Painter takes on North Carolina Battle

An influential Carolinas Revolutionary War battle may soon have a fresh perspective on canvas.

Kentucky painter Richard Luce has joined re-enactors on the Overmountain Victory Trail as they recreate the 1780 march that led to the Battle of Kings Mountain.

A militia of mountain frontiersmen worked their way from Virginia to North Carolina to defeat British troops and help set up the final American victory at Yorktown.

Luce intends to do a series of battle paintings and is taking photos and making notes of the re-enactment as part of his research.

He told the Kingsport (Tennessee) Times-News during a stop in Bluff City, Tennessee, last week that the re-enactors help him gather “magic moments” of action and emotion.

He hopes his trip with the Overmountain Men will lead to a series of paintings about the battle.

“I hope to make this a national campaign to spread the story,” he said. “It's a great story that needs to be told.”

British Gen. Henry Clinton called the campaign “the first chain of evils that … ended in the loss of America.” Thomas Jefferson described it as “the turn of the tide of success.”