady looking extremist.

Adrian: Yeah, true.

William: He's gonna find a guy that he trusts to take this back to the leaders. So, for example, Isaac Shelby says he received this from Samuel Phillips, his cousin of some form.

Adrian: M-hm.

William: But Ferguson says he sends this to several people and no one else talks about it. So if there had been this across the board, you know, tampering with the message…

Adrian: Right.

William: You know, it would have been different. It would have popped up in different places.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: Now there is a possibility maybe if Samuel Phillips lost the message. Well, I mean, he's released. He's paroled with this message from the plantation of Gilbert Town, which is now Rutherfordton, North Carolina. And he doesn't arrive at Isaac Shelby's home until quite a few days later. Way up in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the Tennessee border. There's a lot of hazards that can happen on that journey.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: So if he did lose the message, possibly, and just had to kind of remember, adlib, recall it from memory.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: But I think the biggest theory that I have is Isaac Shelby didn't believe it. Of course, there is the conspiracy that Shelby received the message and saw how threatening it was. This is more threatening than fire and sword. Ferguson is threatening with…

Adrian: Being nice!

William: …cooperation and peace! Right. And he sees how effective that would be with the local people. He’s like, well, we can't let that happen. So he embellishes a bit.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: Again, can't prove it one way or the other, but it's one of my favorite kind of conspiracy theories…

Adrian: It is!

William: …to discuss about this campaign.

Adrian: It is kind of a fun one. So they've received some type of message we don't know for sure what it says. But either way, the end results the same. All these men gather up and they start. They start heading towards Kings Mountain. So is there anything really significant that happens while they're on the march? How long does it take?

William: So it takes them about depending on which group you want to follow 13 to 14 days. So roughly 2 weeks. and now one thing to.

Adrian: How long is it again? Like how many miles?

William: So the entire Overmountain Victory Trail is 330 miles. However, that is including two branches. If you want to imagine kind of a kind of a Y shape. You have the overmountain men coming down the left branch, the Yadkin Valley guys coming down the right branch. They join at the middle and then proceed together.

Adrian: Okay.

William: And the biggest thing to kind of remember too is that they don't know where they're going.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: They are gonna end up at Kings Mountain. But their goal is just to find Ferguson and catch him wherever they can. So there's gonna be several times where they think they know where he is and they swoop in and he's gone.

Adrian: Ahh.

William: Or they lose the trail and they think they've lost him entirely. It's a very much hunter-tracker kind of cat and mouse game.

Adrian: So when you look at the map, you kind of see it kind of meandering around a little bit and that's probably why: because they're doing this cat and mouse?

William: Yes, it it's if you grab a map of the Overmountain Victory trail. It's a bit squiggly. Part of that is just the basic road networks trail networks that were available, but also sometimes they're not exactly sure where they're supposed to be heading, and they have scouts and spies constantly sent out. But kind of the big gathering. The big story starts when you have about 1,000 of these over mountain frontiersmen gather, and what is known as Sycamore Shoals. Today it's Elizabethton, Tennessee. This is big wide river bottom area. It's a great well known gathering point and it’d actually been the site of a huge conference with the Cherokee Nation and the Transylvania company back in 1775 when they purchased tens of thousands of square acres. Um, I'm sorry. No. Square miles of territory. So it's a well-known gathering place there. And on September 25, you have 1,000 men meet up there from all different parts of the frontier. The next day, they begin making their way up and over the Blue Ridge. And they've been coordinating with those other groups in the Yadkin River and elsewhere. So the plan is for these two groups to join kind of at where those Y-branches meet. What's now, Morganton, North Carolina. But then it was a very well-known plantation called Quaker Meadows. A home of a the local patriot militia officers.

Adrian: OK, so they've made it to Sycamore Shoals. They've got this meeting. What happens after that?

William: It rains. A lot.

Adrian: Of course.

William: Uh, yeah. In fact, they start to go up the western face of the Blue Ridge up and over the Appalachians, and the rain is bad. They get to such high altitude that it turns into snow. They describe it as a shoe-mouth deep. So 3-4 inches deep on September 27th. They crossed the Appalachian Trail today they cross Yellow Mountain Gap, which is actually highest altitude seen by an army anywhere in the revolution.

Adrian: Oh wow.

