Towns

NC, USA

Overmountain Men Muster at Sycamore Shoals

September 25, 1780

DateSeptember 25, 1780
Precisionday

About 1,000 volunteers assembled at Sycamore Shoals (present-day Elizabethton, TN) on September 25, 1780. Reverend Samuel Doak delivered a sermon invoking "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." The assembled riflemen began their march east over the Appalachians toward Ferguson.

People Involved

Major Patrick Ferguson(British Army Officer)

The only British regular at Kings Mountain, commanding 1,100 Loyalist militia. Inventor of the Ferguson breech-loading rifle and one of the army's most capable officers. His ultimatum to the Overmountain settlements triggered the campaign that killed him.