Greetings, all.
On this 4th of July, I was just wondering if most folks outside of this area had ever heard of the battle Kings Mountain. To shrink things into a nutshell, the war in the north had stalemated somewhat, so the British turned to the south. Except for the guerrilla tactics of Francis Marion (Mel Gibson - The Patriot) in the lowlands of South Carolina, the British were making progress in their westward march to the mountains when they ran into a bunch of farmers and backwoodsmen from the high country at a small knob in South Carolina named Kings Mountain.
The battle was a success, and it inspired an even bigger victory a few miles away at Cowpens, SC, and in Charlotte, NC (Lord Cornwallis referred to Charlotte as a hornets nest of rebellion - thus the reason for Hornet's nickname for ball teams).
Following Charlotte, a huge battle at Guilford Courthouse (near current day Greensboro, NC) weakened Cornwallis' army which led to his ultimate defeat at Yorktown.
One can only wonder what things could have been like had it not for the Overmountain Men's victory at Kings Mountain. Would the USA even exist today?
In The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt wrote of Kings Mountain...
"This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution."
Thomas Jefferson called it...
"The turn of the tide of success."
President Herbert Hoover at Kings Mountain said,
This is a place of inspiring memories. Here less than a thousand men, inspired by the urge of freedom, defeated a superior force entrenched in this strategic position. This small band of Patriots turned back a dangerous invasion well designed to separate and dismember the united Colonies. It was a little army and a little battle, but it was of mighty portent. History has done scant justice to its significance, which rightly should place it beside Lexington, Bunker Hill, Trenton and Yorktown.
A side note of trivia, Davy Crockett's father fought in the battle.