# Talk:Battle of Kings Mountain

I noticed that in this article, American troops are referred to as Patriots. While it is generally accepted that the term for the Americans revolting against the British be called Patriots to discriminate from the Americans who were loyal to the crown, is this not a violation of POV? In nearly every other article, battles in which Americans won are simply called American victories. Conversely in battles which Loyalist militia won, it is not called a Tory victory, but Loyalist victory. Should "Patriot" in articles be altered to American? It also saves confusion amongst people who don't know much about this era; they may view Patriot as another faction. (Trip Johnson (talk) 15:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC))

We had this discussion during my FA nom of Isaac Shelby, who was ironically one of the major players in this battle. As you can see, I made the decision there to change "patriot" to "colonist", although "revolutionary" was also suggested. I might suggest consulting a user who specializes in this period of history. (Kevin Myers comes to mind.) Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 16:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Not every Colonist rebelled though. Hmm, this could open a bag of worms --AW (talk) 17:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
"Colonist", as the user above notes correctly, isn't appropriate.  Neither is "American", since all the troops in the battle but Ferguson were Americans.  So it's "Patriot" or "Rebel", with "Loyalist" or "Tory" to describe those loyal to George III.  I have read many books about the Revolution and "Patriot" is exclusively used to refer to those Americans fighting for independence. Vidor (talk) 06:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

note the dictionary definitions: The Oxford English Dictionary" #3 definition of "Patriot" is "A person actively opposing enemy forces occupying his or her country; a member of a resistance movement, a freedom fighter.  Originally used of those who opposed and fought the British in the American War of Independence." Rjensen (talk) 04:34, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
this article apparently hasn’t received any attention for more than a decade. The issue of terminology remains. Patriot and Loyalist have become established. However, it would be incorrect to refer to American Patriots because the Loyalists were also Americans, and they probably considered themselves to be patriotic as well. However, I am not going to change every occurrence of American Patriot without some discussion. What do you think?
This will probably be open for another 10 years Humphrey Tribble (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

In general, the terms "Patriot" and "Loyalist" are both understood to refer to people residing in America. It's not inaccurate to say "American Patriots", although the "American" part is not necessary. It gets more complicated if the term "American Loyalists" is used, but that term is not used in the article. I don't have a problem with changing "American Patriot" to "Patriot" because it is not incorrect.  Encyclopædia Britannica uses the terms "American" and "loyalist". The number of possible terms is substantial. We don't need to be splitting hairs about whether Loyalists were patriotic (patriotic to whom, Great Britain or the future United States??). We should stay with the commonly used terminology, "Patriots" and "Loyalists", to avoid confusion. This is an encyclopedia article, not a dissertation. This wouldn't necessarily apply to other articles about battles of the American Revolution because many of them involved British troops (with or without Loyalists). Note that when this article achieved Good Article status in October 2010, the term "American Patriot" was not used, just "Patriot". Someone unilaterally decided to insert "American". That's a good enough reason to keep it just "Patriot". Sundayclose (talk) 17:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Lieutenant Anthony Allaire..."endured the forced march and mistreatment of prisoners."
What mistreatment did he receive? His diary states that he went through some marching but makes no complaint of real prisoner mistreatment that I have found. His complaints that I did find are:

p. 510 entry for Thursday, 12th. "Those villains divided our baggage, although they had promised on their word we should have it all."
Friday 13th, "In the evening their liberality extended so far as to send five old shirts to nine of us, as a change of linen — other things in like proportion."
p. 511 Sunday 15th, "All the men were worn out with fatigue and fasting — the prisoners having no bread or meat for two days before. We officers were allowed to go to Col. McDowell's, where we lodged comfortably."
The longest anyone seems to have been without some food is two days which contrasts sharply from what is stated in the article that they came close to starvation. It doesn't appear to have applied to officers anyway. I don't see any mistreatment really. Quite the contrary, he and others get credit for good behavior and are given incredible liberties.

Sunday, 22d. "Obtained liberty to go forward with Col. Shelby to Salem, a town inhabited by Moravians. Rode ten miles, and forded Yadkin river at Shallow Ford. Proceeded on fourteen miles farther to Salem. Went to meeting in the evening; highly entertained with the decency of those people, and with their music. Salem contains about twenty houses, and a place of worship. The people of this town are all mechanics ; those of the other two Moravian settlements are all farmers, and all stanch friends to Government."
Monday, 23d. "One Mr. Simons, a Lieutenant of Col. Washington's dragoons, was exceeding polite..."
"Tuesday, 24th. Moved at ten o'clock in the morning ; marched six miles to the old town called Bethabara. Here we joined the camp again. This town is about as large as the other ; but not so regularly laid out. The inhabitants very kind to all the prisoners. This night Dr. Johnson and 1 were disturbed by a Capt. Campbell, who came into our room, and ordered us up in a most peremptory manner. He wanted our bed. 1 was obliged to go to Col. Campbell, and wake him to get the ruffian turned out of the room ; otherwise he would have murdered us, having his sword drawn, and strutting about with it in a truly cowardly manner."
"Wednesday, 25th. The men of our detachment, on Capt. DePeyster passing his word for their good behavior, were permitted to go into houses in the town without a guard."
That's it. He complains about not getting enough clean shirts and not being given all of their baggage and almost having a bed taken from him. Most of the entries show that he was doing pretty well and lodging in homes.
I placed "alleged" and I left a citation needed tag in case someone could point out where he claims to have been mistreated. I don't see it. My actions were misinterpreted. I am removing the uncited portion with rewording that may resolve this. 71.31.110.150 (talk) 02:40, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

In the process of bringing the coordinates in line with the guidance at WP:OPCOORD, I discovered that the coordinates pointed to a random spot about 1.75 miles away from the battlefield, and outside the Kings Mountain National Military Park. Given that this is the only thing I checked, one wonders how many other factual errors there are in this alleged "Good Article", let alone any other problems with the six Good Article criteria? I'm thinking in particular of criterion 4.  Abductive (reasoning) 06:29, 7 October 2025 (UTC)