William: And this is a huge issue, a huge factor for their success in my opinion, because Patrick Ferguson knows they're coming. He has spies everywhere. He has, again his reports to Cornwallis. On September 19, he writes to Cornwallis saying, yeah, I've just received word that these leaders, he calls them by name, he calls how many guys they're bringing with them. He's like, I've heard they're gonna be gathering to make their way over here and try to cause trouble. I don't believe they'll actually bring as many men as is reported. Spoiler alert. They do bring that many men, but he says that they're gonna go up through the flower gap is how he believes them. So that's actually up in Virginia, roughly Fancy Gap, Virginia I-77. He thinks they're gonna go up and around the mountains and then descend into North Carolina. But they just come up and over the mountains which shaves…

Adrian: So the shortest route, but maybe not the easiest route.

William: Yes. Absolutely. They even have to turn back their food supplies, their beef on the hoof. They're gonna try and drive cattle with them. But with the wet conditions, the steep trails up and over, it's slowing them down. It's not gonna work. They turn them back. But this does shave days off of their expected journey. So when they do finally descend the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and reach this gathering point at Quaker Meadows, Fergusons letter of that day to Cornwallis. Almost regular correspondence. The letter is like, yeah, we expect them to cross into this side of the mountain the next day or two. It's like, man, they've already done it. They're already there.

Adrian: [laughs]

William: But there's just this little bit of a delay in what Ferguson is expecting and where they actually are and when he does realize that his information is wrong, that they're closer than he thought, that they have more men than he expected. His tone changes a little bit in his letters.

Adrian: So does it become more panic? Just more desperate, like how does it change?

William: It becomes super cocky, super overconfident.

Adrian: Ohh.

William: He goes, because he gets excited. He has been chasing after these little groups all summer and they're always slipping away.

Adrian: And now they're finally coming to him.

William: They're all coming together in one place. He actually thinks they're making their way to you.

Adrian: Oh yeah?

William: He thinks they're coming to Ninety Six. And he’s like this is perfect. I’ll stay right here in the middle of all these converging groups and I’ll be able to block them from uniting and pushing on the British garrison at Ninety Six. And later he realizes oh, they are not going to Ninety Six they’re actually converging on me.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: So changes his tone a little bit.

Adrian: And how many men does he have at this point?

William: Not as many. He's very careful with his numbers. His letters start to be increasingly encoded, in ciphered, so that they can't be intercepted. He's got, I mean, eventually, by the time he gets to Kings Mountain, he has roughly 1,100 with him. However, when he is first getting these messages, 5-6-7 hundred because he's dispersing large groups of his men. There's local loyalist militia nearby doing their recruiting, gathering food, gathering supplies, gathering information. So as he starts to realize, hey, they're coming from me, his letters start to be, hey, coordinate. Gather up, bring them in, try and consolidate.

Adrian: Right.

William: He's asking for reinforcements from Lord Cornwallis. And his biggest thing that he wants are cavalry. Ferguson began his military career as a 15-year-old Dragoon, so he has mounted experience. He knows the value of good mounted soldiers. So he's asking every time he sends a letter, he asks for half as many because he knows he's not. He's not getting any feedback.

Adrian: Right.

William: It’s just so many patriot militias between Ferguson and Cornwallis that the messengers are having to be so cautious and so careful, and it's slowing them down so much. His first letter is like hey...

Adrian: And where is Cornwallis at this time?

William: Yeah. So he's in Charlotte.

Adrian: Okay.

William: The British captured Charlotte in late September and this is when Lord Cornwallis writes about it's like sitting exposed on a hornet's nest, all this flurry of…

Adrian: Great line!

William: It is, Charlotte Hornets man.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: Is all these partisan militias around the area are just ambushing supply groups and they're picking off messengers. So these couriers from Ferguson to Cornwallis are so delayed that at first, Ferguson says, hey, send me 800 good soldiers part Dragoons doesn't hear back. Next letter, okay, 400 part dragoons, part cavalry. Doesn't hear back. His final letter is like, okay, just 200 good cavalry. And I'll do what I can. But yeah, he then that's one reason why he's kind of, again, he's trying to prove that he can do this. Remember, this is his experiment. This is his time to shine. So he's not wanting to just turn tail and run all the way back to Lord Cornwallis and Charlotte. He's wanting to try and get on a good advantageous ground. Get enough reinforcements that he can use his army, that he's been just pouring his time and his efforts into training and organizing and preparing. He wants to show that they can do this. So he's not really high tailing it back to Charlotte. He’s just trying to get a good spot where his reinforcements can find him, but he doesn't get the letters from Cornwallis that are on their way that say I can't send anybody to you. I can meet you at the Catawba River, which is between us and you know, the 71st Highland Regiment is right there waiting for you. But you have to get to them. You can't come… I can't send the guys all the way out to where you are. It's just too dangerous. There's just too many patriot militias all in the area. It's too far for them to go.

