The surrender of British outpost Thicketty Fort and ninety-six British loyalists on July 26, 1780 (one sources gives July 30th) to six-hundred-armed patriot militiamen, many frontiersmen carrying rifles, was strategic not as a battle, no shots were fired, but for what the fort’s capitulation meant to future British plans to placate the south. In the early spring of 1780, British forces invaded South Carolina. Charleston fell with the capture of the Southern Continental Army on May 12, 1780. Many rebel leaders accepted paroles to remain neutral while Loyalist militiamen flocked to England’s banner. Soon after, British outposts sprang up throughout the Carolina backcountry. British leader General Lord Charles Cornwallis was confident he had dealt with militia opposition and focused on the approach of a resurrected Southern Continental Army under General Horatio Gates.
But the rebel resistance remained strong among farmers in the backcountry. So too, the summer of 1780 saw companies of wilderness riflemen labeled Over the Mountain Men, led by Col. Isaac Shelby and Col. John Sevier, cross east over the Allegheny Mountains to join Carolina militiamen. The increased presence of rebel activity convinced British General Lord Charles Cornwallis that he had to eradicate backcountry rebel militia before any expansion into North Carolina. In late June, Major Patrick Ferguson and his small army of 1,800 loyalists had been ordered into the Waxhaws and Ninety-Six Districts of South Carolina. By mid-July, Ferguson had marched past the Broad River to hunt down rebel units and prevent them from gathering into formidable forces.
This began a series of clashes between gathering patriots and local loyalists, supported by Partisan regulars from New Jersey and New York, trained and equipped like redcoats. The rebels became emboldened by British loyalist losses at the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill (June 20th) and Huck’s Defeat or Battle of Williamson’s Plantation (July 12th). With some successes, rebel leaders turned to attacking British outposts, often garrisoned with 100 or less Tories. The first of these outposts to fall was Fort Prince, July 16th, right after Battle of Earle’s Ford (July 15th), that saw the defeat of American Volunteer Partisan Dragoons lead by British Major James Dunlop. Second in line to fall was Thicketty Fort. And in a little over two months later, at the Battle of King’s Mountain, resulting in the elimination of Ferguson and his Tory army, many of the same Carolina militiamen and wilderness warriors at that battle had gathered before the gates of Fort Thicketty.
Rebels Gather
In early July, Colonel Isaac Shelby and 200 frontier riflemen of the Sullivan County Militia, west of the Allegheny Mountains (present-day East Tennessee), crossed east into the backcountry of South Carolina. They teamed up with Colonel Elijah Clarke, leader of the Georgia Refugees of around equal numbers. Clarke’s men were of the Long Cane Region of Georgia and South Carolina along the upper reaches of the Savannah River. They were refugees from Georgia, the only colony that was reclaimed by the British.
Col. Thomas Sumter, leader of South Carolina militia, had learned that Major Patrick Ferguson’s troops were moving beyond the Broad River. He directed Col. Elijah Clarke and his Georgians to ride north. Clarke met up with North Carolina militias heading south under Colonels Charles and James McDowell and Colonel Andrew Hampton on July 15th at Earle’s Ford. The same day these North Carolina men bested Ferguson’s dragoons, British Partisan American Volunteers under Major James Dunlop, at the Battle of Earle’s Ford. The next day a detachment would ride to claim Fort Prince. Soon after, the combined rebels encamped on the Broad River at Cherokee Ford. Reinforcements arrived daily and militia leaders learned early that these volunteers showed up to fight, not sit idle in camp.
Charles McDowell decided to send a large detachment to attack Thicketty Fort, about eighteen miles southwest of Cherokee Ford. He had hoped to capture the despised Tory commander Captain Patrick Moore. Just after sundown on July 25, 1780, the men departed camp. They included:
- 9 Companies of Sullivan County NC Militia, Over the Mountain Men under Colonel Isaac Shelby
- 4 Companies of Rutherford County NC Militia led by Colonel Andrew Hamilton
- 2 Companies of Burke County NC Militia under Captains Joseph McDowell and David Vance
- Colonel Elijah Clarke’s Georgia Refugees
- During the March they met 2 Companies of the 1st Spartan SC Militia under Captains Josiah and Samuel Culbertson, and Captain John Collins
- Total Force: approximately 600
Thicketty Fort & Garrison
Thicketty Creek and Fort were named for the unusually thick vegetation that grew along the stream’s bank; which remain to this day. Also named Fort Anderson, it was a collection of blockhouses built of heart pine logs by early Scot-Irish pioneers around 1769. It served as a refuge for settlers during attacks by Cherokee raiders. The fortification was about 7 miles southeast of Cowpens, near present-day Gaffney, South Carolina and where US Highway 29 crosses Thicketty Creek. The garrison of ninety-six loyalists was commanded by Captain Patrick Moore; a six foot seven-inch-tall fierce bruiser of Scot-Irish descent. Patrick was the brother of Lt. Colonel John Moore; both were of Colonel Hampton’s Regiment of North Carolina Loyalists.
