Battle
On the evening of August 18, two hundred mounted Patriot partisans under joint command of Colonels Isaac Shelby, James Williams, and Elijah Clarke prepared to raid a Loyalist camp at Musgrove’s Mill, which controlled the local grain supply and guarded a ford of the Enoree River. The Patriots anticipated surprising a garrison of about an equal number of Loyalists, but a local farmer informed them that the Tories had recently been reinforced by about a hundred Loyalist militia and two hundred provincial regulars on their way to join British Major Patrick Ferguson. [4]
With their position compromised by an enemy patrol and horses unable to go on without rest, the Patriots understood that they must stand and fight despite being outnumbered better than two to one. At the top of a ridge across the road leading down to Musgrove Mill, the partisans quickly formed a semicircular breastwork of brush and fallen timber about three hundred yards long. [5]
In the best tradition of guerrilla tactics, a band of about twenty men under the leadership of Captain Shadrach Inman crossed the Enoree and engaged the enemy. Feigning confusion they retreated back toward the line of ambush until the Loyalists were nearly on the Patriot line. When the Loyalists spotted the Patriot line, they fired too early. The Patriots, however, held their fire until the Loyalists got within killing range of their muskets. [5]
Patriot musket fire operated “with devastating effect.” [6] Nonetheless, the Tory regulars were well disciplined and nearly overwhelmed the Patriot right flank with a bayonet charge. (Frontiersmen had no bayonets.) Isaac Shelby ordered his reserve of “Overmountain Men” to support him, and they rushed into the battle shrieking Indian war cries. [7] The Tories wavered, and when a number of their officers went down, they broke—although not before Captain Inman, who had a key role in implementing the Patriot strategy, was killed on the battlefield.
Patriots ran from their positions “yelling, shooting, and slashing on every hand.” [8] The whole battle took perhaps an hour. Within that period, sixty-three Tories were killed, an unknown number wounded, and seventy were taken prisoner. [9] The Patriots lost only about four dead and twelve wounded. [10]
Known participants
Patriots, 200 to 300 men: [11]
North Carolina and Georgia militia under command of Colonel Isaac Shelby:
South Carolina militia under command of Col. James Williams and Major Samuel Hammond
- 1st Spartan Regiment
- 2nd Spartan regiment
- Roebuck's Battalion of Spartan
- Lower District regiment
- Little River District regiment
British and Loyalists under the command of Lt. Col. Alexander Innis
Aftermath
Some Whig leaders briefly considered attacking the Tory stronghold at Ninety Six, South Carolina; but they hurriedly dispersed after learning that a large Patriot army had been defeated at Camden three days previous.
Shelby’s forces covered sixty miles with Ferguson in hot pursuit before making good their escape. [12] In the wake of General Horatio Gates’ blundering defeat at Camden, the victory at Musgrove Mill heartened the Patriots and served as further evidence that the South Carolina backcountry could not be held by the Tories.
Shelby and his Overmountain Men fled back over the Appalachian Mountains and into the territory of the Watauga Association at Sycamore Shoals in present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee, and by the next month on September 25, 1780, Colonels Shelby, John Sevier, and Charles McDowell and their 600 Overmountain Men had combined forces with Col. William Campbell and his 400 Virginia men at the Sycamore Shoals muster in advance of the October 7, 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain near present-day Blacksburg, South Carolina.
The Musgrove Mill battlefield is preserved at the Musgrove Mill State Historic Site, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Elizabethton is a city in, and the county seat of Carter County, Tennessee, United States. Elizabethton is the historical site of the first independent American government located west of both the Eastern Continental Divide and the original Thirteen Colonies.
The Battle of Kings Mountain was a military engagement between Patriot and Loyalist militias in South Carolina during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in a decisive victory for the Patriots. The battle took place on October 7, 1780, 9 miles (14 km) south of the present-day town of Kings Mountain, North Carolina. In what is now rural Cherokee County, South Carolina, the Patriot militia defeated the Loyalist militia commanded by British Major Patrick Ferguson of the 71st Foot. The battle has been described as "the war's largest all-American fight".
Patrick Ferguson was a Scottish officer in the British Army, an early advocate of light infantry and the designer of the Ferguson rifle. He is best known for his service in the 1780 military campaign of Charles Cornwallis during the American Revolutionary War in the Carolinas, in which he played a great effort in recruiting American Loyalists to serve in his militia against the Patriots.
James Henderson Williams was an American pioneer, farmer, and miller from Ninety-Six District in South Carolina. In 1775 and 1776, Williams was a member of the state's Provisional Assembly. During the War of Independence, he held a colonel's rank in the South Carolina militia. He was killed at the decisive Battle of Kings Mountain.
The Battle of Cowpens was a military engagement during the American Revolutionary War fought on January 17, 1781, near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina. American Patriot forces, estimated at 2,000 militia and regulars under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan faced 1,000 British troops under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton,.
The Battle of Waxhaws was a military engagement which took place on May 29, 1780 during the American Revolutionary War between a Patriot force led by Abraham Buford and a British force led by Banastre Tarleton near Lancaster, South Carolina. Buford's men consisted of Continental Army soldiers, while Tarleton's force was mostly made up of Loyalist troops. After the two forces sighted each other, Buford rejected an initial demand to surrender. Tarleton's cavalrymen launched a charge against the Patriot troops, which led many of Buford's men to throw their arms down in surrender. However, as Tarleton's horse had been shot from under him during the charge, pinning him underneath, his infuriated soldiers attacked their Patriot opponents, killing several.
The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail (OVHT) is part of the U.S. National Trails System, and N.C. State Trail System. It recognizes the Revolutionary War Overmountain Men, Patriots from what is now East Tennessee who crossed the Unaka Mountains and then fought in the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.
