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Historian: Overmountain Men’s march to Kings Mountain helped blunt British southern strategy
Summary
At Maryville College’s Witherspoon Lecture, historian Michael Lynch argued that frontier conditions, the homestead ethic and weak local authority explain why Overmountain Men mobilized sporadically but made a decisive contribution at Kings Mountain in 1780. He described the campaign, its aftermath, and answered audience questions about loyalist support and frontier clergy.
MARYVILLE, Tenn. — Historian Michael Lynch told a Maryville College audience that the Overmountain Men’s intervention in the Southern campaign of the American Revolution was decisive precisely because of the frontier conditions that usually kept them at home.
Lynch, director of the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, said three factors shaped frontier participation: that the frontier was a dangerous military border, a “homestead ethic” that prioritized family farms, and deeply tenuous authority on the frontier. “Most of these frontiersmen don’t necessarily want less government. They want better government and more responsive government that is gonna meet their needs,” Lynch said.
Those forces, Lynch said, help explain both why frontier militias sometimes rallied and…
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