From Azaleas to Zydeco: My 4,600-Mile Journey through the South

America’s First Civil War Battle

America’s First Civil War Battle Ileft the city behind. Besides the traffic, one of the problems of spending a few days in a metropolitan area is how quickly you lose connection with the land. Charlotte is part of the Piedmont, but traveling around in the center of the city, you lose appreciation of the area’s natural beauty. Once you leave the city’s tall buildings and concrete, the natural beauty of the Piedmont reintroduces itself with rolling green hills and azure sky. Soon I exited the interstate at the Kings Mountain Military Park exit. This National Park memorializes the Revolutionary War battle fought here. About three miles from the park is a restaurant located in a former convenience store—Ronda’s Kitchen—“Come Hungry and Leave Hooked.” Ronda’s has only five booths and two tables; they must do a great carry-out business. Late on a Saturday afternoon, a dozen or more people picked up carry-out orders, while only three booths housed diners. Ronda’s restaurant is a family operation. The owner’s wife, Ronda, handles the cash register. Their daughter is a waitress. And the ownerfather ’s job is to make sure everyone is happy. His job isn’t very difficult because the hamburgers are handmade, as are the onion rings. And the fried fish is good. The menu offers shrimp baskets—fantail shrimp, calabash shrimp, and green shrimp. I had never heard of shrimp with those names. Since I had been headed southwest for a while, I didn’t know how far Ronda’s 89 was from the coast. Leery of seafood dishes offered by inland restaurants, I questioned Ronda about her shrimp: Were they local shrimp? Georgia shrimp? Or were they from the Gulf? Really, were green shrimp actually green or just prepared that way? Inquiring minds wanted to know. Ronda was hazy about the origin of her shrimp, but she cheerfully assured me they were all prepared the same way—fried. Most important, the green shrimp didn’t start out or finish green. The only distinction between dishes was the size of the shrimp. The fantail shrimp were the smallest and the green were the largest, with calabash somewhere in between. I knew Ronda was giving me her best information so I ordered the green shrimp. Ronda then informed me they were out of green shrimp. I asked if she had any calabash. She said yes. So I settled on a basket of them. Ronda said it would be awhile before my order was ready, so I sat at one of the two tables. This was small-town America at its best. Everyone Ronda’s Kitchen near Kings Mountain 90 entered with a smile and said hello to everyone but me, the stranger. Everyone spoke with a soft Carolina lilt: “fiine jes fine—hi u doowin.” Familiar discussions centered mainly on who was hiring and the next day’s NASCAR race. Economic opportunities may be plentiful in the city but not so much here. The calabash shrimp basket came soon enough, and I directed my attention toward it. Afterward I needed to walk off the meal of calabash shrimp, french fries, and iced tea. Luckily, I was only minutes from the Military Park at Kings Mountain. The park has been in public ownership for over 100 years, and except for the paved road, there is no evidence of the twentieth century and little of the nineteenth. Don’t feel bad if you’re not familiar with the story of the Battle of Kings Mountain. It’s not as well known as Revolutionary War battles like Concord, Saratoga, and Valley Forge fought up north. But make no mistake, Kings Mountain was an important battle, a true turning point in the war. Many scholars consider it the single most important battle of the war. It stopped the British advance and started the series of events which led directly to the Red Coat surrender at Yorktown. Without the victory at Kings Mountain, the war could have gone in a decidedly different direction . The English could have sued for peace, content with keeping the southern colonies and retaining the output from their tobacco, cotton, rice, and indigo plantations. So there would have been no United States— just some Yankee states and Britain’s southern colonies. In the early years of the revolution, the War for Independence in the Carolinas had the feel of a...