7

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.

The figures across these pages represent the main units of the cooly efficient battle machine that Tarleton led onto the field that winter day.

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 wasNec 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 wascertain 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

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.”

The silver medal awarded by Congress to Howard for service at Cowpens.

J E Howard

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.

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 Riverwas 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.

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 Britishlight 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.

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 andretreat 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.”

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....”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 peculiarcrackwhich 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 happento 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 wasnot 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.

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 popwent 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.

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....”

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.

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 beover. To make this a certainty, Banastre Tarleton issued a cruel order. They were to give no quarter, take no prisoners.

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 onhorseback, 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 BattleLegion dragoons (two troops)Light infantry companies of the 16th, 71st, and Prince of Wales regimentsLegion infantry7th FusiliersRoyal artillery71st Highlander regulars17th Light DragoonsLegion dragoonsThis is the order in which Tarleton deployed his units on the battlefield.

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 waspop 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 theenemy 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. “Theyappeared 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.

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 paidno 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.

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 anorder 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.”

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