march and in camp. But the most important use was in battle. Both
the drum and the fife conveyed signals and orders over the din and
confusion far better than the human voice. This iron fife is an
original 18th-century instrument. The drum, according to tradition,
was carried in the war.]
With these regulars marched another company of light infantry whose
memories were not so grand—the green-coated men of the Prince of Wales
Loyal American Volunteers. Northern loyalists, they had been in the war
since 1777. They had seen little fighting until they sailed south in
1780. After the fall of Charleston, Cornwallis had divided them into
detachments and used them to garrison small posts, with disastrous
results. In August 1780 at Hanging Rock, Sumter had attacked one
detachment, virtually annihilating it. The colonel of the regiment was
cashiered for cowardice. Another detachment was mauled by Francis Marion
at Great Savannah around the same time. It was hardly a brilliant
record. But this company of light infantry, supposedly the boldest and
best of the regiment, might be eager to seek revenge for their lost
comrades.
Tarleton’s Legion
Tarleton gave the Carolinas a foretaste of modern war. His Legion was
a fast-moving, hard-hitting combat team, accounted the best in the
British army at that stage of the war. Its specialty was relentless
pursuit followed by all-out attack. In Tarleton’s hands, the Legion
became a weapon of terror directed at civilian and soldier alike. As
in modern war, this tactic spawned as much partisan resistance as fear
and was ultimately self-defeating.
The figures across these pages represent the main units of the cooly
efficient battle machine that Tarleton led onto the field that winter
day.
[Illustration: 17th Dragoons • Private, 16th Light Infantry • Legion
cavalry • Private, 7th Fusiliers • Royal Artillery • Private, 71st
Highlanders]
Behind the light infantry marched the first battalion of the Royal
Fusiliers of the 7th Regiment. This was one of the oldest regiments in
the British army, with a proud history that went back to 1685. Known as
the “City of London” regiment, it had been in America since 1773. A
detachment played a vital part in repulsing the December 31, 1775,
attack on Quebec, which wrecked American plans to make Canada the 14th
State. Among the 426 Americans captured was Daniel Morgan. Few if any of
the men in Tarleton’s ranks had been in that fight. The 167-man
battalion were all new recruits. When they arrived in Charleston early
in December, the British commander there had described them to
Cornwallis as “so bad, not above a third can possibly move with a
regiment.”
The British government was having problems recruiting men for America.
It had never been easy to persuade Englishmen to join the army and
endure its harsh discipline and low pay. Now, with the war in America
growing more and more unpopular, army recruiters were scouring the jails
and city slums. Cornwallis had decided to use these new recruits as
garrison troops at Ninety Six. Tarleton, as we have seen earlier, had
borrowed them for his pursuit. Although the 7th’s motto was _Nec aspera
terrent_ (“hardships do not frighten us”), it must have been an
unnerving experience for these men, little more than a month after a
long, debilitating sea voyage, to find themselves deep in the backwoods
of South Carolina, marching through the cold, wet darkness to their
first battle.
Undoubtedly worsening the Fusiliers’ morale was the low opinion their
officers had of Banastre Tarleton. The commander of the regiment, Maj.
Timothy Newmarsh, had stopped at a country house for the night about a
week ago, during the early stage of the pursuit, and had not been
discreet in voicing his fears for the safety of the expedition. He said
he was certain they would be defeated, because almost every officer in
the army detested Tarleton, who had been promoted over the heads of men
who had been in the service before he was born.
Behind the Royal Fusiliers trudged a 200-man battalion of the 71st
Scottish Highlanders (Fraser’s), who probably did not find the night
march through the woods as forbidding as the city men of the Fusiliers.
At least half were relatively new recruits who had arrived in America
little more than a year ago. The rest were veterans who had been
campaigning in the rebellious colonies since 1776. They had sailed south
to help the British capture Georgia in 1778 and had fought well in one
of the most devastating royal victories of the southern campaign, the
rout of the Americans at Briar Creek, Ga., in early 1779. They were
commanded by Maj. Archibald McArthur, a tough veteran who had served
with the Scottish Brigade in the Dutch army, considered one of the
finest groups of fighting men in Europe.
Between the 71st and the 7th Regiments plodded some 18 blue-coated royal
artillerymen, leading horses carrying two brass cannon and 60 rounds of
round shot and case shot (also known as canister because each “case” was
full of smaller bullet-size projectiles that scattered in flight). These
light guns were considered an important innovation when they were
introduced into the British army in 1775. Because they could be
dismantled and carried on horses, they could be moved over rough terrain
impassable to ordinary artillery with its cumbersome ammunition wagons.
The two guns Tarleton had with him could also be fitted with shafts that
enabled four men to carry them around a battlefield, if the ground was
too muddy or rough for their carriages. With the shafts, they resembled
grasshoppers, and this was what artillerymen, fond of nicknames for
their guns, called them.
The cannon added to Tarleton’s confidence. They could hurl a 3-pound
round shot almost 1,000 yards. There was little likelihood that Morgan
had any artillery with him. All the southern army’s artillery had been
captured at Camden. These guns with Tarleton may have been two of the
captured pieces, which had originally been captured from the British at
Saratoga in 1777.
John Eager Howard, Citizen-soldier
[Illustration: John Eager Howard]
Few field officers served the Continental Army with greater skill or
devotion to duty than John Eager Howard. When the revolution broke
out, he was 23, the son of a landed Maryland family, brought up in an
atmosphere of ease and comfort. He saw his first hostile fire as a
captain of militia at White Plains (1776). The next year, as a major
in the regulars, he helped lead the 4th Maryland at Germantown. In the
Southern Campaign of 1780-81, regiments he led fought with great
courage at Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirks Hill, and
Eutaw Springs. Nathanael Greene considered Howard “as good an officer
as the world affords.” After the war, ‘Light-Horse Harry’ Lee
described Howard as “always to be found where the battle raged,
pressing into close action to wrestle with fixed bayonet.”
[Illustration: The silver medal awarded by Congress to Howard for
service at Cowpens.]
[Illustration: J E Howard]
[Illustration: Belvidere, the elegant estate that John Eager Howard
built after the Revolution, stood in what is now downtown Baltimore.
It was torn down a century ago and the land is now occupied by row
houses.]
Behind the infantry and artillery rode the cavalry of the British Legion
and a 50-man troop of the 17th Light Dragoons, giving Tarleton about 350
horsemen. In scabbards dangling from straps over their shoulders were
the fearsome sabers that could lop off a man’s arm with a single stroke.
The Legion cavalry were, relatively speaking, amateurs, with only their
courage and belief in their cause to animate them. The 17th Dragoons
were regulars to the core, intensely proud of their long tradition. On
their brass helmets they wore a death’s head and below it a scroll with
the words “or glory.” They and their officers were somewhat disdainful
of the British Legion.
[Illustration: A helmet of the 17th Light Dragoons, c. 1780.]
Although their reputation among the patriots was good, the Legion had
several times exhibited cowardice unthinkable to a 17th dragoon. When
the British army advanced into Charlotte in the fall of 1780, they had
been opposed by 75 or 80 back-country riflemen. Tarleton was ill with
yellow fever and his second in command, Maj. George Hanger, had ordered
them to charge the Americans. The Legion refused to budge. Not even the
exhortations of Cornwallis himself stirred them until infantry had
dislodged the riflemen from cover. They apparently remembered the
punishment they had taken at Blackstocks, when Tarleton’s orders had
exposed them to sharpshooters.
As dawn began turning the black night sky to charcoal gray, Tarleton
ordered a select group of cavalry to the front of his infantry. They
soon collided with American scouts on horseback and captured two of
them. These captives told them that Morgan and his men were only a few
miles away. Tarleton immediately ordered two troops of the Legion
cavalry, under one of his best officers, Capt. David Ogilvie, to
reinforce his vanguard. Ogilvie galloped into the murky dawn. Within a
half hour, one of his troopers came racing back with unexpected news.