Adrian: Okah. You mentioned that they, the overmountain men, would regularly lose Ferguson's trail. So when they lose his trail, how do how do they find it, again, and get back on it?

William: Right. So there are three kind of good times when they realize, you know, Rut-roh, we don't know where he is. One of those is actually over and what's kind of now Spruce Pine, North Carolina, near the North Carolina - Tennessee border. There's two good passes to use to keep descending through the Blue Ridge Mountains and they don't know where Ferguson is. They don't know how close he is. They know that he has a lot of locals with him who know the area and know the different trails, so they're worried if they like, for example, if they take the southernmost gap through the mountains and take that trail, well Ferguson is gonna take the Northern Trail and slip behind them and vice versa. So they actually split and they descend in two different trails. They're close enough, they're only one mountain ridge away that if there was a fight, they could hear it…

Adrian: M-hm.

William: …and they could kind of hurry over and help out. But that's why if you visit the Blue Ridge Parkway, there are two places that the Overmountain Victory Trail crosses the Parkway: at Gillespie Gap, where the Museum of North Carolina Minerals is located, and then Heffner Gap a little further north. So that's one time that they weren't sure where, and these two branches are gonna reunite as they get out of the mountains finally, on the banks of the Catawba River, what is now Lake James, North Carolina State Park.

Adrian: Oh right, yeah.

William: Yeah, a great site to visit up there. A second time that they lose his trail is a lot of Ferguson's proclamations, his letters, his big addresses had been sent from Gilbert Town. That big plantation just outside Rutherfordton, North Carolina. So they think he's there. So they're making their way south from their joining, their union up there at Quaker Meadows. And I'll throw out a couple of names real quick. And then when they get there, this is the home of Charles McDowell and his little brother Joseph McDowell. They are the leading patriot officers in that county. They're joined by Benjamin Cleveland from Wilkes County, Joseph Winston from Surry County. So a lot of kind of who's-who for that region are joining in with them. But they finally get, and they even think he's there so much they think Ferguson is for sure at Gilbert Town that the day before they get there, they rally the men and give them these, these speeches and they get them all fired up and they give the men, like, here's your chance. If you aren't up to it, go ahead and step out now, like they're ready to do it. And then they approached the plantation and a kid runs out and says, yeah, he's gone. He's been gone for like, a week.

Adrian: [laughs]

William: And this is partly just due to the weather. The rain had been so intense and actually kept these guys stuck in… I don't wanna call it camp because they didn't have like tents or anything. Just huddled under trees trying to get out of the rain for like, a day and a half. It's just the downpour.

Adrian: So that's something. What did they what did they take with them? I mean, they're doing this long track over the mountains. What do they bring with them? I mean, you. I know you said they had cattle with them, but as far as, like, what they have themselves for their own use.

William: Very little and the cattle never actually make it over the mountain. As soon as they start to ascend like man, these guys are slowing us down. They take some time to cut up some steaks, throw them in a bag on the saddle and the rest of the cattle are sent back down to the settlements. But it's literally just what you can carry. These are not Continental army. There's no order from Congress. There's no supply wagons. There is no artillery. There's no tents. These guys are just hunters and trackers. Frontiersmen who are bringing what they would take on any kind of hunting trip. They've got, they've got a rifle, a lot of them are mounted, you're gonna see by the time they finally end their journey, about half of them are mounted, half are on foot. They are bringing whatever food they can easily carry, but that is going to be burned through pretty quick. So then it just becomes a game of what can we find and now thankfully they are coming through in late September and early October. So it is kind of that harvest time of year. They're able to find some stuff here and there.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: But they are starving.

Adrian: And then you've got probably the rut going on with the deer. So they got one thing on their mind.

