Isaac Shelby – Emerging Revolutionary War Era

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Tom Elmore.

Throughout history many battles have been decided by little things, sometimes even before the battle. This is true of the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina whose outcome was influenced by a little-known battle about thirty miles away on July 26, 1780, at Fort Thicketty in modern-day Cherokee County, S.C.

The fort was built circa 1769 when local farmer David Anderson converted his barn into a blockhouse outpost. Originally called Fort Anderson, it became known as Fort Thicketty (or Thicketty Fort) after a near-by creek that had unusually thick vegetation along its banks. Though the fort was intended to defend the area population from hostile Native Americans, it mainly saw action against outlaw gangs.[i]

In early June 1780, the fort was occupied by Captain Patrick Moore and his Loyalist followers. Moore was born in Virginia in 1750. Since 1768 he had lived about a mile southwest of the fort along Thicketty Creek. He was described as a fierce, intimidating man who stood six foot seven.^[ii]

Moore’s men used the fort as a base of operations for raiding Patriot’s homes and farms. One historian described his men as “politically neither British nor American. They were simply robbers…preying upon defenseless women and children.” Another historian noted that “[Fort Thicketty] became a great place of resort and protection for Tory parties. They would sally forth and plunder Whig families in every direction – so that women and children were often left without clothing, shoes, bread, meat, or salt.” ^{^[iii]}

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Entry to Traveler’s Rest. (Author Photo)

The American Revolution in the east has its share of founding fathers while war in the west has its share of legendary characters. Few could claim to be both. Isaac Shelby was born in western Maryland in 1750 and migrated with his family farther south and west in 1770, near Bristol Tennessee. Shelby in Lord Dunmore’s War and became a surveyor for North Carolinian Richard Henderson’s Transylvania Company, created to secure land west of the Appalachians just before the American Revolution. (Daniel Boone was the best known of Henderson’s surveyors).

When the Revolution broke out, Shelby served first with the Virginians and then accepted roles handling logistics for Virginians, Continentals, and North Carolinian units operating along the frontier. Organizational structures were fluid along the Appalachians, more often centered around communities and available manpower than formal state boundaries, and Shelby participated in a variety of actions against British and Loyalist forces in North and South Carolina. The personal nature of the partisan conflict eventually led Shelby and others on the frontier, including John Sevier, to organize the so-called “Overmountain Men” in a pursuit of Loyalists led by British Major Patrick Ferguson. The two sides eventually clashed in the Battle of King’s Mountain, a resounding victory for American forces in October 1780.

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Emerging Revolutionary War Era

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The “Battle” of Fort Thicketty