Biography of Col. James Williams, 1740-1780, the highest ranking officer who died from wounds suffered at the Battle of Kings Mountain (October 7, 1780) during the American Revolutionary War.

In what is probably the fullest and most vivid extant account of the American Colonial frontier, The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution gives shape to the daily life, thoughts, hopes, and fears of the frontier people. It is set forth by one of the most extraordinary men who ever sought out the wilderness--Charles Woodmason, an Anglican minister whose moral earnestness and savage indignation, combined with a vehement style, make him worthy of comparison with Swift. The book consists of his journal, selections from the sermons he preached to his Backcountry congregations, and the letters he wrote to influential people in Charleston and England describing life on the frontier and arguing the cause of the frontier people. Woodmason's pleas are fervent and moving; his narrative and descriptive style is colorful to a degree attained by few writers in Colonial America.

Ten years before the start of the American Revolution, backcountry settlers in the North Carolina Piedmont launched their own defiant bid for economic independence and political liberty. The Regulator Rebellion of 1766-71 pitted thousands of farmers, many of them religious radicals inspired by the Great Awakening, against political and economic elites who opposed the Regulators' proposed reforms. The conflict culminated on May 16, 1771, when a colonial militia defeated more than 2,000 armed farmers in a pitched battle near Hillsborough. At least 6,000 Regulators and sympathizers were forced to swear their allegiance to the government as the victorious troops undertook a punitive march through Regulator settlements. Seven farmers were hanged. Using sources that include diaries, church minutes, legal papers, and the richly detailed accounts of the Regulators themselves, Marjoleine Kars delves deeply into the world and ideology of free rural colonists. She examines the rebellion's economic, religious, and political roots and explores its legacy in North Carolina and beyond. The compelling story of the Regulator Rebellion reveals just how sharply elite and popular notions of independence differed on the eve of the Revolution.

Through government documents, autobiographies, correspondence, this book presents a look at the Southern backcountry that engendered its role in the Revolutionary War; with attention to political, social, and military history.

This book describes the events that led to the climax and eventual demise of the British campaign of the Revolutionary War, when relatively small armies of men waged a ferocious series of battles in the southern theater. The introductory chapter presents the British and Hessian employment of the 18th-century European method of warfare and the ways it contrasted with the colonial army's diverse and constantly changing fighting styles. The subsequent nine chapters detail the principal military efforts of the British in the south, their capture of seaports, movement in the back country, and the critical winter campaign of 1780-81. This almost forgotten campaign and its trilogy of intense clashes at Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and Guilford Court House proved pivotal to American independence.

Updated for the first time in ten years, the "bible of Eastern backcountry skiing" returns with an all-new edition, fully revised to reflect the latest and greatest off-piste lines--as well as the trove of newly created and rehabilitated ski glades in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, New York, and Massachusetts.

This book describes the turbulent transformation of South Carolina from a colony rent by sectional conflict into a state dominated by the South's most unified and politically powerful planter leadership. Rachel Klein unravels the sources of conflict and growing unity, showing how a deep commitment to slavery enabled leaders from both low- and backcountry to define the terms of political and ideological compromise. The spread of cotton into the backcountry, often invoked as the reason for South Carolina's political unification, actually concluded a complex struggle for power and legitimacy. Beginning with the Regulator Uprising of the 1760s, Klein demonstrates how backcountry leaders both gained authority among yeoman constituents and assumed a powerful role within state government. By defining slavery as the natural extension of familial inequality, backcountry ministers strengthened the planter class. At the same time, evangelical religion, like the backcountry's dominant political language, expressed yet contained the persisting tensions between planters and yeomen. Klein weaves social, political, and religious history into a formidable account of planter class formation and southern frontier development.

This work documents the impact that the Great Awakening had on the inhabitants of colonial America’s Southern Backcountry. Special emphasis is placed on how this religious revival furrowed the ground on which the seeds of the American Revolution would sprout. The investigation shows how the Great Awakening can be traced to the Europe’s Age of Enlightenment. This effort also demonstrates how and why this revival spread so rapidly throughout the colonies. Special focus is placed on how the Great Awakening impacted the mindset of colonists of the Southern Backcountry. Most significantly, this research demonstrates how this 18thcentury revival not only cultivated a sense of American national identity, but how it also fostered a colonial mindset against established authority which, in turn, facilitated the success of the American Revolution. Additionally, this investigation will document (from a cross-cultural perspective) how religious revivals have fueled other revolutionary movements around the world. Such analysis will include the Celtic Druid Revolt, the Maji-Maji Rebellion of East Africa along with the Mad Man’s War in Southeast Asia. Lastly, the ethical ramifications of minimizing (or denying) the role that religion played in political and social transformations around the world will be addressed. This final point is of paramount importance given current trend in academia to minimize the role that religion played in spurring revolutions while emphasizing material (i.e. economic) causal factors. This attempt at divorcing religion from history is misguided and unethical because it is not only misleading but it also fails to fully acknowledge the beliefs and values that motivated individuals to take certain actions in the first place.

The fascinating biography of one of America's little known heroes in its struggle for independence from England as fought in the Carolina backcountry.