William: Well, there's that. And there's also a huge issue about any potential hunting. Uh, the weather is so bad. There's just so much rain as keeping the deer bedded down a lot. And also ammunition is scarce. One of the kind of common themes in these guys letters is they don't have enough gunpowder. They're writing to the governors. They're writing to the Continental Army, way up in Hillsboro, they're like, hey, we need ammunition. We need gunpowder. Whatever you can send. There was one woman in East Tennessee named Mary Patton, who was a powder smith, she made gunpowder. She had learned it from her father and she some stories say she donated some stories say she sold it, but either way, she gives these guys 550 pounds of her homemade gunpowder to use. But she gives this 550 pounds to a 1,000 man army. That's only like a half pound apiece, which that's not even a full powder horn.

Adrian: Yeah. Doesn't go far.

William: No. So they, they've got like one good fight, one good battle where they can hopefully stand a chance. And so they're not wanting to really spend that on these little hunting trips.

Adrian: Right.

William: But also they don't know where Ferguson is. They don't know where his spies and his scouts. So they don't want to be out there popping away at a deer and end up alerting Ferguson to how close they are. So you don't have a lot of accounts talking about hunting and finding food that way. It's mostly gonna be passing somebody's farm and grabbing some corn.

Adrian: Right.

William: Or a pumpkin patch here and there they talk about a sweet potato patch. So that's going to be very, very low rations. One guy actually says that by the end of this, they all came near starving to death is how Benjamin Sharp describes it. And I tried to actually calculate that up.

Adrian: M-hm.

William: You know what they talked about eating on the different days, the terrain they were covering, the mileage they were covering. So what, you know, calories in and out and it's a super rough estimate. But if you've been one of these guys walking from East Tennessee by the time you get to the battle, they're in a deficit of about -74,000 calories.

Adrian: Ooh.

William: And then they have to go back in the same conditions. So it it's it's very rough. They are starving. But yeah, so they're approaching where, they're approaching Gilbert Town. Ferguson's gone. So they lose the trail then, and the days and days of rain have kind of washed away any good tracks.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: I mean, Ferguson has wagons, but they can't even find any trail with from just all the rain.

Adrian: Sounds like the rain we've been having the last couple weeks.

William: Yeah, like, imagine that, but just a lot more, I think.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: But yeah, the last time is going to be on the Green River, kind of over near Mills River, North Carolina, Columbus, North Carolina that area, a place called Alexander's Ford. They were following a road. They not sure which way to go and they have kind of a bit of a meeting that night October 5th, 1780 and they realized, man, we ain't found anything. We're gonna give it one more day. We're going to try and find him. But if we can't find him, we're gonna assume he's gone. We're gonna assume that he's been able to get back to the main British Army in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Lord Cornwallis. And we can't possibly take on those guys. So gonna be Plan B. Find something else to do, cause some trouble, and then get out of here.

Adrian: Alright so, I know we don't, I don't want to go in the Battle of Kings Mountain itself. We’ll do that in another episode. But are there any stories that you just think are really worth sharing from their travels along the trail?

William: There are, I mean, of course there are. Do I have any fun stories?

Adrian: I know. [laugh]

William: So I mean, yes. So we talked about very patient and her gunpowder is one of my favorite stories there. You actually have another story where before these guys leave Sycamore Shoals, they're given this sermon by a local Presbyterian minister there named Samuel Doak. And he had been Princeton educated official certified Presbyterian minister. And he preaches to them about a, from the book of Judges in the Bible Old Testament, about where a small army went up against a larger enemy with this battle cry of the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So these guys kind of adopt that message of this smaller force going up against a bigger enemy. And so they yell out the sword of the Lord and Gideon as they like, head out, you know, 1,000 of these frontiersmen, their wives and kids and friends seeing them off dogs, following behind, just cheering them on. I was kind of a cool image.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: You have some spies that they were using throughout this campaign and in fact one of them, Joseph Kerr, is gonna be the guy that comes to their camp, their last big rendezvous rest is gonna be in Cowpens. What's now Cowpens National battlefield months before the battle ever happens there, it's still a well-known gathering area. And you have Joseph Kerr. He describes himself as being disabled since birth. He doesn't say how or what, what was going on, but he says he was incapable of bearing arms so he couldn't serve in the militia. However, he still wanted to help. I mean, it's not gonna temper his, his, his fervor, his spirit any so he becomes a spy. And he says because of his disability, he could just go through any army camp, any militia camp and nobody thought that he was a threat. So he could just ride through Ferguson's camp and count the men and the wagons and the tents and see where they're going. And he just goes right back out and just goes and share this information. So he finds this massive army at the cow pens at Saunders Cow Pen and you've got the 1,000 overmountain men, the 500 Yadkin River guys, the South Carolina and Georgia kind of refugee groups with more North Carolinians they've joined in here with men like James Williams, Edward Lacy, William Hill. So there's like 2,000 of these starving rain-soaked, super angry frontiersmen. And here comes Joseph Kerr at, you know, in the evening of October 6th being like, hey, I found him. He's right down the road. So that's a that's a huge big thing. He actually goes with them. And he says he's at the Battle of Kings Mountain. Potentially he was kind of holding some of their horses because it's only the 900 kind of hand-picked best marksman with the best horses. They're the only ones who are chosen from this army of 2,000 to keep going all through the night of October 6th through a through another rainstorm, raining all night, raining all the next morning, and they're gonna be at the battle. So he says he goes with them. If he's incapable of bearing arms, possibly to hold on to the horses. There’s another spy named Enoch Gilmer, who they use a couple times. Who he was apparently a great actor. I think it was in one Lyman Draper's history book. He talks about he could kind of laugh and cry in the same breath and make you believe both.