The patriots were not retreating! They were drawn up in an open wood in
battle formation.
Tarleton halted his army and summoned his loyalist guides. They
instantly recognized the place where Morgan had chosen to fight—the
Cowpens. It was familiar to everyone who had visited or lived in the
South Carolina back country. They gave Tarleton a detailed description
of the battleground. The woods were open and free from swamps. The Broad
River was about six miles away.
The ground, Tarleton decided, was made to order for the rebels’
destruction. In fact, America could not produce a place more suitable to
his style of war. His bloodhound instinct dominant, Banastre Tarleton
assumed that Morgan, having run away from him for two days, was still
only trying to check his advance and gain time to retreat over the Broad
River. Morgan failed to stop him at the Pacolet. He would fail even more
disastrously here. With six miles of open country in the Americans’
rear, Tarleton looked forward to smashing Morgan’s ranks with an
infantry attack and then unleashing his Legion horsemen to hunt down the
fleeing survivors. Tarleton never dreamt that Daniel Morgan was planning
to fight to the finish.
7
While Tarleton’s troops spent most of the night marching along the
twisting, dipping Green River Road, Daniel Morgan’s men had been resting
at Cowpens and listening to their general’s battle plan. First Morgan
outlined it for his officers, then he went from campfire to campfire
explaining it to his men.
The plan was based on the terrain at Cowpens and on the knowledge of
Tarleton’s battle tactics that Morgan had from such friends as Richard
Winn. Morgan probably told his men what he repeated in later years—he
expected nothing from Tarleton but “downright fighting.” The young
Englishman was going to come straight at them in an all-out charge.
To repel that charge, Morgan adopted tactics he had himself helped
design at Saratoga. There was a similarity between the little army he
commanded at Cowpens and the men he led in northern New York. Like his
old rifle corps, his militia were crack shots. But they could not stand
up against a British bayonet charge. It took too long to load and fire a
rifle, and it was not equipped with a bayonet.
He had complete confidence in his Continentals. No regiment in the
British army had a prouder tradition than these men from Maryland and
Delaware. They and their comrades in arms had demonstrated their heroism
on a dozen battlefields. Above all, Morgan trusted their commander, Lt.
Col. John Eager Howard of Maryland. At the battle of Germantown in 1777,
he had led his 4th Maryland Regiment in a headlong charge that drove the
British light infantry in panicky flight from their battle line back to
their tents. After the American defeat at Camden, Howard had rounded up
the survivors of his own and other regiments and led them on a three-day
march to Charlotte through swamps and forests to elude British pursuit.
Someone asked what they had to eat during that time. “Some peaches,”
Howard said.
[Illustration: An American canteen of the type used by militia at
Cowpens.]
Morgan was equally sure of the steadiness of the ex-Continentals who
made up the bulk of his two companies of Virginia six-months militiamen.
He told them that he was going to station them on either side of the
Maryland and Delaware regulars, on the first crest of the almost
invisibly rising slope that constituted Cowpens. A professional soldier
would consider this the “military crest” because it was the high ground
from which the best defense could be made. Behind this crest, the land
sloped off to a slight hollow, and then rose to another slightly higher
hump of earth, which was the geographical crest of the battleground.
Here Morgan planned to post William Washington and his 80 dragoons. To
make them more of a match for Tarleton’s 300 horsemen, he called for
volunteers to serve with Washington. About 40 men stepped forward, led
by Andrew Pickens’ friend, James McCall. Morgan gave them sabers and
told them to obey Washington’s orders.
There was nothing unusual or brilliant about this part of Morgan’s
battle plan. It was simply good sense and good tactics to select the
most advantageous ground for his infantry and keep Washington’s cavalry
out of the immediate reach of Tarleton’s far more numerous horsemen. It
was in his plan for the militia that Morgan demonstrated his genius. At
Camden, Horatio Gates had tried to use the militia as if they were
regulars, positioning them in his battle line side by side with the
Continentals. They swiftly demonstrated that they could not withstand a
British bayonet charge.
Morgan decided that he would use his militia in a different way. He put
the backwoodsmen under the command of Andrew Pickens and carefully
explained what he wanted them to do. They were going to form a line
about 150 yards ahead of Howard and the Continentals. They were to hold
their fire until the British were within “killing distance.” They were
to get off two or three shots and retreat behind the Continentals, who
would carry on the battle while the militiamen re-formed and came back
into the fight on the British flanks.
A select group of riflemen, considered the best shots in the army, were
to advance another hundred yards on both sides of the Green River Road
and begin skirmishing with the British as soon as they appeared. This
was the tactic Sumter had used at Blackstocks to tempt Tarleton into a
reckless charge, and it had cost the British heavy casualties.
His plan complete, Morgan did not retire to his tent, in the style of
more autocratic generals, and await the moment of battle. He understood
the importance of personal leadership. Above all, he knew how to talk to
the militia. He was a man of the frontier, like them. Although he was
crippled from his sciatica, he limped from group to group while they
cooked their suppers and smoked their pipes, telling them how sure he
was that they could whip “Benny.” Sixteen-year-old Thomas Young was
among the cavalry volunteers. He remembered how Morgan helped them to
fix their sabers, joked with them about their sweethearts, told them to
keep up their courage and victory was certain.
“Long after I laid down,” Young recalled, “he was going among the
soldiers encouraging them and telling them that the ‘Old Wagoner’ would
crack his whip over Ben in the morning, as sure as they lived.”
“Just hold up your heads, boys, give them three fires, and you will be
free,” Morgan told them. “Then when you return to your homes, how the
old folks will bless you, and the girls will kiss you.” “I don’t believe
that he slept a wink that night,” Young said later.
Many of these young militiamen had something else to motivate them—a
fierce resentment of the way the British and loyalists had abused, and
in some cases killed, their friends and relatives. Thomas Young’s
brother, John, had been shot down in the spring of 1780 when loyalist
militia attacked the Youngs’ regiment. “I do not believe I had ever used
an oath before that day,” Young said. “But then I tore open my bosom and
swore that I would never rest until I had avenged his death.”
[Illustration: A powder horn and linstock like these were essential
tools for artillerymen. They primed the cannon by pouring powder
into a vent leading to the charge and fired it by touching the
burning hemp on the tip of the linstock to the vent. The gunners
serving the two 3-pounder “grasshoppers” at Cowpens used such
equipment.]
Another South Carolinian, 17-year-old James Collins, had fought with
Sumter and other militia leaders since the fall of Charleston. He
remembered with particular anger the swath of desolation left by
loyalists when they plundered rebel Americans on the east side of the
Broad. “Women were insulted and stripped of every article of decent
clothing they might have on and every article of bedding, clothing or
furniture was taken—knives, forks, dishes, spoons. Not a piece of meat
or a pint of salt was left. They even entered houses where men lay sick
of the smallpox ... dragged them out of their sick beds into the yard
and put them to death in cold blood in the presence of their wives and
children. We were too weak to repel them....”
Morgan’s Army
On paper Morgan’s army was inferior. The British numbered some 1100,
all regulars and most of them tested in battle. Morgan had at best a
little over 800 troops, and half of them were militia. Numbers,
though, deceive, for Morgan’s army was in fact a first-rate detachment
of light infantry, needing only leadership to win victories.
The core of Morgan’s army was a mixed brigade of Maryland and Delaware
Continentals under Col. John Eager Howard, about 320 men. They were
supported by 80 or so Continental dragoons under Col. William
Washington.
[Illustration: Maryland Continental • Dragoon, 3rd Continentals]
These Continentals were tough and experienced. Morgan’s militia were
better material than the green troops who folded at Camden and later
ran away at Guilford. Some 200 were ex-Continentals from Virginia.
Morgan thought enough of them to employ them in the main battle line.