The Overmountain Men were American frontiersmen from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains which are the leading edge of the Appalachian Mountains, who took part in the American Revolutionary War. While they were present at multiple engagements in the war's southern campaign, they are best known for their role in the American victory at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. The term "overmountain" arose because their settlements were west of, or "over", the Blue Ridge, which was the primary geographical boundary dividing several of the 13 American states from the Native American lands to the west. The Overmountain Men hailed from parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and what is now Tennessee and Kentucky.
The Watauga Association was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. Although it lasted only a few years, the Watauga Association provided a basis for what later developed into the state of Tennessee and likely influenced other western frontier governments in the trans-Appalachian region. North Carolina annexed the Watauga settlement area, by then known as the Washington District, in November 1776. Within a year, the area was placed under a county government, becoming Washington County, North Carolina, in November 1777. This area covers the present day Washington County, Carter County, and other areas now located in the northeast part of the state of Tennessee.
The Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, usually shortened to Sycamore Shoals, is a rocky stretch of river rapids along the Watauga River in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Archeological excavations have found Native Americans lived near the shoals since prehistoric times, and Cherokees gathered there. As Europeans began settling the Trans-Appalachian frontier, the shoals proved strategic militarily, as well as shaped the economies of Tennessee and Kentucky. Today, the shoals are protected as a National Historic Landmark and are maintained as part of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park.
Fort Watauga, also known as Fort Caswell, was a fortification located in the Watauga River's Sycamore Shoals near modern-day Elizabethton, Tennessee. It was constructed from 1775 to 1776 by the Watauga Association, a semi-autonomous government founded by American settlers living near the river, to defend the settlers against attacks from British-allied Indians. The fort was originally named Fort Caswell after the governor of North Carolina, Richard Caswell.
The Battle of Ramsour's Mill took place on June 20, 1780 in present-day Lincolnton, North Carolina, during the British campaign to gain control of the southern colonies in the American Revolutionary War. The number of fighters on each side of the battle is still an issue of contention, but Loyalist militiamen outnumbered Patriot militia and had captured a group of Patriots who they were planning to hang on the morning of June 20.
Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park is a state park located in Elizabethton, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The park consists of 70 acres (28.3 ha) situated along the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, a National Historic Landmark where a series of events critical to the establishment of the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, and the settlement of the Trans-Appalachian frontier in general, took place. Along with the historic shoals, the park includes a visitor center and museum, the reconstructed Fort Watauga, the Carter House and Sabine Hill . For over a thousand years before the arrival of European explorers, Sycamore Shoals and adjacent lands had been inhabited by Native Americans. The first permanent European settlers arrived in 1770, and established the Watauga Association—one of the first written constitutional governments west of the Appalachian Mountains—in 1772. Richard Henderson and Daniel Boone negotiated the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775, which saw the sale of millions of acres of Cherokee lands in Kentucky and Tennessee and led to the building of the Wilderness Road. During the American Revolution, Sycamore Shoals was both the site of Fort Watauga, where part of a Cherokee invasion was thwarted in 1776, and the mustering ground for the Overmountain Men in 1780.
The Battle of Blackstock's Farm, a military engagement of the American Revolutionary War, took place in what today is Union County, South Carolina, a few miles from Cross Anchor, on November 20, 1780.
Huck's Defeat or the Battle of Williamson's Plantation was an engagement of the American Revolutionary War that occurred in present York County, South Carolina on July 12, 1780, and was one of the first battles of the southern campaign to be won by Patriot militia.
Frederick Hambright was a military officer who fought in both the local militia and in the North Carolina Line of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He is best known for his participation in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. Serving as a statesman early in the Revolution, Hambright joined the war in 1777, ranked a lieutenant colonel in a local militia. His early actions were limited to occasional checks on Loyalist groups. This changed in 1780 with Hambright's important role at the Battle of Kings Mountain, which occurred near his lands in the newly formed Lincoln County, North Carolina. Hambright was commended for his bravery during the battle, though suffering a wound which forced him to permanently resign from military service.
Musgrove Mill State Historic Site was the site of the Battle of Musgrove Mill, an action in the American Revolutionary War, which occurred on August 19, 1780, near the Enoree River, on what is the border between Spartanburg, Laurens, and Union Counties in South Carolina, approximately seven miles from Interstate 26.
William "Bloody Bill" Cunningham (1756–1787) was an American loyalist infamous for perpetrating a series of bloody massacres in South Carolina's backcountry in the fall of 1781 as commander of a Tory militia regiment in the Revolutionary War. Though his family were loyal to the British crown, Cunningham initially enlisted in the Continental Army as part of the State of South Carolina's 3rd regiment in 1775. His tenure in the rebel army was an unhappy one and Cunningham changed sides to fight for the British in 1778. He earned the nickname "Bloody Bill" for the violent, ruthless nature of his raids on rebels and patriot civilians.
The Snow Campaign was one of the first major military operations of the American Revolutionary War in the southern colonies. An army of up to 3,000 Patriot militia under Colonel Richard Richardson marched against Loyalist recruiting centers in South Carolina, flushing them out and frustrating attempts by the Loyalists to organize. The Patriot expedition became known as the Snow Campaign due to heavy snowfall in the later stages of the campaign.
The Spartan Regiment, a militia group of South Carolina in the American Revolution, was formed in 1775 by John Thomas at the request of the Council of Safety. The regiment was formed on August 2, 1775 at Wofford's Iron Mill. Thomas held the first muster at his house. The Spartan Regiment met every two weeks to train for battle. Thomas found himself fighting against his former militia leader, Col. Thomas Fletchall, who was a loyalist or Tory. The patriots were also called Whigs.
Loyalist militia
Patriot militia