Re[2]: [at-l] War but not THAT ONE!

[Bob C." <ellen@xxxxxxxxxx (Bob C.)]

The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail (OVNHT) follows the
Revolutionary War route of Patriot militia men from Virginia, today's eastern
Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia to the battle of Kings
Mountain, South Carolina, site of the Kings Mountain National Military Park.

In 1780, the men crossed the Yellow Mountain Gap in an early snow storm. They
mustered in the Gap and test fired their rifles. The air was so thin, one man
reported, there was little noise from the reports.

The mountain is named for the tulip trees (tulip or yellow poplar) covering its
slopes. In the fall, just after the time when the Overmountain men crossed, the
trees blaze yellow and gold. Remnants of the old Yellow Mountain Road are
visible here and there. The Overmountain trail intersects the AT near the
Overmountain Shelter, about 8 miles north of US 19E.

The battle, fought October 7th, 1780, proved to be the turning point in the
British Southern campaign. The American Continental army suffered successive
defeats at Charleston, Waxhaws, and Camden, South Carolina, in the summer of
1780. By the fall, only the voluntary militia units remained in the field to
oppose the armies of Cornwallis.

To recruit and equip militia loyal to the British cause, Cornwallis sent Major
Patrick Ferguson into the western Carolinas. He was to raise a loyal militia
army and suppress the remaining Patriot militia. Intending to cow the Patriots,
in September he sent a proclamation to the mountain settlements, telling them to
lay down their arms, or he would march his army west, and "lay waste the
countryside with fire and sword."

The result was the march of the famous Overmountain men from the Sycamore Shoals
of the Watauga River across the mountains in search of Ferguson. Overcoming
hunger, weather, wrangling, and intrigue, the Patriots attacked and destroyed
Ferguson's Loyalists at Kings Mountain.

Weary, a Yankee who likes to remind southerners of their pre-Civil War Heritage.
Some think the battle is as significant as the minutemen of Concord.