Since 1998 - Historical and Genealogical Resources
for the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina and Virginia
We have met here, Fellow Citizens, to commemorate a day though little noticed in the annals of American history, yet is not less important to the American people. A day that will ever be mournfully dear to many of my hearers, who were then bereaved of a tender father, an affectionate brother, or an esteemed friend. It was on Kings Mountain this day thirty years, that the precious blood of many of the citizens of this part of the country flowed freely in defence of Liberty and the rights of man. The bones of the Edmistons, the Browns, the M'Cullocks, and their brave heroes are mouldering into dust on that memorable Hill. Let us then unite in paying a tribute of respect to the names of those deceased Warriors who fell in defence of our common country; as also to those gray headed survivors that have honored us with their presence to day.
To behold that group of hoary headed sires, aged and infirm, bending downwards to the grave, with tangled limbs and mutilated bodies received in defence of Liberty, is indeed a feast to the Philanthropist; and it is wonderful to me that to such a meeting there could be an objection; that there is a man in the country whose heart is so cold as to forbid his presence on an occasion which excites such sympathetic, such noble feelings. The commemoration of that battle and the yielding a tribute of respect to those venerable men does not detract from the merit of many a well fought battle during our glorious revolution or blight in the smallest degree the well earned laurels of the warworn soldier who sustained the dangers and privations of a seven year war-far from it-every tongue here would join in giving respect to such characters. But because this affair was peculiarly interesting to this country, it being achieved principally by its inhabitants, and because so little justice has been done it in the history of those times, it was deemed proper to rescue it from oblivion by thus publicly celebrating it, and at the same time to perform those duties we owe our country, in devoting a portion of our time in acquiring military information.
Perhaps it is more to be regretted that we are from necessity to give any part of our time to exercises of this kind. It is lamentable indeed, that man, when society has arrived at that high degree of civilization in which it is at present, should have occasion to devote any part of their precious time to acquire the means of destroying one another with more facility. Yes, fellow men, it is an awful reflection. But from the depravity of our natures, we find it necessary that the overruling feelings of ambition and domination should be corrected by those means which are adapted for their support, that the virtuous, the innocent, and the weak, may be protected from the vicious, the oppressive and the strong. Hence it becomes a duty to prepare the instruments of death, and to leave their use to check these vicious propensities, in wicked men and wicked nations. Let us then, fellow soldiers, be not behind in military discipline, and let us not only learn the art mechanically, but imbibe a portion of that heroic spirit from the aged worthies before us, that actuated them to the noble deed which we commemorate this day. The day may not be far distant, when we shall have occasion to use the instruments of death we now bear with us; every information we obtain of our foreign relations, either from newspapers, circular letters from men in authority, or private correspondences, we learn of depredations committed on our neutral rights, that are alarming indeed to the peace and independence of this happy country.
We are told that in conformity to the decrees of the French government our trading vessels are burnt and captured upon the high seas, our sailors dragged to their dreary dungeons, where they are languishing in sickness and disease, separated from their dearest friends. We are told that the British carry their excesses even to a greater extent, that they not only seize our seamen, but actually force them aid, in committing depredations on their own country; that they have murdered our people on our own shores, and a tacked a national vessel, dismantled, murdered and took off many of its sailors. These outrages on our rights as a nation caution us, fellow citizens, that we shall not long remain in peace and enjoy those rights for which our forefather fought and bled. Nearly half a century ago where the spot where we now stand had never been marked by the footstep of civilized man, when the dread silence which pervaded the unlimited forest was interrupted only by the howling of the wolf, or the more horrid yell of savage man, when our country did not possess more than half its present population wealth or resources; it was then our forefathers rose i the majesty of their strength and opposed their mother country. For what? Not because she had seized our sea men; not because she had attacked a national vessel; but because she had assumed the right of imposing taxes o us without our consent.
Yet notwithstanding, we have been progressing ever since on the high tide of improvement, population a wealth, unequalled by any nation under Heaven, it is said by some that we are yet in a state of infancy, unable to cop with those overgrown ruffians, who trampled upon our rights and buffet us at their will. Oh! venerable fathers give us a portion of that spirit which impelled you to ascend the cliffs of Kings Mountain, and may the spirit of Washington the savior of our country, and a Campbell, t hero of the day we celebrate, be instilled in every American and teach them to defend their rights and liberties as they did. Let it not be said the older and wealthier our count grows, that it is the less able to defend the precious inheritance which was transferred to us by the best blood of our ancestors. Yet I trust it will not be inferred, I would advise my country to engage unnecessarily in a war with any nation-far be it from me. War is the greatest calamity that can befall a people, except the loss of their liberty or their honor. These ought to be defended at all hazards. When these are brought in jeopardy, all considerations ought to yield.
