10/08/2026
I’m a day late, but this is a good one!
Today in American history, Patriot frontiersmen turned the tide at the Battle of King’s Mountain. In 1780, as Lord Cornwallis pushed into the Carolinas, Major Patrick Ferguson gathered Loyalist militia to secure Britain’s left flank. Instead, he found himself encircled by roughly a thousand “Overmountain Men”—hunters, farmers, and militia from today’s Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas—who scaled the wooded ridge, firing from cover with their trusted long ri**es. In less than an hour, Ferguson was killed and his Loyalist force shattered.
The victory mattered far beyond the hillside. King’s Mountain choked Cornwallis’s advance, electrified Patriot morale after devastating losses at Charleston and Camden, and helped trigger a chain of events leading to the Southern campaign’s unraveling. Little-known detail: many Overmountain Men wore strips of white paper in their hats—to distinguish themselves from Loyalists who used pine twigs—an improvised uniform in the smoke and confusion. From a frontier ambush came a strategic pivot toward Yorktown.