The other militia were recruited by that wily partisan leader, Andrew
Pickens, and William Davidson, a superb militia general. It’s unlikely
that such able commanders would have filled their ranks with the
wavering and shiftless.
Morgan knew the worth of these troops and deployed them in a way that
made the most of their strengths and minimized their weakness. They
rewarded him with a victory still marveled at two centuries later.
These figures represent the units in Morgan’s command.
[Illustration: Virginia militiaman • Carolina militiaman]
Collins and his friends had joined Sumter, only to encounter Tarleton at
Fishing Creek. “It was a perfect rout and an indiscriminate slaughter,”
he recalled. Retreating to the west, Collins described how they lived
before Morgan and his regulars arrived to confront the British and
loyalists. “We kept a flying camp, never staying long in one place,
never camping near a public road ... never stripping off saddles.” When
they ate, “each one sat down with his sword by his side, his gun lying
across his lap or under the seat on which he sat.” It soon became
necessary “for their safety,” Collins said, to join Morgan. At Cowpens,
men like James Collins were fighting for their lives.
Equally desperate—and angry—were men like Joseph Hughes, whose father
had been killed by the loyalists. Hughes had been living as an
“out-lier,” hiding in the woods near his home with a number of other men
who remained loyal to militia colonel Thomas Brandon. One day he
ventured out to visit his family. As he approached the house, three
loyalists sprang out of the door with leveled guns, shouting: “You
damned Rebel, you are our prisoner!” Hughes wheeled his horse and leaped
the gate to escape the hail of bullets.
At Cowpens, Hughes, though still in his teens, was given command of a
company of militia. Probably by his side was his close friend, William
Kennedy, considered one of the best shots in South Carolina. His prowess
with the rifle had discouraged loyalists from venturing into the rebel
settlement at Fairforest Shoals. His gun had a peculiar _crack_ which
his friends recognized. When they heard it, they often said: “There is
another Tory less.”
The men who had turned out to fight for Andrew Pickens had no illusions
about what would happen to them if they were captured. Like their
leader, they were violators of their paroles, liable to instant
execution if captured. On the night of the 16th, Cornwallis, in his camp
at Turkey Creek on the other side of the Broad, demonstrated what else
would happen to their families. He wrote out an order for Cruger at
Ninety Six. “If Colonel Pickens has left any Negroes, cattle or other
property that may be useful ... I would have it seized accordingly and I
desire that his houses may be burned and his plantations as far as lies
in your power totally destroyed and himself if ever taken instantly
hanged.” The order was executed the moment it was received at Ninety
Six. Rebecca Pickens and her children were hurried into the January cold
to watch their house, barns, and other outbuildings become bonfires.
The 200 Georgians and South Carolinians in Morgan’s army were all
veterans of numerous battles, most of them fought under Elijah Clarke’s
command. With their leader wounded, they were now commanded by James
Jackson and John Cunningham. Morgan had largely relied on Jackson to
rally them. Like most of Morgan’s men, he was young, only 23. He had
fought Tarleton at Blackstocks, where he had ducked bullets to seize the
guns of dead British to continue the fight after his men ran out of
ammunition. In one respect, Jackson was unusual. He had been born in
England. He arrived in America in 1774 and seems to have become an
instant Georgian, right down to extreme pugnacity and a prickly sense of
honor. He had recently quarreled with the rebel lieutenant governor of
Georgia, challenged him to a duel, and killed him. Morgan appointed
Jackson brigade major of the militia, making him Pickens’ second in
command.
At least as formidable as Jackson’s veterans were the 140 North
Carolinians under Maj. Joseph McDowell. They had fought at Musgrove’s
Mill and in other battles in the summer of 1780 and had scrambled up the
slopes of Kings Mountain to help destroy the loyalist army entrenched
there.
Well before dawn, Morgan sent cavalry under a Georgian, Joshua Inman, to
reconnoiter the Green River Road. They bumped into Tarleton’s advance
guard and hastily retreated. Into the Cowpens they pounded to shout the
alarm.
Morgan seemed to be everywhere on his horse, rousing the men. “Boys, get
up, Benny is coming,” he shouted. Quickly militia and Continentals got
on their feet and bolted down cold hominy they had cooked the night
before. Morgan ordered the baggage wagons to depart immediately to a
safe place, about a mile in the rear. The militiamen’s horses were tied
to trees, under a guard, closer to the rear of the battle line.
Morgan rode down to the picked riflemen who were going to open the fight
and told them he had heard a lot of tall tales about who were the better
shots, the men of Georgia or Carolina. Here was the chance to settle the
matter and save their country in the bargain. “Let me see which are most
entitled to the credit of brave men, the boys of Carolina or those of
Georgia,” he roared. By positioning Georgians on the left of the road
and Carolinians on the right, Morgan shrewdly arranged to make his
competition highly visible.
To Pickens’ men Morgan made a full-fledged speech, reminding them of
what the British had already done to their friends and many of their
families. He pounded his fist in his hand and told them that this was
their moment of revenge. He also praised the courage with which they had
fought the British in earlier skirmishes, without the help of regulars
or cavalry. Here they had the support of veterans in both departments.
He had not the slightest doubt of victory if they obeyed their orders
and fought like men. He told them his experiences with his rifle
regiment at Saratoga and other battles, where they had beaten the flower
of the British army, generals far more distinguished than Benny Tarleton
and regiments far more famous than the units Tarleton was leading.
To his Continentals, Morgan made an even more emotional speech. He
called them “my friends in arms, my dear boys,” and asked them to
remember Saratoga, Monmouth, Paoli, Brandywine. “This day,” he said,
“you must play your parts for honor and liberty’s cause.” He restated
his battle plan, reminding them that after two or three rounds the
militia would retreat under orders. They would not be running away. They
would be falling back to regroup and harry the enemy’s flanks.
A Delaware soldier watching Morgan’s performance said that by the time
he was through, there was not a man in the army who was not “in good
spirits and very willing to fight.”
The blood-red rising sun crept above the hills along the slopes of
Thicketty Mountain to the east. The men stamped their feet and blew on
their hands to keep warm. It was cold, but the air was crisp and clear.
The mighty ramparts of the Blue Ridge were visible, 30 miles away. Much
too distant for a refuge now, even if the swollen Broad River did not
lie between them and Morgan’s men.
Suddenly the British army was emerging from the woods along the Green
River Road. The green-coated dragoons at their head slowed and then
stopped. So did the red-coated light infantry behind them. An officer in
a green coat rode to the head of the column and studied the American
position. Everyone in the rebel army recognized him. It was Banastre
Tarleton.
8
Tarleton soon found his position at the head of the column was
hazardous. The Georgia and Carolina riflemen drifted toward him through
the trees on either side of the road. _Pop pop_ went their rifles.
Bullets whistled close to Tarleton’s head. He turned to the 50 British
Legion dragoons commanded by Captain Ogilvie and ordered them to “drive
in” the skirmishers. With a shout the dragoons charged. The riflemen
rested their weapons against convenient trees and took steady aim. Again
the long barrels blazed. Dragoons cried out and pitched from their
saddles, horses screamed in pain. The riflemen flitted back through the
open woods, reloading as they ran, a trick that continually amazed the
British. Some whirled and fired again, and more dragoons crashed to
earth. In a minute or two the riflemen were safely within the ranks of
Pickens’ militia. The dragoons recoiled from this array of fire power
and cantered back toward the British commander. They had lost 15 out of
their 50 men.
Tarleton meanwhile continued studying the rebel army. At a distance of
about 400 yards he was able to identify Pickens’ line of militia, whose
numbers he guessed to be about a thousand. He estimated the Continentals
and Virginia six-month militia in the second line at about 800.
Washington’s cavalry on the crest behind the Continentals he put at 120,
his only accurate figure.
