The two groups united the evening of October 6th at Cowpens. Eating a hasty meal, the parties pushed on through a rainy night.
October 7, 1780, about 3:00 p.m. they found Ferguson’s Loyalist army on Kings Mountain. The two sides fiercely contested the wooded slopes until Ferguson was shot from his horse, killed with some 120 of his men. Only 40 Patriots fell.
October 7, 1780, at dawn the Patriot army successfully crossed the flooding Broad River at Cherokee Ford.
During the return, October 14, 1780, at Biggerstaff’s Old Fields (Bickerstaff’s or Red Chimneys) 30 Tories were tried. Nine were hanged, the others spared.
Many of the Patriot militia who fought at Kings Mountain returned to Cowpens, January 17, 1781, to help Daniel Morgan defeat another brash, young British commander, Banastre Tarleton.
At least five African-Americans are known to have served in the Patriot army at Kings Mountain.