Patrick and his brother John escaped capture at the Battle of Kettle Creek (Feb. 14, 1779). They also survived the slaughter at Ramsour’s Mill in which older brother John commanded (June 20, 1780). After that battle, they were among the thirty who made it to British Headquarters at Camden. Lord Cornwallis was furious with John for not following orders and losing most of his command. But instead of a court-martial that might alienate Loyalists, His Lordship released John from duty. Patrick was given a company of loyalists and within the month, he had another run in with rebel militia. Captain William Johnston clashed with Moore’s men at Lawson’s Fork (July 20th). Moore was overpowered by Johnston and taken prisoner. But the illusive Tory escaped soon after when Johnston was attacked by several loyalists. Moore rode to Camden where Cornwallis assigned him command of the garrison at Thicketty.
Thicketty Fort Captured
Sunrise, July 26, 1780, the rebels under fronter commander Colonel Isaac Shelby had arrived at Thicketty Creek. The fort was considered impregnable with a substantial killing field around the fortification. Isaac Shelby sent frontiersman Capt. William Cocke to demand the fort’s surrender. Loyalist Capt. Patrick Moore was direct, replying that he would defend the fort to the last extremity. Shelby had no cannon. He knew that in a direct attack he most likely would be successful. But at what cost in lives? Shelby decided to try and spook the Tories into surrendering.
Six hundred men surrounded the smallish fort. They emerged from the woods and closed in, making their numbers more intimidating. As a coup de grace, the Over Mountain Men, or Back Water Men, brandished their rifles and yelled in the piecing ‘Indian War Cry.’ Known to the British as the ‘Yelling Boys,’ like berserks fronting pagan armies wielding battle axes, the frontiersmen blood curdling howl drove fear into their enemy; a precursor to the southern ‘rebel yell’ during the American Civil War. The ruse worked. Captain Moore had survived the onslaught of some of these same backcountry fighters at Ramsour’s Mill. He did not want a repeat of the slaughter. When Shelby issued his second demand to surrender, Moore accepted with the provision that he and his men would be paroled.
In the fort, the rebels discovered 250 muskets loaded with buck and ball at the ready by the fort’s portholes. Once the defender fired his musket at the attacking rebels, as they drew closer, he would grab the musket of buck and ball. Besides loading a musket ball, smaller pellets called ‘buckshot’ were tapped down the musket’s barrel, creating a shotgun-like effect that sprayed deadly projectiles at close range. Without cannon, and allowing on a frontal attack with small arms, his defense should have been sufficient to stop twice the number of men Colonel Shelby had. All arms, ammunition and supplies were gathered. With the fort secured, Shelby’s men marched back to Cherokee Ford with their prisoners in tow prior to accepting their parole.
Afterward
After surrendering the fort, Cornwallis had it with the Moore family and censored Patrick. Yet having been censored and given his oath of parole after Thicketty Fort, by late September Patrick was with Major Patrick Ferguson in command of a company of South Carolina Loyalists in the Spartan Tory Regiment. He was captured and somehow, as one who broke his oath of parole, was not among the thirty-six sentenced to hang in which nine suffered swinging from an oak tree. On the march to Moravian Town and Salem, present day Winston-Salem, Patrick and about one hundred Tory prisoners escaped. The last know location put him in Charleston where he fades from history. As to his brother John. Some sources give that he was also at Kings Mountain; however, a search of Ferguson’s rosters does not list John Moore in any rank. It is most likely that reports of John Moore’s capture by Colonel Wade Hampton near the Wateree where he was immediately hanged for breaking parole were true.
Thicketty Fort was but one of a series of events and clash of arms between patriot rebels and British efforts to put down local resistance prior to invading North Carolina. Major Patrick Ferguson’s Tories led the charge against both Carolina militiamen and Over the Mountain settlers residing in what would become eastern Tennessee. After Thicketty came Rocky Mount (July 30), First Hanging Rock (July 30) Second Hanging Rock (Aug 6), Green Spring (Aug 1) Second Cedar Springs also Wofford’s Iron Works (Aug 8) Musgrove Mill (Aug 18) Cane Creek (Sept 12), and Wahab’s Plantation (Sept 21). This led to the decisive Battle of Kings Mountain (Oct. 7) that resulted in the destruction of Ferguson’s Loyalist army. The action not only deprived General Cornwallis of his army’s entire left wing, it also discouraged future loyalists from fighting alongside the British. Supreme British commander General Henry Clinton summed it best when he admitted that the patriot militia’s victory at King’s Mountain, “unhappily proved the first link in a chain of evils that followed each other in regular succession until they at last ended in the total loss of America.”
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American Revolution in South Carolina. “Thicketty Fort.”
Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse. 1997: John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, NY.
Commager, Henry Steele & Morris, Richard B. editors. The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by its Participants: 2002 Edition: Castle Books, Edison, New Jersey.
Crawford, Alan Pell. This Fierce People, The Untold Story of America’s Revolution in the South. 2024: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.
Draper, Lyman Copeland. Kings Mountain and its Heroes: History of the Battle of Kings Mountain… 1881: Peter G. Thompson, Cincinnati, OH.
Landrum, J. B. O. Colonial and Revolutionary History of Upper South Carolina. 1897: Shannon and Company Partners and Binders, Greenville, South Carolina. Reprint South Carolina Heritage Series, Number 1 (May, 1962), The Reprint Company, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Louis, J. D. The Known Provincials & Loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain October 7, 1780.
Mitchell County Historical Society. Podcast: Episode 15 – “The Summer Campaign of 1780.” Podcast, Part I, (Sept 20, 2019).
Southern, Ed (editor). Voices of the American Revolution in the Carolinas. 2009: John F. Blair Publishing, Durham, NC.