[Illustration: Few officers saw more combat than William Washington.
a distant cousin of George. He was a veteran of many battles—among
them Long Island and Trenton in 1776, Charleston in 1780, and
Cowpens, Guilford, Hobkirks Hill, and Eutaw Springs in 1781—and
numerous skirmishes. Thrice he was wounded, the last time at Eutaw
Springs, where he was captured. His fellow cavalryman, ‘Light-Horse
Harry’ Lee described him as of “a stout frame, being six feet in
height, broad, strong, and corpulent ... in temper he was
good-humored.... Bold, collected, and persevering, he preferred the
heat of action to the collection and sifting of intelligence, to the
calculations and combinations of means and measures....”]
[Illustration: The British carried at least two flags into battle:
the King’s standard and the colors of the 7th Fusiliers (below).
Both were captured by Morgan’s troops.]
[Illustration: Colors of the 7th Fusiliers]
Tarleton was not in the least intimidated by these odds, even though his
estimates doubled Morgan’s actual strength. He was supremely confident
that his regular infantry could sweep the riflemen and militia off the
field, leaving only the outnumbered Continentals and cavalry. The ground
looked level enough to repeat the Waxhaws rout. In his self-confidence
and growing battle fever, he did not even bother to confer on a tactical
plan with Newmarsh of the Fusiliers or McArthur of the Highlanders. He
simply issued them orders to form a line of battle. The infantry was
told to drop their heavy packs and blanket rolls. The light infantry
companies were ordered to file to the right, until they extended as far
as the flank of the militia facing them. The Legion infantry was ordered
into line beside them. Next came a squad of blue-coated artillerymen
with their brass grasshopper. They unpacked their gun and ammunition
boxes and mounted them on the wheeled carriage with professional speed.
In the Royal Artillery school at Woolrich the men who designed the gun
estimated this task should take no more than two minutes.
The light infantry and Legion infantry were now told to advance a
hundred yards, while the Fusiliers moved into line on their left. The
other grasshopper was placed on the right of this regiment, no doubt to
bolster the courage of the raw recruits. The two guns began hurling shot
into the woods, firing at the riflemen who were filtering back to
potshot the tempting red and green targets.
On each flank, Tarleton posted a captain and 50 dragoons, more than
enough, he thought, to protect his infantry from a cavalry charge.
Tarleton ordered the Highlanders to form a line about 150 yards in the
rear of the Fusiliers, slightly to their left. These veteran Scots and
200 Legion cavalry were his reserve, to be committed to the fight when
they were most needed.
Everywhere Tarleton looked, he later recalled, he saw “the most
promising assurance of success.” The officers and men were full of fire
and vigor. Every order had been obeyed with alacrity. There was not a
sign of weariness, though his men had marched half the night. They had
been chasing these Americans for two weary weeks. They knew that if they
beat them here, the war in South Carolina would be over. To make this a
certainty, Banastre Tarleton issued a cruel order. They were to give no
quarter, take no prisoners.
[Illustration: The only reasonably sure patriot flag on the field
was a damask color, cut from the back of a chair, that Washington’s
dragoons carried. The original, which measures only 18 inches by 18,
is in the collection of the Washington Light Infantry Corps of
Charleston.]
The order might have made some gruesome sense as far as the militia was
concerned. Almost every one of them was considered a criminal, fighting
in direct violation of the law as laid down by His Majesty’s officers in
numerous proclamations. Killing them would save the trouble of hanging
them. But to order his men to give no quarter to Morgan’s Continentals
was a blatant violation of the rules of war under which both sides had
fought for the past five years. It was graphic glimpse of the rage which
continued American resistance was igniting in Englishmen like Banastre
Tarleton.
One British officer in the battle later said that Major Newmarsh was
still posting the officers of the Fusiliers, the last regiment into
line, when Tarleton ordered the advance to begin. With a tremendous
shout, the green- and red-coated line surged forward.
From the top of the slope, Morgan called on his men to reply. “They give
us the British haloo, boys,” he cried. “Give them the Indian haloo.” A
howl of defiance leaped from 800 American throats. Simultaneously, the
Georgians and North Carolinians opened fire behind the big trees. Some
of the new recruits of the Fusiliers regiment revealed their nervousness
by firing back. Their officers quickly halted this tactical violation.
British infantry fired by the volley, and the riflemen were out of
musket range anyway. Rifles outshot muskets by 150 yards.
Morgan watched the riflemen give the British infantry “a heavy and
galling fire” as they advanced. But the sharpshooters made no pretense
of holding their ground. Morgan had ordered them to fall back to
Pickens’ militia and join them for serious fighting. On the British
came, their battle drums booming, their fifes shrilling, the two brass
cannon barking. The artillerymen apparently did not consider the
militiamen an important target. They blasted at the Continentals on the
crest. Most of their rounds whizzed over the heads of the infantry and
came dangerously close to Colonel Washington and his horsemen. He led
his men to a safer position on the slope of the geographical crest,
behind the left wing of the main American line.
Andrew Pickens and his fellow colonels, all on horseback, urged the
militia to hold their fire, to aim low and pick out “the epaulette
men”—the British officers with gold braid on their shoulders.
Tarleton’s Order of Battle
_Legion dragoons (two troops)_
_Light infantry companies of the 16th, 71st, and Prince of Wales
regiments_
_Legion infantry_
_7th Fusiliers_
_Royal artillery_
_71st Highlander regulars_
_17th Light Dragoons_
_Legion dragoons_
_This is the order in which Tarleton deployed his units on the
battlefield._
It was no easy task to persuade these men not to fire while those
16-inch British bayonets bore down on them, glistening wickedly in the
rising sun. The closer they got, the more difficult it would be to
reload their clumsy muskets and get off another shot before the British
were on top of them. But the musket was a grossly inaccurate weapon at
anything more than 50 yards. This was the “killing distance” for which
Pickens and Morgan wanted the men to wait. The steady fire of the
grasshoppers, expertly served by the British artillerymen, made the wait
even more harrowing.
Then came the moment of death. “Fire,” snarled Andrew Pickens. “Fire,”
echoed his colonels up and down the line. The militia muskets and rifles
belched flame and smoke. The British line recoiled as bullets from over
300 guns hurtled among them. Everywhere officers, easily visible at the
heads of their companies, went down. It was probably here that Newmarsh
of the Fusiliers, who had been so pessimistic about fighting under
Tarleton, fell with a painful wound. But confidence in their favorite
weapon, the bayonet, and the knowledge that they were confronting
militia quickly overcame the shock of this first blow. The red and green
line surged forward again.
Thomas Young, sitting on his horse among Washington’s cavalry, later
recalled the noise of the battle. “At first it was _pop pop pop_ (the
sound of the rifles) and then a whole volley,” he said. Then the
regulars fired a volley. “It seemed like one sheet of flame from right
to left,” Young said.
The British were not trained to aim and fire. Their volley firing was
designed to intimidate more than to kill. It made a tremendous noise and
threw a cloud of white smoke over the battlefield. Most of the musket
balls flew high over the heads of the Americans. Decades later, visitors
to Cowpens found bullets embedded in tree trunks as high as 30 feet from
the ground.
Out of the smoke the regulars came, bayonets leveled. James Collins was
among the militiamen who decided that the two shots requested by Morgan
was more than they could manage. “We gave the enemy one fire,” he
recalled. “When they charged us with their bayonets we gave way and
retreated for our horses.”
Most of the militia hurried around Morgan’s left flank, following
Pickens and his men. A lesser number may have found the right flank more
convenient. The important thing, as far as they were concerned, was to
escape those bayonets and reach the position where Morgan promised them
they would be protected by Howard’s Continentals and Washington’s
cavalry. Watching from the military crest, Sgt. William Seymour of the
Delaware Continentals thought the militia retreated “in very good order,
not seeming to be in the least confused.” Thus far, Morgan’s plan was
working smoothly.
