In Honor Of The Three African American Patriots
York County, York County, South Carolina
Marker Inscription
In Honor Of The Three African American Patriots And Others Who Participated In The Battle Of Kings Mountain Esias Bowman John Broddy Andrew Ferguson
The Story
On October 7, 1780, the wooded ridge of Kings Mountain saw one of the Revolution's decisive Southern battles, where a force of frontier militia — the famed 'Overmountain Men' — surrounded and overwhelmed a Loyalist command in barely an hour. This memorial remembers that African Americans stood among those Patriots, naming Esias Bowman, John Broddy, and Andrew Ferguson alongside the others who fought. Their presence is a reminder that Black Americans, both free and enslaved, shared in the fighting and the risk of the War for Independence, even as the liberty they helped win was long denied to many of them.
Why it matters
It restores to the record the Black patriots who helped turn the tide of the Revolution in the South, insisting that the founding story include the African Americans who bore its dangers.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the autumn of 1780, the American Revolution had turned south, and it had turned brutal. Britain, stalled in the North, gambled that the Carolinas and Georgia were full of loyal subjects who would rise up if the King's army gave them cover. That spring, Charleston fell, and with it a whole American army. To many in London it looked as though the South was all but won.
What followed instead was a backcountry civil war. Across the Carolina Piedmont — the rolling, wooded country where this memorial stands in York County — neighbors chose sides, and the fighting grew personal. Patriot and Loyalist militias raided each other's farms, and the line between soldier and civilian blurred. This was not the war of distant redcoats and set-piece battles; it was fought by the people who lived here.
Into that landscape rode the men history would remember as the Overmountain Men — frontier militia from the far side of the Appalachians and the surrounding hills. They organized quickly, without much in the way of uniforms or formal command, when a British threat reached toward their settlements. Their target was a Loyalist force gathering on a long, wooded ridge called Kings Mountain.
People & events
On October 7, 1780, those Patriot militia surrounded the ridge and climbed it from every side. The Loyalist command was led by Major Patrick Ferguson, a British officer — by most accounts the only man on the field who was not American-born. In fighting that lasted roughly an hour, the Patriots overwhelmed the defenders, and Ferguson himself was killed. A force that Britain had counted on was gone in a single afternoon.
This memorial insists on a truth that older tellings of that day often left out: African Americans stood among the Patriots. It names three of them — Esias Bowman, John Broddy, and Andrew Ferguson — honoring them together with the others who fought.
We should be honest about how much the record preserves. The marker gives us their names and their presence, and that is the heart of what it asks you to remember. Black Americans, both free and enslaved, served through the Revolution — carrying muskets, hauling supplies, scouting familiar ground — and they shared every danger the day held. To read these three names on a memorial is to be reminded that the people who won this fight were more varied than the popular story usually admits.
Its place in the American story
Kings Mountain is remembered as a hinge in the war. The Loyalist collapse there shook Britain's confidence in its Southern strategy and helped set off a chain of Patriot successes — at Cowpens not long after, and eventually toward the surrender at Yorktown that ended the war. Thomas Jefferson later looked back on it as a turning point. A battle that took about an hour helped decide a revolution.
But the deeper significance of this particular memorial lies in who it names. The founding generation included Black Americans who fought for a liberty that the new nation would long deny to many of them. That contradiction sits at the center of the American story, and a marker like this refuses to let it be smoothed over.
By carving Esias Bowman, John Broddy, and Andrew Ferguson into the record, the memorial does quiet, necessary work: it widens the circle of who counts as a founder. The men who surrounded Kings Mountain were not a single kind of American, and the country they helped bring into being owes its independence, in part, to people it was not yet willing to call free.
If you visit
This is memorial country, best approached slowly. You are in the wooded Piedmont of York County, where the ridges roll and the tree cover closes in — terrain that shaped how the battle was fought and still shapes how the ground feels underfoot. Come expecting reflection rather than spectacle; a memorial like this rewards a few unhurried minutes more than a quick photo.
Read the three names, and let them land. So many Revolutionary sites offer anonymous ranks and famous commanders; here you are asked to hold onto individuals who might otherwise have vanished from the telling. Standing where they are honored is its own small act of remembrance.
The memorial pairs naturally with a Southern-campaign road trip. The preserved Kings Mountain battlefield lies nearby, within a national military park, and the wider Piedmont is stitched with sites from the Revolution's decisive southern turn. Together they let you trace, mile by wooded mile, how a scattering of backcountry militia — of more kinds than the old stories told — helped change the course of a war.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Esias Bowman
- · John Broddy
- · Andrew Ferguson
Related events
- · Battle of Kings Mountain
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hoover Monument
York County, SC
This monument marks the spot where, on October 7, 1930, President Herbert Hoover stood before a crowd of some 75,000 people to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Kings Mountain. That 1780 clash was a turning point of the Revolution in the South, when Patriot backwoodsmen decisively defeated a Loyalist force on the ridge nearby. A century and a half later, the sesquicentennial drew a sitting president and one of the largest gatherings the region had ever seen.
Major Willian Chronicle
York County, SC
On October 7, 1780, this ground near the North Carolina line saw the Battle of Kings Mountain, a turning point in the American Revolution's southern campaign. Frontier militia known as the Overmountain Men surrounded and crushed a Loyalist force under Major Patrick Ferguson in about an hour of fierce fighting. Major William Chronicle, a young Patriot officer leading his Lincoln County men, was killed early in the assault at the spot this stone marks.
Kings Mountain Battleground
Cleveland County, NC
On October 7, 1780, Patriot backwoodsmen crushed a Loyalist force at Kings Mountain, just over the line in South Carolina, in a decisive Revolutionary War victory. The battle broke Britain's grip on the southern backcountry and turned the tide of the war in the Carolinas; the national military park lies a few miles southeast.
Cornwallis
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In January 1781 General Lord Cornwallis crossed into North Carolina near this spot, launching his second invasion of the state as he chased the American forces of Daniel Morgan and Nathanael Greene. The pursuit stretched his army thin and led toward the costly clash at Guilford Courthouse.