Adrian: [laughs]

William: So he is sent in a few times to pretend to be a loyalist, get information from a local farm, and then report back. But then talking about this this campaign and where these guys go, Ferguson has three officers with him who keep pretty good journals and diaries or later write a recollection of the campaign. So again, in their perspective of how successful they are, how much the people like them in these communities, one of them even writes that they, they get up into North Carolina. And he says hundreds of people are coming in to sign up with Ferguson and show their support, and he says one woman was shocked and she said that did we not have heathens who ate babies or ate children in our army?

Adrian: Gosh!

William: And he's like, what have they been telling you? He was like, no, we don't eat your kids. So just this idea of these isolated backcountry frontier communities, you know, who knows what information they've been getting? Ferguson often makes a similar note in his letters of they have never seen a proclamation, or they have never heard an update of how the war is going. And Ferguson is continually making this pitch of he's like the only people who want to keep fighting for the Patriots at this point are either plunderers and murderers who are personally gaining from the war, or they have committed such horrible atrocities that they know they can't rejoin society, so they don't want, so they don't want peace. It's like that's the only reason you would want to keep going at this point. So yes, lots of stories to answer your question.

Adrian: [laughs] Alright, Ranger Will. So we've talked about, you know, the men getting to Kings Mountain. We'll go into depth with the Battle of Kings Mountain in another episode, but you said after the Battle of Kings Mountain, the men basically go back pretty much the same way?

William: Yeah. So they fight the battle, they win. You've got the 900 that were handpicked to go and fight at the Battle of Kings Mountain. They the next day, they rejoined the rest of their army, who are mostly infantry. The guys who either didn't have a horse or their horse was lame, or they were injured or something. They're going to reunite on the banks of the Broad River outside Gaffney, South Carolina, but now they have like 700 loyalist prisoners from the battle. So they having to guard these guys and they start making their way back up towards the mountains. At first, they're not too horribly worried. They're kind of taking their time finding plantations to stop at and get food, try to get some rest. But then they get increasingly concerned about a British rescue attempt, about British cavalry, especially kind of, you know, the feared, Banastre Tarleton his British Legion dragoons. They get it in their heads that he's chasing after them, so they start to really hightail it. They are gonna make one pit stop at a place called Biggerstaff’s Plantation on October 14. And what's happened up to this point is you've had quite a few prisoners able to escape.

Adrian: I would think keeping track of 700 would be difficult.

William: Absolutely. Especially when you look at these guys are starving and exhausted and they're not a disciplined regular army, they're just frontier fighters and hunters, so they're not used to standing guard like this kind of stuff.

Adrian: Right.