Tarleton ordered the 50 dragoons on his right flank to pursue Pickens
and the bulk of the militia. If, as he later claimed, the British
commander had seen William Washington and his 120 cavalry at the
beginning of the battle, this order was a blunder. With 200 cavalrymen
in reserve, waiting a summons to attack, Tarleton sent 50 horsemen to
face twice their number of mounted Americans. He may have assumed that
Morgan was using standard battle tactics and regarded Washington’s
cavalry as his reserve, which he would not commit until necessity
required it. The British commander never dreamt that the Old Wagoner had
made a solemn promise to the militiamen that he would protect them from
the fearsome green dragoons at all costs.
As the militia retreated. Tarleton’s cavalry thundered down on them.
their deadly sabers raised. “Now,” thought James Collins, “my hide is in
the loft.” A wild melee ensued, with the militiamen dodging behind
trees, parrying the slashing sabers with their gun barrels. “They began
to make a few hacks at some,” Collins said, “thinking they would have
another Fishing Creek frolic.” As the militiamen dodged the swinging
sabers, the British dragoons lost all semblance of a military formation
and became “pretty much scattered,” Collins said.
At that moment, “Col. Washington’s cavalry was among them like a
whirlwind,” Collins exultantly recalled. American sabers sent dragoons
keeling from their horses. “The shock was so sudden and violent, they
could not stand it, and immediately betook themselves to flight.”
Collins said. “They appeared to be as hard to stop as a drove of wild
Choctaw steers, going to Pennsylvania market.” Washington’s cavalry
hotly pursued them and “in a few minutes the clashing of swords was out
of hearing and quickly out of sight.”
Thomas Young was one of the South Carolina volunteers in this ferocious
charge. He was riding a “little tackey”—a very inferior horse—which put
him at a disadvantage. When he saw one of the British dragoons topple
from his saddle, he executed “the quickest swap I ever made in my life”
and leaped onto “the finest horse I ever rode.” Young said the American
charge carried them through the 50 dragoons, whereupon they wheeled and
attacked them in the rear. On his new steed he joined Washington’s
pursuit of the fleeing British.
In spite of William Washington’s victorious strike, many militiamen
decided that Cowpens was unsafe and leaped on their horses and departed.
Among the officers who took prompt action to prevent further panic was
young Joseph Hughes. Although blood streamed from a saber cut on his
right hand, he drew his sword and raced after his fleeing company.
Outrunning them, he whirled and flailed at them with the flat of his
blade, roaring. “You damned cowards, halt and fight—there is more danger
in running than in fighting.”
Andrew Pickens rode among other sprinters, shouting. “Are you going to
leave your mothers, sisters, sweethearts and wives to such unmerciful
scoundrels, such a horde of thieves?”
On the battlefield, volley after volley of musketry thundered, cannon
boomed. The Continentals and the British regulars were slugging it out.
Daniel Morgan rode up to the milling militiamen, waving his sword and
roaring in a voice that outdid the musketry: “Form, form, my brave
fellows. Give them one more fire and the day is ours. Old Morgan was
never beaten.”
Would they fight or run? For a few agonizing moments, the outcome of the
battle teetered on the response of these young backwoodsmen.
9
On the other side of the crest behind which Morgan and Pickens struggled
to rally the militia, Banastre Tarleton was absorbed in pressing home
the attack with his infantry. He seems to have paid no attention to the
rout of his cavalry on the right. Nor did any of his junior officers in
the Legion attempt to support the fleeing dragoons with reinforcements
from the 200-man cavalry reserve. At this point in the battle, Tarleton
badly needed a second in command who had the confidence to make
on-the-spot decisions. One man cannot be everywhere on a battlefield.
Unfortunately for Tarleton, Maj. George Hanger, his second in command,
was in a hospital in Camden, slowly recovering from yellow fever.
With the militia out of the way, the British infantry had advanced on
the Continentals and begun blasting volleys of musketry at them. The
Continentals volleyed back. Smoke enveloped the battlefield. Tarleton
later claimed the fire produced “much slaughter,” but it is doubtful
that either side could see what they were shooting at after the first
few rounds. The British continued to fire high, hitting few
Continentals.
To Tarleton, the contest seemed “equally balanced,” and he judged it the
moment to throw in his reserve. He ordered Major McArthur and his 71st
Highlanders into the battle line to the left of the Fusiliers. This gave
Tarleton over 700 infantrymen in action to the rebels’ 420.
Simultaneously, Tarleton ordered the cavalry troop on the left to form a
line and swing around the American right flank.
These orders, shouted above the thunder of musketry and the boom of the
cannon, were promptly obeyed. On the crest of the hill, Howard saw the
British threat developing. Once men are outflanked and begin to be hit
with bullets from two sides, they are in danger of being routed. Howard
ordered the Virginia militia on his right to “change their front” to
meet this challenge. This standard battlefield tactic requires a company
to wheel and face a flanking enemy.
[Illustration: An officer of the Maryland Regiment. He carries a
spontoon, which is both a badge of office and in close combat a
useful weapon.]
A battlefield is a confusing place, and the Virginians, though mostly
trained soldiers, were not regulars who had lived and drilled together
over the previous months. Their captain shouted the order given him by
Howard, and the men wheeled and began marching toward the rear. The
Maryland and Delaware Continentals, seeing this strange departure,
noting that it was done in perfect order and with deliberation, assumed
that they had missed an order to fall back. They wheeled and followed
the Virginians. On the opposite flank, the other company of Virginians
repeated this performance. In 60 seconds the whole patriot line was
retreating.
Behind the geographical crest of the hill, Morgan and Pickens had
managed to steady and reorganize the militia. Morgan galloped back
toward the military crest on which he assumed the Continentals were
still fighting. He was thunderstruck to find them retreating. In a fury,
he rode up to Howard and cried: “Are you beaten?”
Howard pointed to his unbroken ranks and told Morgan that soldiers who
retreated in that kind of order were not beaten. Morgan agreed and told
him to stay with the men and he would ride back and choose the place
where the Continentals should turn and rally. The Old Wagoner spurred
his horse ahead toward the geographical crest of the hill, about 50
paces behind their first line.
On the British side of the battlefield, the sight of the retreating
Continentals revived hopes of an easy victory. Major McArthur of the
71st sought out Tarleton and urged him to order the cavalry reserve to
charge and turn the retreat into a rout. Tarleton claimed that he sent
this order to the cavalry, who were now at least 400 yards away from the
vortex of the battle. Perhaps he did. It would very probably have been
obeyed if it had arrived in time. The dragoons of the British Legion
liked nothing so much as chopping up a retreating enemy.
But events now occurred with a rapidity that made it impossible for the
cavalry to respond. The center of Tarleton’s line of infantry surged up
the slope after the Continentals, bayonets lowered, howling for American
blood. With almost half their officers dead or wounded by now, they lost
all semblance of military formation.
Far down the battlefield, where he had halted his pursuit of the British
cavalry, William Washington saw what was happening. He sent a horseman
racing to Morgan with a terse message. “They are coming on like a mob.
Give them another fire and I will charge them.” Thomas Young, riding
with Washington, never forgot the moment. “The bugle sounded,” he said.
“We made a half circuit at full speed and came upon the rear of the
British line shouting and charging like madmen.”
Simultaneously, Morgan reached the geographical crest of the slope, with
the Continentals only a few steps behind him. He roared out an order to
turn and fire. The Continentals wheeled and threw a blast of
concentrated musketry into the faces of the charging British. Officers
and men toppled. The line recoiled.
“Give them the bayonet,” bellowed John Eager Howard.
With a wild yell, the Continentals charged. The astonished British
panicked. Some of them, probably the Fusiliers, flung themselves faced
down on the ground begging for mercy. Others, Thomas Young recalled,
“took to the wagon road and did the prettiest sort of running away.”
