Overmountain Men

The Overmountain Men were American frontiersmen from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains which are the leading edge of the Appalachian Mountains, who took part in the American Revolutionary War. While they were present at multiple engagements in the war's southern campaign, they are best known for their role in the American victory at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. The term "overmountain" arose because their settlements were west of, or "over", the Blue Ridge, which was the primary geographical boundary dividing several of the 13 American states from the Native American lands to the west. The Overmountain Men hailed from parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and what is now Tennessee and Kentucky.

The efforts of the Overmountain Men helped to solidify the existence of the fragile settlements in the Watauga, Nolichucky, and Holston river valleys, the legitimacy of which had been questioned by the British Crown for several years. Many Overmountain Men, including John Sevier, John Rhea, and Isaac Shelby, went on to play prominent roles in the establishment of the states of Tennessee and Kentucky. The foothold they gained on the frontier helped open the door to mass westward migration in ensuing decades.

The Overmountain settlements

In the late 1760s and early 1770s, Euro-American settlers began pouring into what is now northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, causing considerable agitation among the Overhill Cherokees and other tribes who controlled the area. The Treaty of Lochaber, signed in 1770 between the British and the Cherokee, moved the boundary of British territory south to Long Island of the Holston (modern Kingsport, Tennessee). While this brought settlements north of the Holston under British protection, the settlers south of the river were ordered to leave.

Rather than comply with the Crown's order, the illegal settlers —mostly concentrated at the Watauga settlement at Sycamore Shoals (in present-day Elizabethton), the Nolichucky settlement (near modern Greeneville), and Carter's Valley (near modern Kingsport) —decided to lease their land from the Cherokee, and in 1772 established the Watauga Association, which was the first independent American constitutional government west of the Appalachians. In 1775, the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers purchased their leased lands outright and formed the independent Washington District. They almost immediately petitioned Virginia for annexation, which was denied.

The Crown and the colonial governments (especially Virginia) considered the land purchases illegal, and ordered the settlers to leave what they considered to be Cherokee lands. Also, some factions of the Cherokee became agitated when these settlements began expanding rapidly, and tribal chiefs amiable to the settlers fell out of favor. A young Cherokee chief, Dragging Canoe, who had been opposed to the sale of tribal lands, called for the violent removal of all European settlers west of the mountains. He led an estimated one thousand followers (eventually referred to as the Chickamauga) away from the American settlements and carried on an armed struggle against the new country for almost twenty more years (see the Cherokee–American wars) after the failed Cherokee attacks against the Overmountain settlements in the summer of 1776.

Revolutionary War

Early conflicts

At the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776, the Overmountain settlers (most of whom were Whigs opposed to the monarchy) began preparing for invasion. The signing of the Watauga Petition and its acceptance by North Carolina —annexing the Washington District to that colony —added further impetus to the Cherokee, who were also being encouraged by the British, to push the American frontiersmen out of the Overmountain settlements. The invasion came in July of that year. While settlers were chased out of Carter's Valley and the Nolichucky settlements, the Cherokee were defeated at Eaton's Station on July 20 and at Fort Watauga on July 21, and eventually retreated from the area. The settlers' struggles gained them the sympathies of North Carolina's revolutionary leaders, who in 1777, allowed the settlements of the Washington District to join equally with the colony, designating the Overmountain area as (the original) Washington County, North Carolina.Finger, pp. 58-71.

The Overmountain Men took part (to varying degrees) in numerous operations against British Loyalists and the British-aligned Cherokee and Shawnee all along the Appalachian frontier. Twenty Wataugans helped defend the Boonesborough and Harrodsburg settlements (in modern Kentucky) from Shawnee attacks in 1778.

During the summer of 1780, a group of Overmountain Men led by Isaac Shelby joined up with Colonel Charles McDowell to raid Loyalist outposts in the Piedmont mountain region of northwestern South Carolina. The Overmountain Men captured Fort Thickety on the Pacolet River

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