King's Mountain National Military Park

Our latest field trip was a visit to the King's Mountain National Military Park.  This park is the site of a revolutionary battlefield.  If you are interested in the full history of the battle you can visit their website.  

The park has done a great job of describing the battle.  As we walked the trail around the battlefield it was easy to imagine what would have taken place.  The British / Loyal troops were positioned on top of the mountain and they felt confident they would be able to defend their position.  

At the base of the mountain militia men, farmers, and hunters surrounded and attacked from all sides.  The British forces atop the mountain represented roughly a third of all British forces in the Southern colonies.

The untrained militia men won the battle against a trained and larger army.  This was a major victory for the colonies.  Winning this battle showed that the British forces could be defeated.

One of the things about the battle that I've been thinking about is the preparation.  Men from all over the Southern States came to King's Mountain.  There was less than six weeks to organize and meet.  It took several weeks after the battle before George Washington received word about the results.  Word traveled slowly.  It's not like you could just text all your friends over in Tennessee and they'd show up. There was a determined effort made to have the necessary force on hand for the fight.  

As we began our walk the first thing Meredith wanted to know was if we would get to see dead bodies.  

I already told you that the park does a great job of describing the battle to you, as a bonus the park is beautiful.  

We were also fortunate to have beautiful weather as well.

The battle of King's Mountain was turning point in the war for independence.  The battle only took an hour to fight.  It took longer for my family to walk the trail around the battle field than it did for those militia men to change the course of history.