The Forty-Eight Hours After the Battle of Cowpens

Reenactors in camp at Cowpens National Battlefield. NPS photo.

The Battle of Cowpens ended in an American victory under Daniel Morgan. What happened over the next two days — as the defeated British fled and the victorious Patriots hurried to escape — is a story of river crossings, wounded soldiers, scouting parties and quick decisions.

The British: Tarleton's flight

With no way to mount another attack, British commander Banastre Tarleton escaped the field with 54 of his cavalry, heading to report his defeat to his commander, Lord Cornwallis. Unsure where Cornwallis was or whether he was being followed, he moved fast. Learning that Cornwallis was camped to the north on Turkey Creek, in what is now York County, South Carolina, he raced to cross the Broad River at Hamilton's Ford. When his men balked at the flooded river, Tarleton drew his sword and threatened to cut down the first who hesitated.

He crossed at night, gathering stragglers as he rode toward Cornwallis's camp, forty miles from Cowpens. By the morning of the 18th, news of the defeat had arrived ahead of him. According to an American prisoner who witnessed the scene, Cornwallis, listening to Tarleton's report, leaned so hard on the hilt of his sword that it snapped in two.

Cornwallis resolved to recover the 600 British soldiers Daniel Morgan had captured. Expecting Morgan to hold the country around the Broad River, he waited for reinforcements under General Leslie from Camden, South Carolina, then set off after him — but took the wrong road at least twice and never caught him.

The Americans: the wounded, the prisoners and the pursuit

Chasing Tarleton. Morgan sent William Washington — George Washington's cousin and his cavalry commander at Cowpens — with the 3rd Continental Dragoons down the Green River Road after Tarleton, but they lost him after a wrong turn. Washington did round up almost 100 British stragglers.

Caring for the wounded. Morgan's first concern at the battlefield was medical care for the wounded of both sides. The injured were taken to the home of Dr. Robert Nelson, about five miles away, and a British surgeon and an American one, Dr. Richard Pindell of the 1st Maryland Regiment, were assigned to them. Little is known of the doctors except Pindell. Lawrence Everhart, captured and wounded at Cowpens, wrote in his pension application of 7 April 1834:

"My wounds were bleeding at this time but soon afterwards were dressed by the surgeon. I received from the enemy great kindness. After the battle, Col. Washington sent two dragoons with me about three miles from the ground to take care of me; Dr. Pindell formerly of Hagerstown Maryland surgeon of our corps dressed my wounds..."

Watching for Loyalists. Morgan sent militia patrols east in case Loyalist militia were scouting for the British. Tarleton's party captured two of them. One, seventeen-year-old Thomas Young, carried scars from sword cuts received resisting capture for the rest of a long life; both escaped while Tarleton struggled to get across the flooded Broad River.

Getting away. Knowing Cornwallis would come after him, Morgan marched northwest on the Island Ford Road and crossed the Broad River at Island Ford the afternoon of the battle — no easy task with his men, supplies and almost 600 prisoners. Eight hours after the battle, his army camped north of the river.

Gilbert Town

On January 18 Morgan moved on to Gilbert Town, a foothills frontier community and early county seat of Rutherford County, North Carolina, which had served as a base for both armies before the Battle of Kings Mountain. The detached militia and Washington rejoined him there, and Morgan put militia commander Andrew Pickens in charge of the prisoners, with orders to take them beyond the Catawba River, out of Cornwallis's reach.

Morgan rested his army there, turning a tavern opposite the William Gilbert family home into a makeshift hospital. William Meade, wounded at Cowpens and at first stripped and left for dead, described his wounds in his pension application of 26 December 1833: "he had a rib broken by the point of a bayonet, had his scull badly fractured by a sword and had a leg badly wounded by the stroke of a cutlass of a British lieutenant." He was carried to the hospital at Gilbert Town and stayed under the surgeon's care for eight months.

Morgan reports his victory

Writing from Cane Creek near Gilbert Town on 19 January, Morgan informed his superior, Nathanael Greene:

"The troops I have the honor to command have gained a complete victory over a detachment from the British Army commanded by Lieut.-Col. Tarleton. It happened on the 17th inst., about sunrise, at a place called the Cowpens… Our loss was very inconsiderable, not having more than twelve killed and about sixty wounded."

He reported the enemy's losses as ten officers and more than one hundred men killed, two hundred wounded, and twenty-seven officers and more than five hundred privates captured, along with two pieces of artillery, two standards, eight hundred stand of arms, a traveling forge, thirty-five wagons, ten enslaved people and more than one hundred cavalry horses.

What came next

Leaving Gilbert Town on 20 January, Morgan marched northeast along what became the Lincoln Stage Road, crossed the Catawba River at Sherrill's Ford, and met Greene north of the Catawba on 30 January 1781. The campaign led on to the race to the Dan River and the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, where Cornwallis lost men and officers far from his supply lines. He eventually abandoned the Carolinas, marched into Virginia, and was defeated at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.

Sources

• National Park Service, Cowpens National Battlefield: "Forty-Eight Hours Following the Battle of Cowpens."
• Primary sources quoted there: the pension applications of Lawrence Everhart (1834) and William Meade (1833), and Daniel Morgan's letter to Nathanael Greene, 19 January 1781.