The Winning of the West

by Theodore Roosevelt

  4th, on the testimony of a number of soldiers who swore they did not see Campbell in the latter part of the battle, nor until some moments after the surrender. Of course, this negative testimony is simply valueless; in such a hurly burly it would be impossible for the men in each part of the line to see all the commanders, and Campbell very likely did not reach the places where these men were until some time after the surrender. On the other hand, forty officers and soldiers of Campbell’s, Sevier’s, and Shelby’s regiments, headed by General Rutledge, swore that they had seen Campbell valiantly leading throughout the whole battle, and foremost at the surrender. This positive testimony conclusively settles the matter; it outweighs that of Shelby’s brother, the only affirmative witness on the other side. But it is a fair question as to whether Campbell or another of Shelby’s brothers received De Peyster’s sword.

  1 “Biographical Sketch or Memoir of Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Ferguson,” by Adam Ferguson, LL.D., Edinburgh, 1817, p. 11. The copy was kindly lent me by Mr. Geo. H. Moore of the Lenox Library.

  2 Though called volunteers they were simply a regular regiment raised in America instead of England; Ferguson’s “Memoir,” p. 30, etc. always speaks of them as regulars. The British gave an absurd number of titles to their various officers; thus Ferguson was a brigadier-general of militia, lieutenant-colonel of volunteers, a major in the army, etc.

  3 Ferguson’s “Memoir,” p. 11.

  4 “History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781,” Lt.-Col. Tarleton, London (1787). See also the “Strictures” thereon, by Roderick Mackenzie, London, same date.

  5 It is worth while remembering that it was not merely the tories who were guilty of gross crimes; the British regulars, including even some of their officers, often behaved with abhorrent brutality.

  6 Diary of Lt. Anthony Allaire, entry for March 24, 1780.

  7 Gates M.SS., passim, for July-October, 1780. E.g., letter of Mr. Ramsey, August 9, 1780, describes how “the Scotch are all lying out” the number of tories in the “Drowning Creek region,” their resistance to the levy of cattle, etc. In these colonies, as in the middle colonies, the tory party was very strong.

  8 Gates MSS. See Letter from Sumter, August 12th and passim, for instances of hanging by express command of the British officers.

  9 A relative of the Detroit commander.

  10 Shelby’s MS. Autobiography, and the various accounts he wrote of these affairs in his old age (which Haywood and most of the other local American historians follow or amplify), certainly greatly exaggerate the British force and loss, as well as the part Shelby himself played, compared to the Georgia and Carolina leaders. The Americans seemed to have outnumbered Ferguson’s advance guard, which was less than two hundred strong, about three to one. Shelby’s account of the Musgrove affair is especially erroneous. See p. 120 of L. C. Draper’s “King’s Mountain and Its Heroes” (Cincinnati, 1881). Mr. Draper has with infinite industry and research gathered all the published and unpublished accounts and all the traditions concerning the battle; his book is a mine of information on the subject. He is generally quite impartial, but some of his conclusions are certainly biased; and the many traditional statements, as well as those made by very old men concerning events that took place fifty or sixty years previously, must be received with extreme caution. A great many of them should never have been put in the book at all. When they take the shape of anecdotes, telling how the British are overawed by the mere appearance of the Americans on some occasion (as pp. 94, 95, etc.), they must be discarded at once as absolutely worthless, as well as ridiculous. The British and tory accounts, being forced to explain ultimate defeat, are, if possible, even more untrustworthy, when taken solely by themselves, than the American.

  11 Shelby’s account of this action, written in his old age, is completely at fault; he not only exaggerates the British force and loss, but he likewise greatly overestimates the number of the Americans—always a favorite trick of his. Each of the militia colonels of course claimed the chief share of the glory of the day, Haywood, Ramsey, and even Phelan simply follow Shelby. Draper gives all the different accounts; it is quite impossible to reconcile them; but all admit that the British were defeated.

  12 Draper apparently indorses the absurd tradition that makes this a whig victory instead of a defeat. It seems certain (see Draper), contrary to the statements of the Tennessee historians, that Sevier had no part in these preliminary operations.

  13 The northern portion of North Carolina was still in pos session of the remainder of Gates’s army, but they could have been brushed aside without an effort.

  14 “A numerous army now appeared on the frontier drawn from Nolichucky and other settlements beyond the mountains, whose very names had been unknown to us.” Lord Raw- don’s letter of October 24, 1780. Clarke of Georgia had plundered a convoy of presents intended for the Indians, at Augusta, and the British wrongly supposed this to be likewise the aim of the mountaineers.