At almost the same moment, the Highlanders, whose weight, if they had
joined the charge, would probably have been decisive, received an
unexpected blast of musketry from their flank. Andrew Pickens and the
militia had returned to the battle. The backwoodsmen blazed at the
Scotsmen, the riflemen among them concentrating on the screen of the
cavalrymen. The cavalry fled and McArthur’s men found themselves
fighting a private war with the militia.
Astonished and appalled, Tarleton sent an officer racing to the British
Legion cavalry with orders for them to form a line of battle about 400
yards away, on the left of the road. He rode frantically among his
fleeing infantry, trying to rally them. His first purpose was “to
protect the guns.” To lose a cannon was a major disgrace in 18th-century
warfare. The artillerymen were the only part of the British center that
had not succumbed to the general panic. They continued to fire their
grasshoppers, while the infantry threw down their muskets or ran past
them helter skelter. Part of the artillery’s tradition was an absolute
refusal to surrender. They lived by the code of victory or death.
Once past the surrendering infantry, the Continentals headed for the
cannon. Like robots—or very brave men—the artillerymen continued to fire
until every man except one was shot down or bayonetted.
The last survivor of the other gun crew was the man who touched the
match to the powder vent. A Continental called on him to surrender this
tool. The artilleryman refused. As the Continental raised his bayonet to
kill him, Howard came up and blocked the blow with his sword. A man that
brave, the colonel said, deserved to live. The artilleryman surrendered
the match to Howard.
Up and down the American line on the crest rang an ominous cry. “Give
them Tarleton’s quarter.” Remembering Waxhaws, the regulars and their
Virginia militia cousins were ready to massacre the surrendered British.
But Daniel Morgan, the epitome of battle fury while the guns were
firing, was a humane and generous man. He rode into the shouting
infantrymen, ordering them to let the enemy live. Junior officers joined
him in enforcing the order.
Discipline as well as mercy made the order advisable. The battle was not
over. The Highlanders were still fighting fiercely against Pickens’ men.
Tarleton was riding frantically toward his Legion cavalry to bring them
back into the battle. But the militia riflemen were back on the field
and Tarleton was their prime target. Bullets whistled around him as he
rode. Several hit his horse. The animal crashed to the ground. Tarleton
sprang up, his saber ready. Dr. Robert Jackson, assistant surgeon of the
71st, galloped to the distraught lieutenant colonel and offered him his
horse. Tarleton refused. For a moment he seemed ready to die on the
chaotic battlefield with his men. Dr. Jackson urged him again. Springing
off his horse, he told Tarleton, “Your safety is of the highest
importance to the army.”
Tarleton mounted Jackson’s horse and rode to rally his troops. Fastening
a white handkerchief to his cane, Jackson strolled toward the
all-but-victorious Americans. No matter how the battle ended, he wanted
to stay alive to tend the wounded.
Looking over his shoulder at the battlefield, Tarleton clung to a shred
of hope. An all-out charge by the cavalry could still “retrieve the
day,” he said later. The Americans were “much broken by their rapid
advance.”
But the British Legion had no appetite for another encounter with the
muskets of Andrew Pickens’ militia. “All attempts to restore order,
recollection [of past glory] or courage, proved fruitless,” Tarleton
said. No less than 200 Legion dragoons wheeled their horses and galloped
for safety in the very teeth of Tarleton’s harangue. Fourteen officers
and 40 dragoons of the 17th Regiment obeyed his summons and charged with
him toward the all-but-disintegrated British battle line. Their chief
hope was to save the cannon and rescue some small consolation from the
defeat.
Stages of the Battle
Because the battle was a continuous flow of action from the opening
skirmish to the pell-mell flight of the Legion dragoons at the end, the
important maneuvers cannot all be shown on a single map. This sequence
of maps diagrams the main stages of the battle.
[Illustration: 1.]
Skirmishers drive back Tarleton’s cavalry, sent forward to examine the
enemy’s lines, and then withdraw into Pickens’ line of militia. Without
pausing, Tarleton forms his line of battle.
Green River Road
Route 11
Morgan’s camp
Washington’s cavalry
Visitor Center
Howard’s Continentals
Pickens’ militia
Skirmishers
17th dragoons
Legion dragoons
Tarleton’s main line
71st Highlanders
Scruggs House
[Illustration: 2.]
The British advance on Pickens’ militia, who deliver the promised two
shots each and fall back on the flanks. When they are pursued by British
dragoons, Washington’s cavalry charges into action and drives them off.
Green River Road
Route 11
Morgan’s camp
Washington’s cavalry
Visitor Center
Howard’s Continentals
Pickens’ militia
17th dragoons
Tarleton’s main line
Legion dragoons
71st Highlanders
Scruggs House
[Illustration: 3.]
Howard’s Continentals rout the British in the center, supported by
cavalry on the left and militia on the right.
Green River Road
Route 11
Morgan’s camp
Howard’s Continentals
Washington’s cavalry
Visitor Center
Tarleton’s main line
Pickens’ militia
71st Highlanders
17th dragoons
Legion dragoons
Scruggs House
How to read these battle diagrams
British positions are shown in RED, American in BLUE. Open boxes show
former positions, arrows movement. Clashes are shown by stars. Modern
features, included for orientation, appear in gray.
[Illustration: This perspective by the artist Richard Schlecht
compresses the whole battle into one view. The open woods in the
foreground (A) is littered with British shot down by Pickens’
skirmishers. At the far right (B) Washington’s cavalry drive back
the British dragoons pursuing Pickens’ militia. Along the third line
(C) Howard’s Continentals repulse the attacking British regulars
with volleys and bayonets. On Tarleton’s left (D) the 71st is
engaged in a hot contest with militia, some of whom had returned to
the battle after firing their two shots and withdrawing. They hit
Tarleton’s left flank hard while Howard’s troops rout the British in
the center, giving Morgan the victory. A gem of tactical planning
and maneuver, it was by far the patriot’s best fought battle of the
war.
The painting conveys a close sense of the original terrain with its
scattered hardwoods and undulating ground that Morgan turned to good
use. The axis of the battlefield, then as now, is the old Green
River Road, which runs diagonally across the scene. The diverging
road at left was not there at the time of the battle.]
They never got there. Instead, they collided with William Washington’s
cavalry that had wheeled after their assault on the rear of the infantry
and begun a pursuit of the scampering redcoats, calling on them to
surrender, sabering those who refused. Washington shouted an order to
meet the British charge. Most of his horsemen, absorbed in their pursuit
of the infantry, did not hear him. Washington, leading the charge, did
not realize he was almost unsupported. The burly Virginian, remembering
his humiliating defeat at Lenuds Ferry in May 1780, had a personal score
to settle with Banastre Tarleton. He headed straight for him.
Tarleton and two officers accepted Washington’s challenge. The Virginian
slashed at the first man, but his saber snapped at the hilt. As the
officer stood up in his stirrups, his saber raised for a fatal stroke,
Washington’s bugler boy rode up and fired at the Englishman. The second
officer was about to make a similar stroke when the sergeant-major of
the 3d Continental Dragoons arrived to parry the blow and slash this
assailant’s sword arm. Tarleton made a final assault. Washington parried
his blow with his broken sword. From his saddle holsters, Tarleton drew
two pistols in swift succession and fired at Washington. One bullet
wounded Washington’s horse.
By this time Tarleton saw that the battle was totally lost. The riflemen
were running toward his horsemen, and their bullets were again whistling
close. The Highlanders were being methodically surrounded by Pickens’
militia and Morgan’s Continentals. Summoning his gallant 54 supporters,
Tarleton galloped down the Green River Road, a defeated man.
On the battlefield, the Highlanders were trying to retreat. But Howard’s
Continentals and Washington’s cavalry were now between them and safety.
