09:16 AM EDT on Thursday, July 6, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

Ban Tarleton was determined to catch Daniel Morgan's American troops in a vise between his legion of British dragoons and the wide Broad River. Tarleton woke his troops at 2 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1781, a night that was cold, cloudy and raw. They had a slow go of it through swamplands at night, but an hour before daylight they had marched 8 miles and were within 5 miles of Morgan's camp at Cowpens in northwestern South Carolina.

When Morgan's scouts informed him that Tarleton was closing in he shook his troops awake, yelling: "Boys, get up! Benny is coming."

Morgan's troops woke well-fed with fresh beef they'd killed and eaten the night before. They formed the battle lines.

As Tarleton approached the edge of Cowpens, he liked what he saw: the ground was "certainly as proper a place for action as Colonel Tarleton could desire," he wrote (in third person) in his memoirs. "America does not produce many [places] more suitable to the nature of the troops of his command."

Tarleton could not see all of Morgan's troops stationed in three tiers atop the gently rolling hills of Cowpens; but even if he could have, he would have liked his odds: he outnumbered Morgan by 1,076 veterans to around 960 troops for Morgan, about a third of them raw militia.

Soon after daybreak, Tarleton ordered 50 of his green-jacketed horsemen thundering across the fields for the attack; 15 of them fell, knocked from their saddles by Morgan's crack riflemen.

Tarleton formed a line of more than 500 infantrymen who began a steady advance up the pasture. Thomas Young, a 16-year old militiaman riding with William Washington's cavalry, observed from his horse:

"About sunrise, the British line advanced at a sort of trot with a loud halloo. It was the most beautiful line I ever saw" -- 527 men with fixed bayonets, resplendent in their red jackets standing a yard apart, with 50 horsemen on each flank.

The British troops came on shouting; Morgan yelled to his troops, "They give us the British halloo, boys -- give THEM the Indian halloo, by God!"

The militia fired their two volleys then fell back before the British bayonets. By the time the British hit the line of seasoned Continentals stationed at the top of the hills, their lines had been thinned; still they had enough men to begin flanking the right side of the American line.

Lt. Col. John Eager Howard (as good an officer as the world affords in Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene's opinion), ordered the American right to wheel to the right and close off that flank. In wheeling right, Howard's men had to march backwards; men in the center saw troops peeling off backwards and believed that the order had been given to retreat.

As the British came on, the American line began an orderly, organized retreat. Morgan was perplexed. He "quickly rode up to me and expressed apprehensions," Howard recalled, "but I soon removed his fears by pointing to the line, and observing that men were not beaten who retreated in that order."

Morgan agreed; he rode to the top of the next hill. When his troops filed up to it Morgan yelled: "Face about, boys! Give them one good fire, and the victory is ours!"

British troops trotting up the hill at quickstep mistook the retreat for a rout; they "set up a great shout" recalled a Lt. ThomasAnderson, and came running.

"The enemy pressed upon us in rather disorder," Howard recalled, "expecting the fate of the day was decided. They were by this time within 30 yards of us with two field pieces; my men with uncommon coolness gave them an unexpected and deadly fire."

After firing a volley at close range, it was the Americans' turn to give chase at the point of the bayonet. After a cavalry clash in which Tarleton and Lt. William Washington literally crossed swords in a desultory duel on horseback, the British fled the field, leaving 100 dead upon it. Morgan captured more than 800 men, 229 of them wounded. He also took 800 muskets, 100 good dragoon horses, 70 black men who were slaves, 35 wagons, the colors of the 7th Regiment, 2 field pieces, a forge, and, he wrote to his boss, Nathanael Greene, "all their Music."

In one hour, Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis had lost 86 percent of his light infantry, while Greene's Flying Army lived to fight again.

In pursuit

When Dan Morgan bested the British troops at Cowpens on Jan. 17, 1781, it was as if he'd torn a hornet's nest. Now the hornets were angrily spilling out.

Cornwallis was not pleased to learn the day after the battle that he'd just lost 1,000 men. But the next day he received 1,500 more: Gen. Alexander Leslie's troops had finally marched into camp after days of mucking through swamps to reach Winnsboro.

If Leslie's men believed they'd find a little rest at Winnsboro, they were sorely disappointed. As soon as they arrived, Cornwallis put his army of more than 2,500 men on the march to catch Morgan and then, ultimately, fight and defeat the main block of the Southern Army under Nathanael Greene.

Morgan, who had less than 1,000 men with him, wanted no part of Cornwallis' combined force; he began a 150-mile retreat toward the American Army's main camp back on Hick's Creek, where General Greene commanded.

"I receive intelligance every half hour of the enemies rapid approach," Morgan wrote to Greene, at mid-day of Jan. 25. "In consequence of which, I am sending of [off] my waggons" to speed up the march. "I intend to move toward Salisbury in order to get Near the main army. I know they intend to bring me to action, which I intend carefully to avoid."

On the 29th, Morgan wrote to Greene with some strange, alarming news: Cornwallis, determined to catch Morgan, had burned all of his own wagons, his tents, even his barrels of rum in order to lighten his load. This bonfire of goods was unheard of, stunning even his own troops; yet as they watched their rum drain into the soils of South Carolina, the officers and men bore it with "the most general and chearfull acquiescence," Cornwallis wrote.

After the bonfire British Brig. Gen. Charles O'Hara wrote to a duke: "In this situation, without Baggage, necessaries, or Provisions of any sort for Officer or Soldier, in the most barren inhospitable unhealthy part of North America, opposed to the most savage, inveterate perfidious cruel Enemy, with zeal and with Bayonets only, it was resolved to follow Green[e]'s Army to the end of the World."

gcarbone@projo.com / (401) 277-7434

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources consulted for today's installment:

Babits, Lawrence E. A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1998.

Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse. Buchanan; John Wiley & Sons Inc.: New York, Chichester, Weinheim, Brisbane, Singapore, Toronto, 1997.

Conrad, Dennis M. and Showman, Richard K., eds. The Papers of Nathanael Greene, VII. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1994.

Scheer, George F., and Rankin, Hugh F. Rebels & Redcoats. Da Capo Press Inc.: United States of America, 1987. Copyright The World Publishing Company, 1957.

A continuing series.