  15 Shelby was regularly commissioned as county lieutenant. Sevier’s commission was not sent him until several weeks later; but he had long acted as such by the agreement of the settlers, who paid very little heed to the weak and disorganized North Carolina government.

  16 Gates MSS. Letter of William Campbell, Sept. 6, 1780. He evidently at the time failed to appreciate the pressing danger; but he ended by saying that “if the Indians were not harassing their frontier,” and a corps of riflemen were formed, he would do all in his power to forward them to Gates.

  17 Gates MSS. Letter of William Preston, Sept. 18, 1780. The corps was destined to join Gates, as Preston says; hence Campbell’s reluctance to go with Shelby and Sevier. There were to be from five hundred to one thousand men. See letter of Wm. Davidson, Sept. 18, 1780.

  18 Shelby’s MS. Autobiography. Campbell MSS., especially MS. letters of Col. Arthur Campbell of Sept. 3, 1810, Oct. 18, 1810, etc.; MS. notes on Sevier in Tenn. Hist. Soc. The latter consist of memoranda by his old soldiers, who were with him in the battle; many of their statements are to be received cautiously, but there seems no reason to doubt their account of his receiving the news while giving a great barbecue. Shelby is certainly entitled to the credit of plan ning and starting the campaign against Ferguson.

  19 “State of the proceedings of the Western army from Sept. 25, 1780, to the reduction of Major Ferguson and the army under his command,” signed by Campbell, Shelby, and Cleavland. The official report: it is in the Gates MSS. in the N. Y. Hist. Society. It was published complete at the time, except the tabulated statement of loss, which has never been printed; I give it further on.

  20 Gen. Wm. Lenoir’s account, prepared for Judge A. D. Murphy’s intended history of North Carolina. Lenoir was a private in the battle.

  21 Rev. Samuel Doak. Draper, 176. A tradition, but probably truthful, being based on the statements of Sevier and Shelby’s soldiers in their old age. It is the kind of an incident that tradition will often faithfully preserve.

  22 Diary of Ensign Robert Campbell.

  23 Shelby MS.

  24 Shelby MS. Autobiography. See also Gates MSS. Letter of Wm. Davidson, Sept. 14, 1780. Davidson had foreseen that there would be a fight between the Western militia and Ferguson, and he had sent word to his militia subordinates to join any force—as McDowell’s—that might go against the British leader. The alarm caused by the latter had prevented the militia from joining Davidson himself.

  25 Draper, 448.

  26 Allaire’s Diary, entry for October 29th.

  27 Gates MSS. Letter of Campbell, Shelby, Cleavland, etc., Oct. 4, 1780.

  28 Deposition of Col. Matthew Willoughby (who was in the fight), April 30, 1823, “Richmond Enquirer,” May 9, 1823.

  29 Though by birth three were Virginians, and one, Shelby, a Marylander. All were Presbyterians. McDowell, like Campbell, was of Irish descent; Cleavland of English, Shelby of Welsh, and Sevier of French Huguenot. The families of the first two had originally settled in Pennsylvania.

  30 Hambright was a
Pennsylvania German, the father of eighteen children. Hill, who was suffering from a severe wound, was unfit to take an active part in the King’s Mountain fight. His MS. narrative of the campaign is largely quoted by Draper.

  31 Bancroft gives Williams an altogether undeserved prominence. As he had a commission as brigadier-general, some of the British thought he was in supreme command at King’s Mountain; in a recent magazine article Gen. De Peyster again sets forth his claims. In reality he only had a small subordinate or independent command, and had no share whatever in conducting the campaign, and very little in the actual battle, though he behaved with much courage and was killed.

