KINGS MOUNTAIN, BATTLE OF

(Oct. 7, 1780), in the U.S. War of Independence, American victory over a Loyalist detachment in South Carolina during the British campaign in the South. To stem the British advance into North Carolina, a force of about 2,000 colonial frontiersmen had been gathered from neighbouring states to replace the Continental forces that had been lost in South Carolina at the battles of Charleston (May 1780) and Camden (August 1780). The frontiersmen felt particularly bitter against the 1,100 soldiers, under Major Patrick Ferguson, who were mostly New Yorkers and South Carolinians loyal to the British. About a mile and a half south of the North Carolina boundary, the frontiersmen surrounded the Loyalists on Kings Mountain and killed or captured almost the entire force. The battle was noted as the first of a series of setbacks that ended in the eventual collapse of the British effort to hold North America.