William: In fact, their tempers are so short they're so hangry that you see a lot of prisoners being murdered as they're marching down the road. It gets so bad that William Campbell, the Virginian, he had been kind of elected to be in charge of the army, he has to pass a general order on October 10, and ask the officers to keep their men from harassing and cutting down the prisoners in the line of march. These guys are also starving so much that they're start to plunder the homes that they pass by, regardless of who lives there, patriot, loyalist, whatever. And Campbell again has to pass an order. Being like look cut it out. He actually says that he fears that his own men are leaving their friends in a worse condition than the enemy would have done. They are just looting and destroying everything they can find. So they get to Biggerstaff’s Plantation. It's a well-known crossroads. You've got a nice big oak tree on a hill. Right in between these, this kind of fork in the road. They decide that some of these loyalist prisoners are too dangerous to keep alive to keep in captivity, because if they escape, they'll go and they'll report where they are, they'll reap vengeance on the patriot communities, so they have a trial right there on the night of October 14. They started about 7:00 PM and they call witnesses and they get a bunch of the local magistrates together who just happened to be Patriot militia officers. And they call witnesses and they hear testimonies and they end up sentencing 36 of the prisoners to be executed. So they start hanging them in groups of three from that big oak tree on the hill in the crossroads, they execute 9, and then they finally decide you know that that's enough. We gotta go. And by this point, it's like two o'clock in the morning. There's a couple of different theories as to why they stop. One theory is that one of these pardoned prisoners, he actually comes up and says, hey, thank you so much for saving my life. I wanna help you out. So by the way, Tarleton is on his way with cavalry. You gotta get going. And possibly that's why they cut it short and just get back on the road. But they don't stop. Like when they get going at 2:00 AM on the 15th, it's in a rainstorm again and they don't stop until 10:00 PM that night when they…

Adrian: Oh wow.

William: Yeah, they ford their way chest deep through the Catawba River. They reached Quaker Meadows again where they had visited on their way down and they finally can say okay we're safe. We're far enough away. The river's too flooded. We're now safe from pursuit. So that's when Campbell finally says, OK, you guys can start going home. The men had been heading home on their own so much…

Adrian: M-hm.

William: …that he actually says they were getting near a 1-to-1 ratio of guard to prisoner. He's like you guys. You gotta, you gotta stay with us, man.

Adrian: We can't keep these prisoners when it's just one to one or less.

William: And well, then the prisoners, the prisoners are carrying their own weapons.

Adrian: Uh, yeah.

William: They had they had removed the flint so that it wouldn't actually spark and it wasn't functional. But they are carrying their own muskets as kind of captured supplies.

Adrian: It can still be a club.

William: Exactly. And it says even the really healthy prisoners were forced to carry two muskets. And they're not being fed, or at least not fed everyday. Like, every couple days they'll toss like an ear of corn or a little pumpkin to them.

Adrian: Yeah.

William: But yeah, they get to the Quaker Meadows in Morganton, North Carolina. About half the army is dismissed back to their settlements where they, especially like the frontier guys John Sevier, William Campbell, these overmountain men, as soon as they get back home, there is already an expedition underway against the Cherokee Nation. So they get right back home and go catch up with those guys and end up fighting against the Chickamauga, Cherokee, Dragging Canoe’s warriors down in kind of East Tennessee, northern Georgia. So right into the next thing. And then the prisoners and the remaining guards are eventually going to reach Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Way up that way, where they're gonna try to hold the prisoners there until they figure out okay, now what? That's when some of these guys finally get relieved. You've got more militia coming in to replace them. And they're finally able to head back home.

Adrian: So Ranger Will you've told us some great information about the Overmountain Victory Trail. If people want to learn even more, where can they do that?

William: So there's a couple of great books out there. One is by Lyman Draper. It's actually the first kind of big history of this story, researched and written for the Centennial anniversary in 1880. It's called Kings Mountain and Its Heroes. You can find that in a few different bookstores and online. There's been several other books that have been put together, including the Battle of Kings Mountain, Eyewitness Accounts by Bert Dunkerly, which is just the eyewitness accounts of these guys who were on this trail. And in this battle. But yeah, numerous other books meant like Randall Jones writing more about the back story of the guys. But of course, you've got the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all those different places to get more information from the trail itself. But we are a 330-mile motor route, so y'all are more than welcome to come and explore that way. We also have sections of certified hiking trails scattered along that corridor, that route where you can actually walk either in the footsteps or at least within 1/2 mile of the footsteps of where this trail traveled back in 1780.

[sound effects of muskets, drums, horses, and men shouting]

Adrian: All right. Awesome. So that's going to conclude another episode of Southern War, a podcast about the Southern Theater of the American Revolution. To learn more about the American Revolution and our home National Park sites, check out www.nps.gov/ N I S I for me, Ranger Adrian at Ninety Six National Historic site. And www.nps.gov/O V V I for Ranger William and the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed and we will see you next time when we revisit the Southern Theater of the American Revolution.

William: Bye!

Adrian: Bye!