  32 Gates MSS. Letter of Gen. Wm. Davidson, Oct. 3, 1780. Also Hill’s Narrative.

  33 Gates MSS. (in New York Hist. Soc.). It is possible that Campbell was not chosen chief commander until this time; Ensign Robert Campbell’s account (MSS. in Tenn. Hist. Soc.) explicitly states this to be the case. The Shelby MS. and the official report make the date the 1st or 2d. One letter in the Gates MSS. has apparently escaped all notice from historians and investigators; it is the document which McDowell bore with him to Gates. It is dated “Oct. 4th, 1780, near Gilbert town,” and is signed by Cleavland, Shelby, Sevier, Campbell, Andrew Hampton, and J. Winston. It begins: “We have collected at this place 1500 good men drawn from the counties of Surrey, Wilkes, Burk, Washington, and Sullivan counties (sic) in this State and Washington County in Virginia.” It says that they expect to be joined in a few days by Clark of Ga. and Williams of S. C. with one thousand men (in reality Clark, who had nearly six hundred troops, never met them); asks for a general; says they have great need of ammunition, and remarks on the fact of their “troops being all militia, and but little acquainted with discipline.” It was this document that gave the first impression to contemporaries that the battle was fought by fifteen hundred Americans. Thus General Davidson’s letter of Oct. 10th to Gates, giving him the news of the victory, has served as a basis for most subsequent writers about the numbers. He got his particulars from one of Sumter’s men, who was in the fight; but he evidently mixed them up in his mind, for he speaks of Williams, Lacey, and their companions as joining the others at Gilbert Town, instead of the Cowpens; makes the total number three thousand, whereas, by the official report of October 4th, Campbell’s party only numbered fifteen hundred, and Williams, Lacey, etc., had but four hundred, or nineteen hundred in all; says that sixteen hundred good horses were chosen out, evidently confusing this with the number at Gilbert Town; credits Ferguson with fourteen hundred men, and puts the American loss at only twenty killed.

  34 MS. narrative of Ensign Robert Campbell (see also Draper, 221) says seven hundred; and about fifty of the footmen who were in good training followed so quickly after them that they were able to take part in the battle. Lenoir says the number was only five or six hundred. The modern accounts generally fail to notice this Green River weeding out of the weak men, or confuse it with what took place at the Cowpens; hence many of them greatly exaggerate the number of Americans who fought in the battle.

  35 The official report says nine hundred; Shelby, in all his earlier narratives, nine hundred and ten; Hill, nine hundred and thirty-three. The last authority is important because he was one of the four hundred men who joined the mountaineers at the Cowpens, and his testimony confirms the explicit declaration of the official report that the nine hundred men who fought in the battle were chosen after the junction with Williams, Lacey, and Hill. A few late narratives, including that of Shelby in his old age, make the choice take place before the junction, and the total number then amount to thirteen hundred; evidently the choice at the Cowpens is by these authors confused with the choice at Green River. Shelby’s memory when he was old was certainly very treacherous; in similar fashion he, as has been seen, exaggerated greatly his numbers at the Enoree. On the other hand, Robert Campbell puts the number at only seven hundred, and Lenoir between six and seven hundred. Both of these thus err in the opposite direction.

  36 Draper, p. 201, quotes a printed letter from a British officer to this effect.

  37 Probably Ferguson himself failed to do so at this time.

  38 Gates MSS. Letter of Davidson, September 14th, speaks of the large number of tories in the counties where Ferguson was operating.

  39 The word actually used was still stronger.

  40 See letter quoted by Tarleton.

  41 Ferguson’s “Memoir,” p. 32.

  42 “Tarleton’s Campaigns,” p. 169.

  43 British historians to the present day repeat this. Even Lecky, in his “History of England,” speaks of the back woodsmen as in part from Kentucky. Having pointed out this trivial fault in Lecky’s work, it would be ungracious not to allude to the general justice and impartiality of its accounts of these Revolutionary campaigns—they are very much more trustworthy than Bancroft’s, for instance. Lecky scarcely gives the right color to the struggle in the South; but when Bancroft treats of it, it is not too much to say that he puts the contest between the whigs and the British and tories in a decidedly false light. Lecky fails to do justice to Washington’s military ability, however; and overrates the French assistance.

  44 “Am. Pioneer,” II, 67. An account of one of the sol diers, Benj. Sharp, written in his old age; full of contradic tions of every kind (he for instance forgets they joined Williams at the Cowpens); it can not be taken as an author ity, but supplies some interesting details.

  45 Late in life Shelby asserted that this steadiness in push ing on was due to his own influence. The other accounts do not bear him out.

