KING'S MOUNTAIN

Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress tree;
We know the forest round us
As seamen know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.
--Bryant.

KING'S MOUNTAIN

The close of the year 1780 was, in the Southern States, the
darkest time of the Revolutionary struggle. Cornwallis had just
destroyed the army of Gates at Camden, and his two formidable
lieutenants, Tarlton the light horseman, and Ferguson the skilled
rifleman, had destroyed or scattered all the smaller bands that
had been fighting for the patriot cause. The red dragoons rode
hither and thither, and all through Georgia and South Carolina
none dared lift their heads to oppose them, while North Carolina
lay at the feet of Cornwallis, as he started through it with his
army to march into Virginia. There was no organized force against
him, and the cause of the patriots seemed hopeless. It was at
this hour that the wild backwoodsmen of the western border
gathered to strike a blow for liberty.