Through the center of their line charged Lt. Col. James Jackson and some
of his Georgians to try to seize their standard. Bayonet-wielding
Scotsmen were about to kill Jackson when Howard and his Continentals
broke through the 71st’s flank and saved him. Howard called on the
Highlanders to surrender. Major McArthur handed his sword to Pickens and
so did most of the other officers. Pickens passed the major’s sword to
Jackson and ordered him to escort McArthur to the rear.
Captain Duncasson of the 71st surrendered his sword to Howard. When
Howard remounted, the captain clung to his saddle and almost unhorsed
him. “I expressed my displeasure,” Howard recalled, “and asked him what
he was about.” Duncasson told Howard that Tarleton had issued orders to
give no quarter and they did not expect any. The Continentals were
approaching with their bayonets still fixed. He was afraid of what they
might do to him. Howard ordered a sergeant to protect the captain.
Around the patriots main position, a happy chaos raged. In his
exultation, Morgan picked up his 9-year-old drummer boy and kissed him
on both cheeks.
Others were off on new adventures. Cavalryman Thomas Young joined half a
dozen riders in pursuit of prisoners and loot down the Green River Road.
They must have embarked on this foray shortly after most of Tarleton’s
cavalry had deserted him and before Tarleton himself quit the
battlefield after the encounter with Washington.
“We went about twelve miles,” Young said in his recollections of the
battle, “and captured two British soldiers, two negroes and two horses
laden with portmanteaus. One of the portmanteaus belonged to a paymaster
... and contained gold.” The other riders decided this haul was too good
to risk on the road and told Young to escort the prisoners and the money
back to Cowpens. Young had ridden several miles when he collided with
Tarleton and his 54 troopers. Abandoning his captures, Young tried to
escape. He darted down a side road, but his horse was so stiff from the
hard exercise on the battlefield, the British overtook him.
“My pistol was empty so I drew my sword and made battle,” the young
militiaman said. “I never fought so hard in my life.” He was hopelessly
outnumbered. In a few clanging seconds, a saber split a finger on his
left hand, another slashed his sword arm, a third blade raked his
forehead and the skin fell over his eyes, blinding him. A saber tip
speared his left shoulder, a blade sank deep into his right shoulder,
and a final blow caught him on the back of the head. Young clung to his
horse’s neck, half conscious.
Washington and Tarleton Duel
One of the battle’s most colorful incidents occurred at the very end.
As defeat enveloped his army, Tarleton tried to rally his cavalry to
the support of the infantry. His Legion dragoons, ignoring his orders
and threats, stampeded off the field. Only the disciplined veterans of
the 17th Dragoons followed him into battle. They ran head-on into the
Continental dragoons of Lt. Col. William Washington. As sabers
flashed, Washington found himself far in advance of his unit. What
happened next is described in a passage from John Marshall’s famous
_Life of George Washington_, written when the event still lingered in
the memory of contemporaries: “Observing [Washington about 30 yards in
front of his regiment], three British officers wheeled about and
attacked him; the officer on his left was aiming to cut him down, when
a sergeant came up and intercepted the blow by disabling the
sword-arm, at the same instant the officer on his right was about to
make a stroke at him, when a waiter, too small to wield a sword, saved
him by wounding the officer with a pistol. At this moment, Tarleton
made a thrust at him, which he parried, upon which the officer
[Tarleton] retreated a few paces and discharged his pistol at him....”
It is this account that probably inspired the artist William Ranney in
1845 to paint the vigorous battle scene spread across these pages.
Washington and Tarleton (on the black horse) raise their swords in the
center while Washington’s servant boy levels his pistol at the far
dragoon. While the painting errs in details of costume—Washington and
his sergeant should be dressed in white coats, not green, and the
British should be in green, not red—it catches the spirit of the duel.
[Illustration: Washington-Tarleton duel]
He was battered and bleeding, but his courage saved his life. With the
peculiar sportsmanship that the British bring to war, they took him off
his horse, bandaged his wounds, and led him back to the main road, where
they rejoined Tarleton and the rest of his party. One of the Tory guides
that had led the British through the back country to Cowpens recognized
Young and announced he was going to kill him. He cocked his weapon. “In
a moment,” Young said, “about twenty British soldiers drew their swords,
cursed him for a coward wishing to kill a boy without arms and a
prisoner, and ran him off.”
Tarleton ordered Young to ride beside him. He asked him many questions
about Morgan’s army. He was particularly interested in how many dragoons
Washington had. “He had seventy,” Young said, “and two volunteer
companies of mounted militia. But you know, they [the militia] won’t
fight.”
“They did today,” Tarleton replied.
10
On the battlefield at Cowpens, Surgeons Robert Jackson of the 71st
Highlanders and Richard Pindell of the 1st Maryland were doing their
limited best to help the wounded of both sides. There were 62 patriots
and 200 British in need of medical attention, which consisted largely of
extracting musket balls, if possible, bandaging wounds, and giving
sufferers some opium or whiskey, if any was available. The battle had
also cost the British 110 dead, including 10 officers. Only 12 patriots
were killed in the battle, though many more died later of wounds. But it
was the number of prisoners—some 530—that underscored the totality of
the American victory.
Even as prisoners, the British, particularly the Scots, somewhat awed
the Americans. Joseph McJunkin said they “looked like nabobs in their
flaming regimentals as they sat down with us, the militia, in our
tattered hunting shirts, black-smoked and greasy.”
Other patriots were not content to inspect their exotic captives.
William Washington was having a terse conference with Andrew Pickens.
They agreed that there was still a good chance to catch Tarleton. But
they needed enough men to overwhelm his 54-man squadron. Washington
changed his wounded horse for a healthy mount and rounded up his
scattered dragoons. Pickens summoned some of his own men and ordered
James Jackson to follow him “with as many of the mounted militia as he
could get.”
[Illustration: Among the equipment captured from the British was a
“Travelling Forge,” used by artificers to keep horses shod and
wagons in repair.]
Down the Green River Road they galloped, sabers in hand. But Tarleton
the cavalryman was not an easy man to catch. He rode at his usual
horse-killing pace. A few miles above William Thompson’s plantation on
Thicketty Creek, they found the expedition’s baggage wagons abandoned,
35 in all, most of them belonging to the 7th Regiment. The fleeing
cavalry of the Legion had told the 100-man guard of the defeat. The
officer in command had set fire to all the baggage that would burn, cut
loose the wagon horses, mounted his infantry two to a horse, and ridden
for the safety of Cornwallis’s army. Abandoned with the baggage were
some 70 black slaves. A short time later, a party of loyalists,
fugitives from the battlefield, reached the baggage train and began to
loot it. They were not long at this work before Tarleton and his
heartsick officers and troopers came pounding down the road. They did
not ask questions about loyalty. They cut down the looters without
mercy.
Tarleton too was riding for Cornwallis’s camp, but he had more than
safety on his mind. He assumed the British commander was just across the
Broad River at Kings Mountain in a position to rescue the 500 or so men
Morgan had taken prisoner. Perhaps Tarleton met a loyalist scout or
messenger somewhere along the road. At any rate, he heard “with infinite
grief and astonishment” that the main army was at least 35 miles away,
at Turkey Creek.
This news meant a change of route. The British decided they needed a
guide. Near Thicketty Creek they stopped at the house of a man named
Goudelock. He was known as a rebel. But Tarleton probably put a saber to
his throat and told him he would be a dead man if he did not lead them
to Hamiltons Ford across the Broad River, near the mouth of Bullocks
Creek. Goudelock’s terrified wife watched this virtual kidnapping of her
husband.
About half an hour after Tarleton and his troopers departed to the
southeast, Washington, Pickens, and their dragoons and militia troopers
rode into Goudelock’s yard. They had stopped to extinguish the fires the
British started in the baggage wagons and collect some of the slaves the
enemy had abandoned. The Americans asked Mrs. Goudelock if she had seen
the British fugitives. Yes, she said. What road did they take? She
pointed down the Green River Road, which led to Grindal Shoals on the
Pacolet. Like a great many people in every war, she was more interested
in personal survival than national victory. If the Americans caught up
to Tarleton, there was certain to be a bloody struggle, in which her
husband might be killed. Mrs. Goudelock preferred a live husband to a
dead or captured British commander.