  46 I. e., brooks.

  47 Nine hundred and ten horsemen (possibly nine hundred, or perhaps nine hundred and thirty-three) started out; and the footmen who kept up were certainly less than fifty in number. There is really no question as to the American numbers; yet a variety of reasons have conspired to cause them to be generally greatly overstated, even by American historians. Even Phelan gives them fifteen hundred men, following the ordinary accounts. At the time, many outsiders supposed that all the militia who were at the Cowpens fought in the battle; but this is not asserted by any one who knew the facts. General J. Watts De Peyster, in the “Mag. of Am. Hist.” for 1880.—”The Affair at King’s Mountain”—gives the extreme tory view. He puts the number of the Americans at from thirteen hundred to nineteen hundred. His account, however, is only based on Shelby’s later narratives, told thirty years after the event, and these are all that need be considered. When Shelby grew old, he greatly exaggerated the numbers on both sides in all the fights in which he had taken part. In his account of King’s Mountain, he speaks of Williams and the four hundred Flint Hill men joining the attacking body after, not before, the nine hundred and ten picked men started. But his earlier accounts, including the official report which he signed, explicitly contradict this. The question is thus purely as to the time of the junction: as to whether it was after or before this that the body of nine hundred actual fighters was picked out. Shelby’s later report contains the grossest self-contradictions. Thus it enumerates the companies which fought the battle in detail, the result running up several hundred more than the total he gives. The early and official accounts are in every way more worthy of credence; but the point is settled beyond dispute by Hill’s narrative. Hill was one of the four hundred men with Williams, and he expressly states that after the junction at the Cowpens the force, from both commands, that started out numbered nine hundred and thirty-three. The question is thus definitely settled. Most of the later accounts simply follow the statements Shelby made in his old age.

  48 There were many instances of brothers and cousins in the opposing ranks at King’s Mountain; a proof of the simi larity in the character of the forces.

  49 The American official account says that they captured the British provision returns, according to which their force amounted to eleven hundred and twenty-five men. It further reports, of the regulars nineteen killed, thirty-five wounded and left on the ground as unable to march,
and seventy-eight captured; of the tories two hundred and six killed, one hundred and twenty-eight wounded and left on the ground unable to march, and six hundred and forty-eight captured. The number of tories killed must be greatly exaggerated. Allaire, in his diary, says Ferguson had only eight hundred men, but almost in the same sentence enumerates nine hundred and six, giving of the regulars nineteen killed, thirty-three wounded, and sixty-four captured (one hundred and sixteen in all, instead of one hundred and thirty-two, as in the American account), and of the tories one hundred killed, ninety wounded, and “about” six hundred captured. This does not take account of those who escaped. Prom Ramsey and De Peyster down most writers assert that every single individual on the defeated side was killed or taken; but in Colonel Chesney’s admirable “Military Biography” there is given the autobiography or memoir of a South Carolina loyalist who was in the battle. His account of the battle is meagre and unimportant, but he expressly states that at the close he and a number of others escaped through the American lines by putting sprigs of white paper in their caps, as some of the whig militia did—for the militia had no uniforms, and were dressed alike on both sides. A certain number of men who escaped must thus be added.

  50 There were undoubtedly very many horse - thieves, murderers, and rogues of every kind with Ferguson, but equally undoubtedly the bulk of his troops were loyalists from principle, and men of good standing, especially those from the seaboard. Many of the worst tory bandits did not rally to him, preferring to plunder on their own account. The American army itself was by no means free from scoundrels. Most American writers belittle the character of Ferguson’s force, and sneer at the courage of the tories, although entirely unable to adduce any proof of their statements, the evidence being the other way. Apparently they are unconscious of the fact that they thus wofully diminish the credit to be given to the victors. It may be questioned if there ever was a braver or finer body of riflemen than the nine hundred who surrounded and killed or captured a superior body of well posted, well led, and courageous men, in part also well drilled, on King’s Mountain. The whole world now recognizes how completely the patriots were in the right; but it is especially incumbent on American historians to fairly portray the acts and character of the tories, doing justice to them as well as to the whigs, and condemning them only when they deserve it. In studying the Revolutionary war in the Southern States, I have been struck by the way in which the American historians alter the facts by relying purely on partisan accounts, suppressing the innumerable whig excesses and outrages, or else palliating them. They thus really destroy the force of the many grave accusations which may be truthfully brought against the British and tories. I regret to say that Bancroft is among the offenders. Hildreth is an honorable exception. Most of the British historians of the same events are even more rancorous and less trustworthy than the American writers; and while fully admitting the many indefensible outrages committed by the whigs, a long-continued and impartial examination of accessible records has given me the belief that in the districts where the civil war was most ferocious, much the largest number of the criminal class joined the tories, and the misdeeds of the latter were more numerous than those of the whigs. But the frequency with which both whigs and tories hanged men for changing sides, shows that quite a number of the people shifted from one party to the other; and so there must have been many men of exactly the same stamp in both armies. Much of the nominal changing of sides, however, was due to the needless and excessive severity of Cornwallis and his lieutenants.