The Battle of Cowpens, 1781: Turning Point of the War in the South

A "grasshopper" cannon at Cowpens. NPS photo.

The Battle of Cowpens, fought on January 17, 1781, late in the Revolution's Southern Campaign, became known as the turning point of the war in the South — a link in the chain of events that led to the Patriot victory at Yorktown. It was won against seasoned British regulars and brought together commanders who left their mark on history.

The British turn south

After early setbacks in the South — including the Loyalist defeat at Moore's Creek Bridge (February 27, 1776) and a failed naval attempt on Charleston in 1776 — the British, stalemated in the North by 1779–80, looked south again. They aimed to help Southern Loyalists retake colonial governments, then push north to crush the "rebellion," expecting much of the population to rally to the Crown.

Redcoats captured Savannah (December 29, 1778), Charleston (May 12, 1780) and won at Camden (August 16, 1780), destroying much of the Southern Continental Army. Confident, the British underestimated the resistance in the backcountry behind them — which proved their Achilles' heel. There, the war was essentially a civil war: Patriot and Loyalist neighbors formed rival militias, old feuds flared, and raids and reprisals devastated the countryside.

Greene, Morgan and Tarleton

George Washington sent Nathanael Greene to command the Southern army. Just two weeks in, and against military custom, Greene split his army, sending General Daniel Morgan southwest of the Catawba River to cut supply lines, harass the British and "spirit up the people." Lord Cornwallis answered by sending Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton — only 26, able, feared and hated — to stop him. Tarleton was reviled for the Waxhaws (May 29, 1780), where his men were said to have kept fighting Continentals trying to surrender; "Tarleton's Quarter" came to mean no quarter at all.

The chase

On January 12, 1781, Tarleton's scouts found Morgan at Grindal Shoals on the Pacolet River, and Tarleton gave chase through heavy rain and flooded rivers. Morgan fell back to Burr's Mill on Thicketty Creek; on January 16, hearing Tarleton had crossed the Pacolet, he left so fast his men abandoned their breakfast. With the flood-swollen Broad River six miles behind him, Morgan chose to stand at the Cowpens — a well-known crossroads and frontier pasture about 500 yards long and as wide, dotted with trees but kept clear of brush by grazing cattle.

The site offered forage, and Morgan had called militia to meet him there; some were Overmountain men who had camped there on the way to Kings Mountain. That night Andrew Pickens' militia drifted in, and Morgan — the "Old Waggoner" of the French and Indian War and a hero of Saratoga — went from fire to fire, recounting past battles, explaining his plan and even challenging Georgia and Carolina units to outdo each other. One soldier found the army "in good spirits and very willing to fight." Morgan barely slept.

The battle

Dawn was clear and bitterly cold. "Boys, get up! Benny's coming!" Morgan shouted. Tarleton, who had marched since 2 a.m., formed up on the Green River Road, confident: Morgan was hemmed in by the Broad, and the open, rolling ground suited his dragoons. But with the river at their backs, Morgan's militia couldn't easily run — and crossing it would have invited disaster anyway.

Morgan expected a head-on attack and arranged three lines:

1. Sharpshooters hidden behind trees, who picked off dragoons — especially officers — then fell back 150 yards or more.
2. Pickens' militia, asked to fire just two volleys and then retire behind the next line.
3. John Eager Howard's Continentals, about 150 yards farther back.

As the militia withdrew, Tarleton sent his dragoons after them — just as William Washington's Patriot cavalry thundered in, seemingly out of nowhere, routing the scattered British horsemen. Morgan rode forward to rally the militia: "form, form, my brave fellows! Old Morgan was never beaten!"

Then Tarleton threw in his reserve, the 71st Highlanders, bagpipes wailing. An order for Howard's right flank to turn slightly was misheard as a call to retreat, and other companies followed. But the retreat was orderly; on command, the Continentals faced about and fired in unison into the British, who had broken ranks in a wild charge. A fierce bayonet countercharge, the returning militia and cavalry produced a perfectly timed double envelopment, and British infantry began surrendering en masse.

Tarleton fled with a handful of men down the Green River Road. In one of the battle's most dramatic moments, William Washington dueled Tarleton and two officers hand to hand, saved only when his young bugler fired at a British officer with raised saber.

The result

It was over in less than an hour — a complete Patriot victory.

Aftermath

Knowing Cornwallis would come, Morgan buried the dead and headed north with his prisoners, crossing the Broad at Island Ford and pressing through Gilbert Town toward the Catawba. Reunited with Greene, Morgan wanted to head for the mountains; Greene chose to march north to Virginia for supplies, and prevailed. Morgan soon retired, ill with rheumatism and malaria.

Cornwallis, stunned that such an inferior force had beaten Tarleton's troops, burned his baggage to chase Greene. Greene won the race to the Dan River, then fought Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse (March 15, 1781), using Morgan's Cowpens tactics with some success. The British held the field but lost 500 killed or wounded; in London, a member of Parliament said, "Another such victory would ruin the British army."

Cornwallis gave up the Carolinas for Virginia, and on October 18, 1781, surrendered at Yorktown. Cowpens had changed the psychology of the war. "Tarleton's Quarter" became a Patriot rallying cry, and Morgan's unorthodox tactical masterpiece had truly "spirited up the people" — and given Tarleton and the British "a devil of a whipping."

Sources

Based on "Battle of Cowpens," Cowpens National Battlefield, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.