[Illustration: Congress awarded this silver sword to Colonel Pickens
for his part in the battle.]
The Americans galloped for the Pacolet. Not until they had traveled 24
miles on this cold trail did they turn back. By then, it was much too
late. Tarleton was safely across the Broad River at Hamiltons Ford. But
the American pursuit helped save Thomas Young, the captured militiaman.
When Tarleton and his men, guided by the reluctant Goudelock, reached
the ford, it was almost dark. Someone told them the river was
“swimming.” Someone else, perhaps a loyalist scout, rode up with word
that Washington and his cavalry were after them. Considerable confusion
ensued, as Tarleton and his officers conferred on whether to flee down
the river to some other ford, attempt to swim the river in the dark, or
stand and fight. Everyone stopped thinking about Thomas Young and
another prisoner, a Virginian whom the British had scooped up along the
road. The two Americans spurred their horses into the darkness, and no
one noticed they were gone.
Tarleton crossed the Broad River that night and spent the next morning
collecting his runaway dragoons and other stragglers before riding down
to Cornwallis’s camp at Turkey Creek. The British commander already knew
the bad news. Some of the Legion cavalry had drifted into camp the
previous night. But Tarleton, as the field commander, was required to
make a detailed report.
According to Joseph McJunkin, whose father had been taken prisoner by
the British and was an eyewitness, Cornwallis grew so agitated he
plunged his sword into the ground in front of his tent and leaned on it
while listening to the details of the disaster. By the end of Tarleton’s
account, the earl was leaning so hard on the hilt that the sword snapped
in half. He threw the broken blade on the ground and swore he would
recapture the lost light infantry, Fusiliers, and Highlanders.
The general exonerated Tarleton of all culpability for the defeat at
Cowpens. “You have forfeited no part of my esteem, as an officer,” he
assured Tarleton. Cornwallis blamed the loss on the “total misbehavior
of the troops.” But he confided to Lord Rawdon, the commander at Camden,
that “the late affair has almost broke my heart.”
[Illustration: Of the three medals awarded by Congress—a gold medal
to Morgan and silver medals to Washington and Howard—only the Howard
medal has survived. The Latin inscription reads: “The American
Congress to John Eager Howard, commander of a regiment of infantry.”
The medal is in the collection of the Maryland Historical Society.]
On the same morning that Tarleton was making his doleful report,
Washington and Pickens returned to Cowpens. On their ride back, they
collected several dozen—some versions make it as many as 100—additional
British soldiers straggling through the woods. At the battlefield they
found only the two surgeons caring for the wounded and a handful of
Pickens’ men guarding them. Daniel Morgan, knowing Cornwallis would make
a determined effort to regain the prisoners, had crossed the Broad River
on the afternoon of the battle and headed northwest toward Gilbert Town.
Pickens and Washington caught up to him there, and Morgan gave Pickens
charge of the prisoners, with orders to head for an upper ford of the
Catawba River. Decoying Cornwallis, Morgan led his Continentals toward a
lower ford of the same river. In an exhausting five-day march, often in
an icy rain, both units got across this deep, swift-running stream ahead
of the pursuing British. The prisoners were now beyond Cornwallis’s
reach. They were soon marched to camps in Virginia, where the men Morgan
helped capture at Saratoga were held.
This final retreat, a vital maneuver that consolidated the field victory
at Cowpens, worsened Morgan’s sciatica. From the east bank of the
Catawba, he warned Greene that he would have to leave the army. “I grow
worse every hour,” he wrote. “I can’t ride or walk.” As the rain
continued to pour down, Morgan had to abandon his tent and seek the
warmth of a private house. Greene immediately rode from Cheraw Hills and
took personal command of the army. By the time Morgan departed for
Virginia on February 10, he was in such pain that he had to be carried
in a litter.
A grateful Congress showered the Cowpens victors with praise and
rewards. Morgan was voted a gold medal, and Howard and Washington were
voted silver medals. Pickens received a silver sword. Perhaps the most
immediate result of the battle was in the minds of the people of the
South. The victory sent a wave of hope through the Carolinas and
Georgia. It also changed attitudes in Congress toward the southern
States. John Mathews of South Carolina told Greene that “the
intelligence ... seems to have had a very sensible effect on _some
folks_, for as this is a convincing proof that something is to be done
in that department ... they seem at present to be well disposed to give
it every possible aid.”
The news had an exhilarating effect on Greene’s half of the southern
army. He ordered a celebration and praised Morgan extravagantly in the
general orders announcing the victory. A friend on Greene’s staff sent a
copy to Morgan, adding, “It was written immediately after we heard the
news, and during the operation of some cherry bounce.” To Francis
Marion, Greene wrote, “After this, nothing will appear difficult.”
This optimism soon faded. To the men in the field, Cowpens did not seem
particularly decisive. Banastre Tarleton was soon back in action at the
head of the British cavalry. On February 1, from his sick bed, Morgan
wrote a despairing letter to Gov. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia,
describing the retreat of the Southern army before Cornwallis. “Our men
[are] almost naked,” still too weak to fight him. “Great God what is the
reason we can’t have more men in the field? How distressing it must be
to an anxious mind to see the country over run and destroyed for want of
assistance.”
The civil war between the rebels and the loyalists continued in South
Carolina, marked by the same savage fratricidal strife. “The scenes were
awful,” Andrew Pickens recalled. Young James Collins, in his simple,
honest way, told the militiaman’s side of this story. Summing up his
role at Cowpens, Collins said he fired his “little rifle five times,
whether with any effect or not, I do not know.” The following day, he
and many other militiamen received “some small share of the plunder”
from the captured British wagons. Then, “taking care to get as much
powder as we could, we [the militia] disbanded and returned to our old
haunts, where we obtained a few days rest.” Within a week, Collins was
again on his horse, risking his life as a scout and messenger.
Only years later, with a full perspective of the war, did the importance
of Cowpens become clear. By destroying Tarleton’s Legion, Daniel Morgan
crippled the enemy’s power to intimidate and suppress the militia.
Cornwallis was never able to replace the regulars he lost at Cowpens. He
had to abandon all thought of dividing his field army—which meant that
British power did not extend much beyond the perimeter of his camp. When
he pursued Greene’s army deep into North Carolina, the partisans in
South Carolina rose in revolt. Eventually, Cornwallis was forced to
unite his decimated, half-starved regiments with the British troops in
Virginia, where they were trapped by Gen. George Washington’s army at
Yorktown in October 1781.
In South Carolina, meanwhile, Nathanael Greene combined militia with his
small regular army in the style Morgan had originated at Cowpens. Though
Greene was forced to retreat without victory at Guilford Courthouse
(March 15, 1781), Hobkirks Hill (April 25, 1781), and Eutaw Springs
(September 8, 1781), the British army suffered such heavy losses in
these and other encounters that they soon abandoned all their posts in
the back country, including the fort at Ninety Six, and retreated to a
small enclave around Charleston. There they remained, impotent and
besieged, until the war was almost over.
It took nine years for the U.S. Treasury to scrape together the cash to
buy Daniel Morgan the gold medal voted him by Congress for Cowpens. In
the spring of 1790, this letter came to the Old Wagoner at his home near
Winchester, Virginia:
_New York, March 25, 1790_
Sir: _You will receive with this a medal, struck by the order of the
late Congress, in commemoration of your much approved conduct in the
battle of the Cowpens and presented to you as a mark of the high sense
which your country entertains of your services on that occasion._
_This medal was put into my hands by Mr. Jefferson, and it is with
singular pleasure that I now transmit it to you._
_I am, Sir &c.,
George Washington_