THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of Union
County, Georgia
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
A Heritage of Patriotism
Our nation’s birthday is July 4. This year, 2010, marks the 234th
year since our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence and
continued
the struggle to gain freedom from England.
Since that time more than two centuries ago,
our nation has seen multiple threats to the freedoms we hold dear. We have a heritage of patriotism.
We are wrapped in colors of red, white and
blue, but the symbolism and the price of these colors is almost beyond
imagination. We hear it over and
over: “Freedom is never free.”
As we see “Old Glory” wave on the 4th
of July and raise our voices in strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,”
may the
colors of red, white and blue bring to remembrance the sacrifices of
many for
the cost of freedom. Long ago a wise man named Thomas Campbell wrote: “The Patriots’ blood is the seed of Freedom’s
tree.”
Several of those who had relatives
that later came to Union
County to settle
engaged
the enemy at the Battle of King’s Mountain during the Revolutionary War. This decisive fray occurred on October 7, 1780. The battle was a definite turning point for
the American Continental Army. After
defeats to the British and Tories (Americans loyal to the British
Crown) at the
fall of Charleston,
the Battle of Waxhaws, and Camden,
all occurring in South
Carolina
in the summer of 1780, the Overmountain Men entered the picture. Mountain militia men made up of settlers west
of the mountains in Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina rallied a
group that
marched “over the mountains” (hence the name “Overmountain Men”) to
Major
Patrick Ferguson’s stronghold at King’s Mountain. Ferguson,
a Tory leader, directed by British
General Charles, Earl of Cornwallis, had made the threat that they
would “lay
waste the countryside (of the frontier settlers) with fire and sword.”
The Overmountain Men would not give in
to such a threat from Ferguson
and Cornwallis. Instead of that
prediction coming true, the wiry mountain men made plans to thwart the
enemy. The patriots made a U-shaped
entrenchment around the mountain where the Tory and British forces were
ensconced. About 3 p. m. on October 7, 1780,
William
Campbell told his mountain men to attack.
Other flanks were led by John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, Benjamin
Cleveland
and other notable patriots under whom our ancestors served nobly.
At the end of the Battle of King’s
Mountain, 28 of the Patriots had been killed and 62 wounded. The battle’s toll on the Tory and British
side numbered 157 killed, 163 severely wounded and left on the field to
die,
and 698 captured. The King’s Mountain
Battle was a prelude to the final victory at Yorktown
a year later on October
17, 1781.
Revolutionary War soldier, John
Nicholson, whose grave is in the Pleasant Grove
Baptist Church Cemetery
in Union
County, fought at
one of the battles
before King’s Mountain. He was at the
Battle of Camden where General Gates of the British Army was defeated. His second major battle was at Guilford Court
House. Later he was with Colonel Sevier,
and may have been at King’s Mountain, although his record does not so
indicate.
Revolutionary War soldier Michael
Tanner, whose grave is in the Old Choestoe
Cemetery,
Union County, had the signal honor of
being at
Yorktown when General George
Washington
engineered the surrender of British General Cornwallis.
To have stood among the American allied
forces there, composed of 8,000 Continental Army troops, 3,000
militiamen (of
which Michael Tanner was one) and augmented by the 15,000 French
sailors who
blocked Cornwallis’s escape in the harbor, victory after long years of
struggle
became a reality.
Another ancestor to many of us, John
Henry Stonecypher, Jr., whose grave is at the Stonecypher Family
Cemetery, Eastanollee, Georgia, was a soldier at
the
famous battle of King’s Mountain. He
also fought at the Battle of Okimish at Beattie’s Ford on the Catawba River, at the Battle of Camden under
General Gates, and at
Guilford Court House. His three years of
Revolutionary War service were fraught with dangers, near-death, and
bravery
that we can hardly imagine.
We could multiply stories such as these
for any war for freedom in which America has engaged since
that day
of declaring America’s
independence in 1776. Today our battles
are more subtle and insidious. Just
yesterday I read a speech of a Dutch patriot who warned present-day
Americans
and Europeans of the creeping “take-over” by powerful forces that work
in
underhanded ways to malign freedom.
Edward R. Murrow, that famed American newscaster of the
twentieth
century stated, “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at
home.”
The adage often attributed to George
Washington, but stated also, in slightly different words by Thomas
Paine, John
Philpot Curran, Plato and others holds very true: “Eternal
vigilance is the price of freedom.”
In this season of our nation’s
birthday, I plan to think deeply and gratefully about the freedoms I
enjoy as
an American. I will not take freedom for
granted. My brother, Eugene Dyer, did
not take it for granted when he served as a gunner over Europe
during World War II and earned the purple heart and other distinguished
service
awards.
We are often more prone to criticize America
than to
stand firm for its principles of freedom and harmony.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche made a notable
observation when he stated “Freedom is the will to be responsible to
ourselves.”
When we salute our flag may we know
that the red represents the blood, war, love, power, intensity, energy,
passion
and strength it has taken to make and keep America free.
The blue represents peace, stability, harmony,
unity, trust, truth, order, loyalty and security of a strong nation. The white stands for reverence, purity,
humility and innocence America
had at the birth of our nation 234 years
ago. May we recognize, too, that it will
take far more than the idea to keep winning and maintaining freedom. Freedom must become a way of life for all of
us, responsible, wise and in-depth freedom not couched in selfishness
but in
harmony and giving, in vigilance and gratitude.
c2010 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published July 1, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
Updated June 17, 2018
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