Shoot Tree to Tree

At Kings Mountain, Thomas Young, a sixteen-year-old South Carolina patriot, recalled climbing straight up the mountain with Ben Hollingsworth and fighting from tree to tree to the summit, firing from behind a tree until its bark was nearly shot away and a bullet cut a piece from his gun stock. He suddenly found himself apparently between his own regiment and the enemy, recognizing the Whigs by the paper in their hats and the Tories by the pine twigs in theirs. More than four hundred South Carolina patriots, including Colonel Williams' militia from Ninety-Six District and Colonel Lacey and Hill's militia from York District, had joined the march to Kings Mountain at the Cowpens one day before the battle. In the summer of 1780, some of the Revolution's bitterest fighting had raged around these men's homes and farms.

Smyrna, South Carolina · United States