Be Careful With Ancestors

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my forebears.  We’ve just finished our first summer production of my Revolutionary War drama Liberty Mountain, a story about the settling of the southern colonies and their part in the winning of American independence.  Our 15 performances played to large and enthusiastic audiences in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, and we’re already at work on the 2016 summer production.

The centerpiece of Liberty Mountain is the 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain, where a fierce and determined band of Patriot frontiersmen defeated a larger, better-trained force of Loyalist militia.  Until that battle, the British were winning the war in the south.  But Kings Mountain turned the tide and led directly to the British surrender at Yorktown a year later.

I’ve long been interested in the Kings Mountain battle because one of my ancestors, Col. James Williams, was killed there.  He was, by reliable accounts, a brave warrior who led Patriot militia forces at a series of battles across Georgia and both Carolinas.  At Kings Mountain, his horse was shot out from under him as he led his troops up the mountainside, so he continued on foot until he was struck by a musket ball at the summit.  One account says that as he fell, he cried out, “For God’s sake, don’t give up the hill, boys!”  They did not.

Col. Williams and his exploits have long been part of my family’s lore, but until I got involved with Liberty Mountain, I didn’t know the details of the connection.   With the help of my friend Greg Payseur of the Broad River Genealogical Association, I’ve been able to trace the lineage back to Williams and several other ancestors who fought in the Revolution.

They’re all on my mother’s side of the family, the Coopers, some of whom migrated from England in the 1630’s to help found Philadelphia, then drifted south into the new frontier.  One of them, Fleet Cooper, set up shop in Sampson County, North Carolina where he became a committed rebel and a signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.  There are historians who doubt the “Meck Dec” actually existed, but Cooper family lore insists it did – that it preceded the better-known Declaration and was the first time colonists put pen to paper and declared independence from England.  It’s also known that the Crown put a price on Fleet Cooper’s head, so he must have done something audacious to rile up the King.

I’m enjoying getting to know more about those folks who preceded me – something of how they lived, the ideals they believed in.  And in writing Liberty Mountain and seeing a talented and committed cast and crew bring it to life on stage, I’m in a way re-creating those people and their time.

Now, anybody who’s delved into personal history knows that every family has its abundant share of rogues, renegades and black sheep.  I’m sure the Coopers are no exception, but I’ve also come across a passel of them on my father’s side, the Inmans. 

Those folks hail from upstate South Carolina.  There were Inmans who fought bravely in the Revolution, but then there was the other bunch.  Years ago I met a judge in Alabama who had been doing some genealogical research on his South Carolina ancestors, who came from the same area as mine.  He said, with something of a twinkle in his eye, “The records show that some of the Inmans were chased out of Spartanburg County in the early 1800’s for horse thievery.”  Oh well, you take the bitter with the sweet.

Where did the horse thieves go?  Into Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and beyond.  It was a wild and lawless frontier in those days, and it probably took folks like my renegades to tame it.

I relish both sides of my family tree, and find a checkered past quite useful.  When I act uprightly, I attribute some of it to the Coopers.  When I need to be ornery, I lean on the Inmans.  They both serve me well.

So yes, you have to be careful with ancestors.  They can be a source of pride or a darn good excuse.  I’m glad I have some of both.

For information on Liberty Mountain, visit www.kmlibertymountain.com.

An Abiding Sense of History

It was a beautiful and memorable October 7th atop Kings Mountain.  Several hundred gathered to observe the 234th anniversary of the battle that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War and set in motion the chain of events that led to America’s independence from Britain.

It was a colorful occasion – men and women dressed in period costumes, members of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution and other organizations dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of this important piece of Americana.  They laid wreaths at the base of the monument that pays tribute to the Patriots who fought, including the 28 who died.

The gathering included a handful of hardy men who had spent two weeks traveling to Kings Mountain from Eastern Tennessee, re-creating the march of the “Overmountain Men” who formed the backbone of the Patriot force at the battle.  Those originals traveled more than 300 miles over rugged terrain, through brutal weather, to find and defeat British Major Patrick Ferguson and his force on that low ridge near the border of the two Carolinas.  The modern-day group have been making this journey for 40 years, stopping along the way to tell anyone who can listen the story of those 1780 frontiersmen.

I’m one who thinks history is vital – that we have to know where we came from, and how we got where we are now, to have any idea how to proceed into the future.  When I write a novel, I need to know my characters’ backstory – the how and why of their journey to the “now.”  I want my readers to understand the baggage they tote along with them, the joys and agonies of their lives that make them who they are and give a glimpse into how they might deal with their present dilemmas.

So, we all fit into a history – both personal and societal.  And having a sense of that is crucial to understanding who we are, as individuals and as a people.

