Kings Mountain

Yesterday and Today’s Battlefield

 

As the 4th of July approaches, it’s time to get the grills going and the festive attitude on. It’s time to celebrate the freedoms that God gave us and the nation our forefathers built. The Revolution was won right here in the South, and the battle that set the stage for our victory actually occurred just west of Charlotte in Kings Mountain. It began on October 7, 1780, when hundreds of Patriots descended on the Tories and handed them one of the biggest defeats of the war. The impetus for this thrashing? The arrogant and crude threats of British army leaders, who wanted to intimidate the Colonists into surrendering and taking up arms for the King. This was unacceptable to these tough mountaineers, and they explained it perfectly with their actions, rather than words. The Battle of Kings Mountain holds lessons for all those who seem eager to strip us of our freedoms today. 

 

 

   When threatened, we fight back

 

How many of you have ever heard of the Battle of Kings Mountain? My seventh great grandfather fought in that battle when he was 17, so I’ve known of it since I was a kid. His uncle, Colonel Thomas Robeson, was the Revolutionary War hero for whom Robeson County—located 100 miles east of Charlotte—was named.

 

In the summer of 1780, the British and their Loyalists were winning the Revolutionary War. They had conquered Charleston and Camden and were continuing their fiery March north, toward Charlotte and the rest of North Carolina.  

 

The British sent word to the mountain frontier settlements that if the Colonists didn't lay down their arms, they would "march (their) army over the mountains, hang (our) leaders, and lay waste the country with fire and sword."

 

The overly confident British didn’t realize that threats made to rugged frontiersmen would have the exact opposite effect that they had seen in all their other wars around the world. The now famous “Overmountain Men” marched down from the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, and absolutely obliterated the British Loyalist army at Kings Mountain, on the border between North and South Carolina. The Colonists laid waste to the enemy. It was guerrilla warfare, and it damaged the enemy so badly that almost exactly a year later, British forces limped their way to Yorktown, Virginia, and surrendered to General Washington. 

 

 

I share this story to explain what is going to happen to anyone who threatens us, as freedom-loving, average Americans. Stripping us of our fundamental rights through mask and vaccine mandates are your first shots, and when we don’t comply, we know what’s next from you, our oppressors. But when you think that you will succeed in subjugating us, remember the Battle of Kings Mountain. Remember where you were the day you heard this story. Because you will remember it for the rest of your lives if you continue down the road of oppressing the people of North Carolina and the United States of America.

 

The sole purpose of the government founded by our forefathers was to protect our God-given freedoms. We have maintained that government for 250 years, and we must continue to do so with the spirit of those who fought the Battle of Kings Mountain.