The patriot leaders at the Battle of Kings Mountain were of Irish, Scotch, Welsh, English, French, and German ancestry. Six militia colonels and two militia majors, who were in command of the eight detachments which surrounded the battle ridge, are selected for particular mention. The list includes Isaac Shelby, John Sevier, and William Campbell, without whom there would have been no expedition to Kings Mountain. Others of importance in the list are Benjamin Cleveland, Frederick Hambright, James Williams, Joseph McDowell, and Joseph Winston.
Col. Benjamin Cleveland was born May 26, 1738, near Bull Run (later of Civil War fame), in Prince William County, Va. As he grew to manhood, he received little if any education beyond the lessons that a hazardous life on the frontier could teach. Later, when he settled in Wilkes County, N. C., he is reputed to have been the equal, if not the superior, of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone as both hunter and Indian fighter.
His life was filled with adventures all of which added to the respect and admiration in which he was held by his friends. He despised the Tories and often showed his ruthlessness toward them. At Bickerstaff’s plantation, he is believed to have been most responsible for the hanging of 9 Tories after the Battle of Kings Mountain, and on other occasions he also displayed his familiarity with the use of the rope.
In later life, he served as a justice of Pendleton County Court, in the region of the Tugaloo River, near the western border of South Carolina. It has been reported by his associates, among them Gen. Andrew Pickens, that he frequently dozed on the bench and it often was necessary to awaken him when his snoring interfered with the court proceedings.
With the passage of years, Cleveland is said to have attained the impressive weight of 450 pounds. It was always a question, when he came as an overnight guest, whether this would prove too much for any bed in the house. His excessive weight became a source of considerable embarrassment and was partly the cause of his developing a case of dropsy, with which he suffered for a number of years before his death.
In October 1806, when he was in his 69th year, Cleveland died at the breakfast table. He was outlived by his wife, son, and two daughters. They buried him in the family burial ground on his old plantation, in the forks of the Tugaloo and Chauga Rivers.
Lt. Col. Frederick Hambright, who came with his parents from Germany to America at the age of 11, lived from 1727 to 1817. He is believed to have received a sound education that fitted him well for his activities in later life. About 1755 he moved from Lancaster County, Pa., to Virginia where he married Sarah Hardin. In 1760, he settled near the South Fork of the Catawba River in North Carolina.
As Hambright became immersed in the “American melting pot,” he took part in battles against the Indians and the British. He served also in the provincial congress of the State of North Carolina. The value of his services was recognized by promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel of militia.
This was the rank he held in 1780 when he received such a severe thigh wound in the action at Kings Mountain that he was forced to resign his commission. Finally, on March 9, 1817, at the age of 90, Hambright died on property he had purchased in later life in the vicinity of Kings Mountain. He is buried in the old Shiloh Presbyterian Church cemetery, not far from the present park boundary.
