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The cast of “Liberty Mountain: The Revolutionary Drama” celebrates a performance. The show is performed each fall at the Joy Performance Center in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.
Photo by Matthew Franklin Carter
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Jeremy Homesley, the play’s director, also played the “villain,” British Major Patrick Ferguson in the most recent run of the drama.
Photo by Matthew Franklin Carter
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"Liberty Mountain” reenacts fighting between British Loyalists and the Overmountain Men in the Revolutionary War Battle of Kings Mountain.
Photo by Matthew Franklin Carter
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P.J. Barnes plays the role of Silas Martin, the patriarch of a fictional family at the heart of the “Liberty Mountain” story. Photo by Matthew Franklin Carter
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In the dressing room, Samantha Harris (top left), Tish Merrill (top right) and Macrina Cloutier work on styling hair.
Photo by Matthew Franklin Carter
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Actor Joshua Peterson straightens his cravat as Brandon Pendley looks on.
Photo by Matthew Franklin Carter
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A cast and crew of 35 made up the 2024 run of “Liberty Mountain,” including, from left, Joshua Peterson, P.J. Barnes, Ian Lee and Phoenix Ferris.
In the stillness of an autumn afternoon, there are the sounds of the woods, but also something more. A near-silent shuffle of feet, the harried breath of a soldier moving fast. He flinches when the sound of a gunshot fills the space just off his shoulder.
There’s a yelp, a scream, another flash of gunfire and the smell of black powder. British Loyalists, armed with their muskets, emerge while the Overmountain Men and their long rifles take the mountain. More gunshots. A metallic clash of bayonets. Cries for mercy. Calls for “mother” from the lips of those who lie dying.
The Battle of Kings Mountain was a brief moment in time—less than an hour, really—but Oct. 7, 1780, proved to be a turning point in the Revolutionary War.
“If it were not for the Battle of Kings Mountain, we might be still singing today ‘God Save the King.’ I’ve got nothing against the king, but I’d much rather be singing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’” says Robert Inman, who penned the play “Liberty Mountain: The Revolutionary Drama.”
It’s a story told each year in a small theater in a small town that straddles the border between North and South Carolina, no more than 9 miles from where the battle took place on an elevated ridge in present-day Cherokee County.
Turning the tide
In the summer of 1780, with the war at a stalemate in New England after five expensive and wearisome years, King George III directed his military to invade South Carolina. The British captured Charleston and drove north, tapping into an outpouring of Loyalists. Another victory followed at Camden, and soon after, the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, captured Charlotte.
“The British were winning,” Inman says. “Their plan was to conquer the South and march north and squeeze (Continental Army Gen. George) Washington between the forces in the South and those in New York and defeat his army and end the revolution. And they were well on the way to doing that.”
On Cornwallis’ flank was British Major Patrick Ferguson and his militia of 1,000 Loyalists. He perceived his greatest threat to be the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in the Appalachian Mountains and foothills. He told the settlers to “lay down your arms and swear allegiance to the king, or I will cross the mountains, hang your leaders and lay waste to your country with fire and sword.”
The ultimatum would be Ferguson’s fatal mistake.
A group of 900 Patriots—mostly frontiersmen—quickly organized and soon found themselves at Kings Mountain, where Ferguson defended the high ground. But the backwoodsmen used trees and rocks as cover as they fought uphill, their long rifles steadily picking off the Loyalists. Much of the battle was savage hand-to-hand combat. In the end, 680 Loyalists were captured, 163 wounded and 290, including Ferguson, killed. The Patriots lost 28 men.
The battle stopped the British advancement. Cornwallis retreated, and just over a year later, on Oct. 19, 1781, the war ended with his surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.
“Kings Mountain turned the whole thing around,” says Inman, whose ancestor is Col. James Williams, a South Carolinian who commanded a force of Patriots and died in the battle. Inman says it’s important for the story to be both entertaining and historically accurate.
“And I think, over 10 years of doing this play, we’ve accomplished that,” says Inman, who praises the “Liberty Mountain” cast and crew of 35. “All I’ve given them is some words on paper, and what they do is take those words and make magic. And they really, really do.”