I love the stories of history.  In the research that went into writing my new play, “Liberty Mountain,” I read volumes about the settling of the Carolinas, the lives of the families who came to the southern colonies from Europe to make a fresh start, to work hard and enjoy the fruits of their labor, to worship as they pleased.  It’s the ordinary folks I’m most interested in, and in crafting the story of Kings Mountain, I came to know these ordinary folks – men, women and children – and especially the volunteer citizen militiamen who fought the battle on both sides.  They had an intensely personal stake in the outcome, and when it was over, they went back to being farmers and millers and shopkeepers.  But they were profoundly changed by the experience, and so was the country.  The difference was one word: liberty.

At the wreath-laying ceremony on top of the mountain a few days ago, I was heartened to see a large group of high school students.  Their presence told me that folks at their school believe that history is important.  I trust that the experience made a lasting impression on the young folks, because we depend on them to carry our history and its lessons forward.  We put it in their hands, and trust they will continue to tell the stories of who we are and how we came to be Americans.  If they understand that, it will help them shape their future.

I hope my play, “Liberty Mountain,” will play a small part in perpetuating the unique piece of history we call Kings Mountain.  The production will continue in the future, with performances every summer.  I hope folks, especially young folks, will come from across the nation – even the world – to see and hear this inspiring story of courage and fortitude. 

Mountain Men Win The War

Remember studying the Revolutionary War in school?  Paul Revere’s ride, Lexington and Conord, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Washington crosses the Delaware, the British surrender at Yorktown.  And that was it.

Well, not quite.  While school textbooks focus attention on the war in the New England colonies, a compelling argument can be made that the struggle for American independence was won in the South, in the Carolinas.  And that the pivotal battle in that campaign was fought on a low ridge called Kings Mountain, just below the border between the two Carolinas.  That is the subject of my new play, Liberty Mountain, which premiers this Fall.

In early 1780, the war in New England was at a stalemate.  The British held New York and not much else, and George Washington’s Continentals were unable to force a decisive battle.  The British had grown weary of the war and its drain on the royal treasury and national patience, but King George III was determined to force a victory in the Colonies.  The answer: Go South.

The Carolinas until then had been a backwater in the five-year-old war – a few battles and skirmishes between those loyal to the Crown and those who advocated independence – but nothing on the scale of the New England campaigns.  So the British thought the Carolinas might be ripe for the picking.  The strategy would be to invade and capture Charleston, subdue South Carolina and then its northern neighbor, drive into Virginia, and trap Washington between the southern and northern British forces.

It almost worked.  By May of 1780, Charleston was in British hands, the Continentals had been dealt a crushing defeat at Camden, and the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, reported to London that South Carolina was firmly in his hands.  But the British – brutal and arrogant in victory – were their own worst enemies.  Their Loyalist allies, many of them little more than outlaws, murdered Patriots and their families, burned and looted homes.  A British force massacred Patriot militiamen trying to surrender after a battle in the Waxhaws area.  And suddenly the Carolinas were enraged and up in arms, staging successful guerilla raids and defeating British and Loyalist troops in a series of pitched battles.

Still, Cornwallis persisted in his plan to drive north.  He ordered one of his best officers, Major Patrick Ferguson, to recruit and train a force of a thousand Loyalists, march them into western North Carolina, subdue the area, and protect Cornwallis’s left flank while he captured Charlotte and prepared for the next phase.  Ferguson thought his main threat would be from the area known as the Overmountain Territory, across the Appalachians in what is present-day Eastern Tennessee.  The Overmountain Men were fierce, rugged frontiersmen, staunchly independent, veterans of Indian wars.  Ferguson sent them a message: lay down your arms and swear allegiance to the King, or I will cross the mountains, hang your leaders, and lay waste to your homes.

That was a fatal mistake.  The frontiersmen didn’t take to threats.  As depicted in this famous painting by Lloyd Branson, a thousand of them quickly organized and set out on a grueling journey across the mountains, bent on fighting Ferguson.  They were joined by militia units from both Carolinas and on October 7, 1780, they found Ferguson atop Kings Mountain.  Within an hour they had destroyed his militia – hundreds killed (including Ferguson) and wounded, the rest taken captive.  The Patriots lost 28 killed, 58 wounded.

Historians agree that it was a turning point in the Revolution.  Cornwallis retreated, and though there were other battles in the South, he never regained the momentum.  Just over a year later, he surrendered at Yorktown.

Kings Mountain was a battle between Americans.  The only British soldier in the fight was Ferguson.   It was neighbor against neighbor, even brother against brother.  The play, Liberty Mountain, tells the story of the people who settled the Carolinas – mainly hardy Scots-Irish Presbyterians, the lives they carved out of the frontier for themselves and their families, the will and courage they showed in the cause of American independence.

Liberty Mountain takes the stage the first two weekends of October at the Joy Performance Center in Kings Mountain, North Carolina with a cast of more than fifty under the direction of theatre professional Caleb Sigmon. 

The play will become a summer fixture in southern drama.  In the future, the company will stage the play for a month every summer in Kings Mountain, beginning June 26, 2015.

Auditions for the premier production are Monday and Tuesday, July 28 and 29 at the Joy Performance Center.  No theatre experience required, just an interest in re-creating and making history.