To pause at such a period for the nice calculations of policy or economy. To halt a moment because we have an empty treasury, or will be burdened with a public debt, would in my estimation be almost treason. The death of a Pierce, the perforation in the hull of the Chesapeake, are indeed matters of little consideration. The one is only the loss of a fellow man, the other has been patched up with the expense of a few thousand dollars. But the blood of a fellow, murdered at our very threshold; the attack of a national vessel in our own waters, are deep wounds that calculation can not heal or patch up. No! these are attacks on the honor of the nation and that must be satisfied. Cent per centum calculations will not do. The spirit of the nation must be resorted to. This is the Palladium of our liberty, the security for our rights.
Pardon me, fellow citizens, for these worn expressions, and which may be thought digressive from the object of this day's meeting. But I have felt the wounded honor of my country in the feeble resistance of our councils to the outrages committed on our neutral rights by foreign nations. I fear the spirit of '76 is lost in cold calculations of profit and loss; that our national honor is absorbed in private aggrandisement. Thirty years ago, if I mistake not, a different spirit pervaded the nation; I heard it talked of; I saw its successful flashes in defence of liberty, and I trust I caught a spark, young as I was, which I will cherish as my noblest inheritance. To stand quietly with folded arms and behold our shores stained with the blood of our murdered fellow citizens, to see our national honor degraded by attacking our national vessels, was not the spirit which actuated the peasantry of Bunker Hill; the Green Mountain boys of Bennington or the Mountaineers of Holston ! No! they rushed forward to the "tented field" careless of wealth and regardless of life, in defence of their rights, with the impressive declaration of liberty or death!
Every bosom glowed with the ardor of liberty. Wealth and splendor were things of no moment-the luxury they sought for was the enjoyment of freedom. It was this spirit which sustained a seven years war, under difficulties and privations that no nation ever experienced before, without arms or ammunition, without men or money, we began the conflict against a nation possessing all the means of death and destruction, but we fought for liberty, they for conquest. The God of nations was with us! And though we passed through many a vale of horror and distress, almost ready to despair, a gleam of hope would arise and invite us to exert every energy which the God of Nature had endowed us with, our cause was just and we prevailed. It is within the recollection of many who hear me, the difficulties we had to struggle with. Attacked by a nation with the greatest celebrity of any in the known world, possessing fleets and armies at will, with a thorough knowledge of the art of war who were laying-our richest towns in ashes and ravaging our sea coast on the one side, and, on the other, by a cruel savage people, ignorant of the laws of humanity, involving all sexes and ages in their indiscriminate destruction. Here was a state of things which almost appalled the stoutest hearts, resistance appeared to be temerity; but our ancestors were determined to enjoy that freedom in death, which circumstances seemed to forbid the enjoyment of in life. Hence death was disarmed of its terrors and they met it with all that composure that suited the glorious cause in which they were embarked. To attempt to detail the various stages of this contest would be unnecessary. Orators and historians have done it in all its glowing colors except in the solitary instance we now commemorate.
Suffice it for me to say, that at the very darkest and most gloomy period of these deleterious times, our countrymen were hunted from post to post in almost every direction, their spirits broken; their resources gone, ready almost to yield the glorious conflict, abandon the Tree of Liberty and become the slaves of despotism and pride.
The affair which we now celebrate took place. The doleful aspect changed. The news spread over desponding America that British army commanded by its most experienced.. and bravest officer had been beaten and captured by a few mountaineers, who as it were had risen in the last hope without previous arrangement or requisition of the Government, traversed an almost uninhabited country of near three hundred miles, sustaining hunger, fatigue and other sufferings innumerable, passing the tremendous mountains now in our view, the Pyrenees of America, reached Kings Mountain in South Carolina, notwithstanding the strong position taken by the enemy on this Hill, and notwithstanding the terror which was spread by the devastation and murders which marked the footsteps of the marauding army who appeared to be actuated by all the fury and cruelty that civil discord could invent or inflict, this resolute band, although inferior in numbers, rushed forward regardless of death, and killed or captured every man. Glorious day Happy result! Our hopes which had been exhausted; our ardor and zeal which had almost ceased to exist, now became renewed.
The dangers that lowered over us seemed to dissipate or rather give vigor to the public mind. The operations of the war on our part became more energetic and success followed. Soon after we were hailed with the affair of the Cowpens; the well fought battle of Guilford; the capture of Cornwallis, and finally peace and the enjoyment of the rights of nature and the peaceful possession of life and property. These are the happy consequences of that glorious day, and these are a portion of those brave warriors who have fought the good fight, now aged and infirm, are bending down to the bourne whence no traveler returns, may their meeting with the Great disposer of human events, be a happy one, and may they be greeted with "well done thou good and faithful servants," you have done your duty, be ye happy while time is no more. And may they in the mansions above meet their brave companions, who fell on that day, defending the Glorious cause of Liberty!!