Behind the curtain
Showtime is in less than 30 minutes, and backstage, voices drift from the women’s dressing room, singing in harmony. A table holding props—a cast-iron skillet, a brass trumpet—is next to a near-empty Gatorade bottle. Nearby hangs an erasable board, and someone’s written, “Don’t be angry. Worry less.”
Director Jeremy Homesley chomps on an apple as he checks his watch to communicate with his fellow actors. Homesley has been in all eight seasons of the production, bouncing from the villain to the hero. This year, he is Ferguson—the villain, a role he relishes.
“The other night, I got a cheer when I got shot,” he says. “When I got backstage, several of the actors were like, ‘We’re so sorry they did that.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about? That’s the best reaction I could get.’ I did my job right if they cheer when I get shot.”
Standing nearby is P.J. Barnes, who stars as Silas Martin, the patriarch of a fictional family at the heart of the story. A married father of three, Barnes relates to Silas’ need to protect his family amid life’s obstacles—fleeing Ireland, living in the woods, the death of an infant daughter, and a son bound and determined to go to war.
“I try to ground myself in that character,” he says. But there is one difference: Barnes is an African American playing the role of a Scotch-Irish immigrant.
“I look a little different from everybody onstage, but after the first few moments of the scene, you realize (I’m) just another guy up there,” Barnes says. “It’s no big deal. I don’t have to come out here and play a slave. I can play a real person who is going through real things. You get to see the humanity of a family. People of all races and creeds can all relate to humanity.”
There’s nothing quite like community theater, says Mary Grace Keller, a board member with the Kings Mountain Little Theatre, which hosts “Liberty Mountain” each fall at its Joy Performance Center.
“The arts are very important in your own personal learning and growing. It’s made me who I am today,” says Keller, who is a CPA and owns an accounting firm in Kings Mountain with her father. “I used to be so shy I wouldn’t talk to anybody. I got into theater, and it made me human.”
“Liberty Mountain” draws more than 3,000 people each year from as many as 28 states, says Jim Champion, a member of the Kings Mountain Little Theatre since 1971 and is its current general manager. He says there is no plan for a final curtain on the play that premiered in 2014.
“Hopefully, we’ll turn it over to a new generation,” Champion says. “I’d like to see us get to the 250th anniversary (of the battle) in 2030.”
Keeping history alive
Homesley is part of the new theater generation that Champion speaks of. He has been a part of “Liberty Mountain” since the show opened, and he’s been doing theater since the third grade.
Years ago, he was working in a fabric warehouse five minutes from Kings Mountain Little Theatre when folks from the theater stopped in to buy fabric for costumes. Someone mentioned it was the last night of auditions for a new Revolutionary War play.
“I was pretty much done with theater at that point,” Homesley said. “But I auditioned and got the part, and that kind of set everything else in motion. I was 27 and had a rebirth.”
He’d meet and eventually propose to his wife, Ashley DeMar, on the “Liberty Mountain” stage. She stars as Priscilla Martin and is his assistant and music director.
Homesley has acted in and directed other regional plays and has hopes of producing, in the next year, a screenplay he’s written. Still, “Liberty Mountain” is his home.
It’s his hope that the drama becomes an educational supplement for schools in the area. He’s written lesson plans and activities that he shares with teachers, and this year, they held nine shows just for schoolchildren.
“I see young people come here, and they learn about the battle for the first time,” Homesley says. He tells of being 12 years old and taking part in a Civil War reenactment in Carthage, North Carolina.
“I was the happiest kid in the world,” he says with a smile. “When I went to that reenactment, it became real. I could smell the smoke. I could see the canvas tents. I want to make that possible for young people in our schools who right now don’t think they like to read. They just haven’t had that real-life experience, that companion.”
Keller agrees.
“We need to keep that history alive and teach it to the younger generation so that they know this history. We wouldn’t be standing here with the freedoms we have if it wasn’t for those men.”
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Get there
“Liberty Mountain: The Revolutionary Drama” is held each fall at the Joy Performance Center in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. For more information, visit libertymountaindrama.com or call (704) 730-9408.