The Green River Road, Where the Battle of Cowpens Was Fought

The Green River Road. NPS photo.

Revolutionary War armies did not only travel on roads; they often fought on them. The Battle of Cowpens was fought along a road known today as the Green River Road, or Mills Gap Road, which ran from the Pacolet River in South Carolina to the Green River and on into western North Carolina.

A trail along the high ground

The road is older than the battle. Before the Revolution, settlers and Native Americans made it a wagon and market trail by following the highest ground between watersheds, which kept travelers out of boggy wetlands.

Heading west from the Pacolet, it crossed several creeks, Thicketty Creek among them. Beyond what is now Cowpens National Battlefield it entered North Carolina and crossed the Green River, a tributary of the Broad River, in what is now Polk County. It then climbed steeply through Mills Gap, on today's Polk–Henderson county line, which gave it its other name. Joining the Buncombe Turnpike from Tennessee, it tied the backcountry into a wider network of early wagon and market roads.

It also belongs to the story of Kings Mountain. On October 6, 1780, Cowpens was the gathering place for the men who fought that battle the next day, making the road one of the original stretches of the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, followed by militia pursuing the British commander Patrick Ferguson.

The road at Cowpens

Both armies came up this road from the southeast. Daniel Morgan's Patriot army arrived on January 16, 1781, camped beside it and prepared to make a stand. Banastre Tarleton's British force set out at 3:00 a.m. on January 17 and attacked at daybreak. Both sides formed their lines along the road.

The road mattered at the battle's end too:

• On one stretch of it the Patriot cavalry leader William Washington fought a British officer hand to hand and, legend says, was saved only by his servant's quick action.
• Refusing to be captured, Tarleton and over 50 of his horsemen escaped east along it and onto a connecting road to Hamilton's Ford on the Broad River.
• After the battle, Morgan led his army and prisoners west along it, soon turning north onto the Island Ford Road into North Carolina.

The road today

Called the Mills Gap Road, or by the name of whichever connecting road a traveler meant to take, the route changed with the region. Other, more direct roads to Spartanburg grew in importance and may have led to its decline. It has been rerouted and straightened over the years, but sections of the original road, now paved, survive in both Carolinas — a direct link to the area's past.

Sources

Rewritten from the National Park Service article "Green River Road" (Cowpens National Battlefield; public domain), in hubnx's own words.