Since none of the Patriot army and few of the Loyalist army other than the Provincial soldiers had uniforms, it was going to be difficult to tell friend from foe in the coming fight. This is their last push in this quarter and they are extremely desolate and awed.” Patrols of Patriot militia prevented those messages and requests for reinforcements from reaching Cornwallis until after the battle was over. Three or four hundred good soldiers, part dragoons, would finish this business. In a series of messages to Cornwallis, Ferguson wrote “I have taken a post where I do not think I can be forced by a stronger enemy than that against us. He believed that was enough to defend this position, but he also saw opportunity if he were given more men. Ferguson had 1,100 Loyalist militia and Provincial troops with him atop Kings Mountain. In order to get his troops to respond to his orders together like a well-oiled machine, he employed a silver whistle, drilling them relentlessly with it until their responding to its shrill tweets became second nature. Ferguson had spent a great deal of time training his men to use the bayonet and to fight together as one while in formation. Their flintlock long rifles could not be fitted with bayonets, forcing them in a hand-to-hand fight to resort to knives, tomahawks, or simply using their rifles as clubs. Riflemen especially were vulnerable to bayonets in a hand-to hand fight. In every battle up to this point in the Revolutionary War, militia had demonstrated time and again that they would not stand up to a bayonet charge in the open field, running at the very sight of cold steel and refusing to return to the fight. It was so strong Ferguson did not see the need to further enhance it and made no efforts to dig in.įerguson planned to defend the top of the mountain with the bayonet. Even one of his main adversaries had to concede that assaulting him there was equivalent to storming a strong fortified bastion. Here atop the mountain that fear subsided. As the entire Carolina backcountry seemed to rise against him in the last two weeks, Ferguson had feared coming under attack while on the march with his entire force strung out on the road. The slopes of the spur were steep with little to no undergrowth but were wooded with large old growth trees and studded with boulders. The top of the spur was treeless, making an easy place to pitch tents and, more importantly, to form the tightly packed battle lines that the sound military doctrine of the time demanded. He had placed his camp not on the highest peak of the mountain but on one of its most prominent spurs. He was pleased with his selection of a potential battlefield. Meanwhile, Ferguson looked around his position a top King’s Mountain.
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