United States. National Park Service

“ The sole Southern region in the path of Cornwallis’ northward march which had remained undisturbed by the course of the war lay in the foothills and ranges of the Alleghanies stretching through northwestern South Carolina, western North Carolina, and into the present eastern Tennessee. Only here, among the frontier settlements of the independent mountain yeoman, could the patriotic Whigs find refuge, late in the summer of 1780, from their despised enemies, the propertied Royalist and Tory forces aroused by Cornwallis. ”

“ Patrick Ferguson, the best shot in the British army, invented a rifle in 1776 that loaded at the breech. It was the first breechloader carried by the troops of any country.
The Provincial Regulars are believed to have used this splendid weapon at Kings Mountain.
The rifle was ahead of its time and was discarded after his death. It is now rare.
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Probably no other battle in the Revolution was so picturesque or so furiously fought as that at Kings Mountain. The very mountain thundered. Not a regular soldier was in the American ranks. Every man there was actuated by a spirit of democracy. ”

“ Benjamin Lincoln’s American army at Charleston, in May 1780, greatly strengthened the British hold on South Carolina. Encouraged by the British successes, the Royalist and Tory elements of the Georgia and South Carolina lowlands rose in increasingly large numbers to the support of the Royal cause. Soon most of South Carolina, except a few districts in the Piedmont, were overrun by British and Royalist forces directed by Cornwallis, and he was maturing plans for the invasion of North Carolina. ”

“ One given by Ferguson to his companion, De Peyster, is today an heirloom in the family of the latter’s descendants in New York City. It was exhibited by the United States Government at the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893. A very few are to be found in museum collections in this country and in England. The one possessed by the National Park Service was obtained from a dealer in England through the vigilance of members of the staff of the Colonial National Historical Park, Virginia, and is now exhibited in the museum at Kings Mountain National Military Park, South Carolina. ”

“ The Whigs seem determined to extirpate the Tories, and the Tories the Whigs.... If a stop cannot be put to these massacres, the country will be depopulated in a few months more, as neither Whig nor Tory can live.”
In September 1780, while this spirit of hatred was at its height, the regiments of backwoods patriots, who were to go down in history as “Kings Mountain Men,” rendezvoused at South Mountain north of Gilbert Town and determined to set upon Ferguson and his command, then believed to be in Gilbert Town. ”

“ On September 11, 1777, Major Ferguson commanded the small unit of picked riflemen of the British Army who covered the advance of Knyphauser and his German mercenaries at Brandywine. An American who knew nothing of breechloading rifles, but who was possessed of the old dependable Kentucky rifle, put a bullet into Ferguson’s right arm, shattering the elbow. ”

“ Sir Henry Clinton’s expedition of 1779 against Charleston, S. C., found Ferguson and a comparatively few of his rifles active in the depredations of several thousand Tories organized to terrorize the rebellious colonists of the Carolinas. They invaded the interior and operated on the very western border of the Carolinas. For 5 months he held sway over the upcountry, enticing or intimidating the young men of the region to enlist under the British flag. ”

“ We may call attention again to the statistics on the Kings Mountain dead: British, 225; American, 28. Draper records that 20 dead Tories were found behind certain protruding rocks on the crest of the hill, and that each victim was marked by a bullet hole in his forehead. Col. George Hanger, British officer with Tarleton in South Carolina, provides the following observation on the precision of American rifle fire:
I never in my life saw better rifles (or men who shot better) than those made in America ”

“ Our orderly-bugle stood behind us, about 3 yards, but with his horse’s side to our horses’ tails. A rifleman passed over the mill-dam, evidently observing two officers, and laid himself down on his belly; for, in such positions, they always lie, to take a good shot at a long distance. ”

“ A charge of powder then poured into the opening fills the chamber behind the bullet, whereupon one revolution of the trigger guard closes the breech and the weapon is ready for priming and firing. Major Ferguson demonstrated that six aimed shots per minute could be fired with an accuracy creditable to any rifle. Advancing riflemen could fire four aimed shots per minute ”