CONTENTS

Page

Kings Mountain, A Hunting Rifle Victory 1

The American Rifle at the Battle of Kings Mountain 8

Testing the Ferguson Rifle—Modern Marksman Attains High Precision With Arm of 1776 19

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Kings Mountain

A Hunting Rifle Victory[1]

By Roger W. Young, Historian
Branch of History

Kings Mountain, the fierce attack of Americanfrontiersmen on October 7, 1780, against Cornwallis’ scoutingforce under Ferguson, was an unexpected onslaught carried out inthe foothills of South Carolina. This sudden uprising of thestalwart Alleghany mountaineers, for the protection of their homesand people from the threat of Tory invasion under British leadership,was relatively isolated in conception and execution fromthe main course of the Revolutionary War in the South.

Clearly uncontemplated in the grand British design to subjugatethe South in a final effort to end the Revolution, this accidentalencounter in the Southern Piedmont delayed incidentally,but did not alter materially, the movement of Britain’s SouthernCampaign. Kings Mountain is notable chiefly perhaps as supplyingthe first definite forewarning of the impending Britishmilitary disasters of 1781. It was decisive to the extent that itcontributed the earliest distinct element of defeat to the finalmajor British campaign of the Revolution.

The extraordinary action occurred during one of the bleakestperiods of the Revolution. A major change in British militarystrategy had again shifted the scene of action to the South in1778. Faced by a discouraging campaign in the North andassuming that the reputed Loyalist sympathies of the South wouldbe more conducive to a victory there, the British war ministryhad dictated the immediate subjugation of the South. With theconquered Southern provinces as a base of operations, the war2office planned to crush Washington’s armies in the North andEast between offensives from North and South, and thus bringthe defeat of the more stubborn Revolutionary No

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