The battle took place on October 7, 1780, 9 miles (14 km) south of the present-day town of Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

[3] Ferguson had arrived in North Carolina in early September 1780 to recruit troops for the Loyalist militia and protect the flank of Lord Cornwallis's main force.

In response, the Patriot militias led by Benjamin Cleveland, James Johnston, William Campbell, John Sevier, Joseph McDowell, and Isaac Shelby rallied to attack Ferguson and his forces.

[4][5] On the morning of August 18, 1780, 200 mounted Patriot partisans under joint command of Colonels Isaac Shelby, James Williams, and Elijah Clarke prepared to raid a Loyalist camp at Musgrove's Mill, which controlled the local grain supply and guarded a ford of the Enoree River.

[10] In the wake of General Horatio Gates' blundering defeat at Camden, the victory at Musgrove Mill heartened the Patriots and served as further evidence that the South Carolina backcountry could not be held by the Tories.

Shelby and his men crossed over the Appalachian Mountains and retreated back into the territory of the Watauga Association at Sycamore Shoals in present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee.

On September 2, Ferguson and his militia marched west in pursuit of Shelby toward the Appalachian Mountain hill country on what is now the Tennessee/North Carolina border.

[15] The detachments of Shelby, Sevier, and Campbell were met by 160 North Carolina militiamen led by Charles McDowell and his brother Joseph.

[16] About 1,100 volunteers from southwest Virginia and today's northeast Tennessee, known as the "Overmountain Men" because they had settled into the wilderness west of the Appalachian Mountains ridgeline, mustered at the rendezvous on September 25, 1780, at Sycamore Shoals.

Their movement had been made possible by easing tensions with the Cherokee, thanks to diplomacy by Benjamin Cleveland's brother-in-law, Indian agent Joseph Martin.

[17][18][19] The Overmountain Men crossed Roan Mountain and proceeded in a southerly direction for about 13 days in anticipation of fighting the Loyalist forces.

By September 30, they had reached Quaker Meadows in Burke County, North Carolina, the home of the McDowell brothers, where they united with Cleveland and 350 men.

On October 1, Ferguson reached the Broad River where he issued another pugnacious public letter, calling the local militia to join him lest they be "pissed upon by a set of mongrels" (the Overmountain Men).

[23] On October 4, the Patriot militia reached Ferguson's former camp at Gilbert Town,[24] where 30 Georgia militiamen joined them, anxious for action.

[27] Ferguson, rather than pushing on until he reached Charlotte and safety (just a day's march away), camped at Kings Mountain and sent Cornwallis another letter asking for reinforcements.

He was the only regular British soldier in the command,[32] composed entirely of Loyalist Carolina militia, except for the 100 or so red-uniformed Provincials (enlisted colonials)[33] from New York.

[34] As the screaming Patriots charged up the hill, Dutch-American Loyalist Captain Abraham de Peyster turned to Ferguson and said, "These things are ominous – these are the damned yelling boys!

The other detachments, led by Shelby, Williams, Lacey, Cleveland, Hambright, Winston and McDowell, attacked the main Loyalist position, surrounding the base beside the crest.

Some Patriots did not want to take prisoners, as they were eager to avenge the Battle of Waxhaws or 'Tarleton's Quarter', in which Banastre Tarleton's forces killed a sizable number of Abraham Buford's Continental soldiers after the latter raised the white flag of surrender.

(At Waxhaws, Tarleton's horse was shot, pinning him to the ground and leading his men to believe their commanding officer had been killed under a white flag of surrender.

For several minutes, the Patriots rejected de Peyster's white flag and continued firing, many of them shouting, "Give 'em Tarleton's Quarter!"

[43] When de Peyster sent out a second white flag, a few of the Patriot officers, including Campbell and Sevier, ran forward and took control by ordering their men to cease fire.

[citation needed] Passing through the Sunshine community in what is now Rutherford County, North Carolina, the retreat halted on the property of the Biggerstaff family.

Their cousin John Moore was the Loyalist commander at the earlier Battle of Ramsour's Mill (modern Lincolnton, North Carolina), in which many of the combatants at Kings Mountain had participated on one side or the other.

[50] Lieutenant Anthony Allaire, a New York Loyalist attached to Ferguson's unit, was captured at the battle and endured the forced march and mistreatment of prisoners.

[54] He would not return to North Carolina until early 1781, when he was chasing Nathanael Greene after the Americans had dealt British forces another defeat at the Battle of Cowpens.

In The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt writes of Kings Mountain, "This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution."