Battle of Kings Mountain The year 1780 was not a good one for General George Washington. In February, British General Sir Henry Clinton invested Charleston, South Carolina, and on May 12 the town was forced to surrender. On May 29, “Butcher” Tarleton pursued and overcame a force under Colonel Abraham Buford at a place that later would be named Buford, South Carolina. The aftermath of the battle would become known as the Waxhaw Massacre because of some prisoners of war slain by the impetuous British commander, and “Tarleton’s quarter” (meaning no mercy whatsoever) entered the patriot lexicon. The massacre was short-lived and then halted, but the name remained. On August 16 of that ill-fated year, Lieutenant General Horatio Gates engaged British forces near Camden, South Carolina, and subsequently lost the majority of the Army of the South. Gates himself fled the battlefield and the state. Flushed with victory, a force of Loyalists under the command of a Scottish officer in the British Army, Patrick Ferguson, moved west to destroy other patriot bands and secure the South for the Crown. …show more content…
It was common knowledge that rifles were more accurate than the muskets in common use, but the rifles took much longer to reload. Ferguson changed all that. Not only could his rifle be re-loaded from the rear while concealed in a prone firing position, in a demonstration for the king and queen he was able to fire six rounds in a single minute—faster even than a musket. About 100 of his rifles were produced and subjected to trial by fire, in a security role, at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11,