Patrick Ferguson
Grover, Cleveland County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Patrick Ferguson. Tory force led by Col. Ferguson camped nearby Oct. 4-5, 1780. Two days later Ferguson died in major British defeat at Kings Mountain, 5 mi. SE.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
On October 4–5, 1780, the Loyalist force commanded by Colonel Patrick Ferguson camped near this site as it moved through the Carolina backcountry. Two days later Ferguson was killed and his command shattered at the Battle of Kings Mountain, a few miles to the southeast.
Why it matters
Ferguson's death and defeat marked a crushing setback for the British southern strategy in the Revolution.
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Related people
- · Patrick Ferguson
Related events
- · Battle of Kings Mountain
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cornwallis
Grover, NC
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.
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.
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.
In Honor Of The Three African American Patriots
York County, SC
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.