Even after Ferguson was severely wounded and had three horses shot from under him, he continued to fight on, and animate his men by his example and unyielding courage—­“extricate himself, he could not, and surrender, he would not,” although requested to do so, near the close of the action by Captain De Peyster, his second in command.  At length he received a fatal shot in the breast, which closed his earthly career forever.

Captain De Peyster then look command, and immediately ordered a white flag to be raised in token of surrender.  The firing however did not entirely cease until Cols.  Shelby and Sevier went inside the lines and ordered the men to desist.  The Whigs were still greatly exasperated when they called to remembrance Tarleton’s cruelty at Buford’s defeat, where no quarter was given.  The victory was complete, and reanimated the Whigs throughout the whole country.  The Tory element of western Carolina, before strong and menacing, was broken up and greatly humbled, and Cornwallis himself when he received intelligence of the battle and its result, became so seriously alarmed at his perilous situation in a land of assailing hornets, that he suddenly decamped from Charlotte to safer quarters at Winnsboro, South Carolina.

According to the official statement furnished to Gen. Gates, encamped at Hillsboro, and signed by Colonels Campbell, Shelby and Cleaveland, the enemy sustained the following loss: 

“Of the regulars, one major, one captain, two Lieutenants and fifteen privates killed, thirty-five privates wounded and left on the ground not able to march; two captains, four lieutenants, three ensigns, one surgeon, five sergeants, three corporals, one drummer and fifty-nine privates taken prisoners.

“Loss of the Tories, two colonels, three captains and two hundred privates killed; one major, and one hundred and twenty-seven privates wounded and left on the ground not able to march; one colonel, twelve captains, eleven lieutenants, two ensigns, one quarter-master, one adjutant, two commissaries, eighteen sergeants and six hundred privates taken prisoners.

     “Total loss of the enemy eleven hundred and five men at
     King’s Mountain.”

The loss on the Whig side was, one colonel, one major, one captain, two lieutenants, four ensigns, and nineteen privates killed, one major, three captains, three lieutenants, and fifty-three privates wounded.  Total Whig casualties, twenty-eight killed and sixty wounded.  Of the latter, upwards of twenty died of their wounds, making the entire Whig loss about fifty men.

The victory of King’s Mountain was the “turning point of the fortunes of America,” and foreshadowed more clearly than ever before, final success.