Victory at Yorktown (16 page)

Meanwhile, Morgan's scouts had tracked the British cavalryman, and the American was reacting with moves of his own—first to Thicketty Creek, then, on the evening of January 16—raw and cold at sundown—he reached Cowpens. This was where Morgan decided to stand and fight, and he chose the position “at the risk of its wearing the face of a retreat” though it provided security in case he “should … be unfortunate.”

In the fading light of day, Morgan and some of his officers rode back and forth across the pastures, and he liked what he saw: a long, wide opening with some scattered trees, sloping upward, then a dip, then another upward slope to a ridge, behind which was a grassy swale, deep enough that riders on horseback could not be seen from the approach below.

Five miles behind the site was the Broad River, and the old wagoner sent his baggage there. He had no boats, so crossing the river was out of the question; his militia would have to fight, and he had in mind a very important and unorthodox role for them. During the night he went from one group of volunteers to another; one of them recollected:

[Morgan] helped them to fix their swords, joked with them about their sweethearts, told them to keep in good spirits, and the day would be ours. And long after I laid down, he was going about among the soldiers encouraging them and telling them that the old wagoner could crack his whip over Ben [Tarleton] in the morning, as sure as they lived.

“Just hold up your heads, boys, three fires,” he would say, “and you are free, and then when you return to your homes, how the old folks will bless you, and the girls kiss you for your gallant conduct.”

I don't believe he slept a wink that night.

The sign and countersign for the next day were “Fire” and “Sword,” with a suggestion that the Lord was on the rebels' side, and during the night hours small parties of militia arrived in camp, bringing tales of Tarleton's cruelty and boasting of how they would stop him.

Tarleton had bivouacked for the night about twelve miles from Morgan's position, and an hour before daylight American scouts reported him within five miles, coming on fast. Although Morgan was suffering such pain that he could hardly sit his horse, he was moving among his men, telling the militia again that all he wanted was a couple of good volleys, after which they could fall back to the next line. The undergrowth on the battleground had been cropped short by grazing cattle, and the trees—mostly red oak, hickory, and pine—were scattered so they offered little hindrance to his infantry's movements. Morgan was sufficiently confident of his plan that he posted militia in the front line, but the men he chose were all good riflemen from North and South Carolina and Virginia, and they were commanded by a superb fighter: Andrew Pickens, the South Carolina guerrilla leader. A taciturn, homely man, Pickens was a staunch member of the Presbyterian Church who was described by a contemporary as a fellow who would “first take the words out of his mouth, between his fingers, and examine them before he uttered them.”

Morgan told Pickens's men to take shelter in or behind trees and “Shoot for the epaulets, boys! Shoot for the epaulets!”—picking off every British officer they could before falling back to the line behind them. There, spread out in a line about three hundred yards wide, were his least experienced troops—militiamen from the Carolinas, who had been ordered to hold their fire until they could see the buttons on the redcoats' uniforms and then to shoot three times, aiming low, before they filed off to the left and took shelter behind a small hill.

In a third line, on rising ground, were three hundred Maryland and Delaware Continentals with fixed bayonets—Morgan's best troops—bolstered on either side by seasoned militiamen from Virginia and Georgia, many of them former Continentals who had reenlisted and returned. These men—all of them under Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard—had strict orders not to fire until Morgan gave the word. To their rear, behind another hillock, were Colonel William Washington's cavalry and some mounted infantry under Lieutenant Colonel James McCall.

While his men waited in various stages of nervousness, slapping their hands together to keep warm in the bitter cold, Morgan rode slowly through the lines, telling them to sit down and “ease your joints” to calm them. He knew how to talk to soldiers, Morgan did, and it was said that he visited every unit in his thousand-man force, explaining to them exactly how they were going to beat “Benny” Tarleton. Shortly after sunrise the enemy force came into view, and as they hurried to form a battle line they shed their gear, prodded by Tarleton, who wanted immediate action. “It was the most beautiful line I ever saw,” said the sixteen-year-old private Thomas Young, who remembered that the redcoats sent up a shout.

At that, Morgan yelled to his men, “They give us the British halloo, boys. Give them the Indian halloo, by God!” That produced a series of loud war whoops, and the old wagoner trotted along the lines, bucking up the men, reminding them not to fire at the redcoats till they could see the whites of their eyes. Tarleton had sent fifty of his three hundred cavalrymen to probe the American position, judging from past experience that the untrained rebels would run, but the riflemen behind trees opened fire on the advancing British horsemen and emptied fifteen saddles. When the other riders saw that, they reined in their mounts and galloped back to Tarleton's lines. Seeing those empty saddles convinced the commander that this was not going to be as easy as he had thought, but at the sight of Morgan's first line retiring toward the second, as if retreating, he deployed his infantrymen in formal battle formation, with his two small fieldpieces in the center and two hundred cavalry and the kilted Highlanders in reserve.

These British had had little sleep the night before. They began their march at 3
A.M
., and for the next five hours were slogging through the darkness, on sodden roads, into swamps, streams, and rough terrain until they finally came in sight of the Americans. They were tired and had barely formed up when their impetuous commander ordered them to move forward. Stepping off as if on a parade ground, they were an impressive sight—the red-coated British regulars, Tarleton's British legion in green, bayonets and cavalry sabers glinting in the rising sun. As Tarleton said later, “the animation of the officers and the alacrity of the soldiers afforded the most promising assurances of success.”

Facing them were some 450 militiamen in buckskin or homespun, for most of whom a formal battle like this was a wholly new and terrifying experience. But the moment for which Morgan had planned so carefully was upon them, and the old wagoner continued to ride back and forth behind them, telling them again and again not to fire. On the British came, closer and closer, and Pickens's men took careful aim with their rifles or muskets, and when the oncoming bayonets were a hundred yards away they got the signal they were waiting for and let loose a deadly blast, reloaded, and fired again, killing most of the British who fell in battle that day. There were great gaps in the British line, but they kept moving forward while Pickens's troops, according to orders, ran across to the American left, where the Continentals waited. For soldiers on the right, it was a long way to run, and fifty British dragoons were thundering down on them, racing in for the kill.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Washington's and McCall's horsemen appeared, sabers waving in the air, and charged into the flank of Tarleton's cavalry, who were outnumbered at this moment almost three to one. In moments ten British dragoons were dead or wounded and the rest fled, while the American militiamen who had come so near destruction were still intact, off on one side of the hillock.

Convinced that the rebels were retreating, the British infantry came on at a run but they were now confronted by veterans—the three hundred Continentals and former Continentals, who made up the main American line. Kneeling for greater accuracy, they aimed low, exchanging volley after volley with the redcoats in a firefight that continued for half an hour. At that point Tarleton called on his reserve, the Highlanders, and ordered them forward on his left. With bagpipes keening, they advanced toward the side of the hill where the Continentals were engaged. Seeing that he would be outflanked, John Eager Howard ordered the company on his extreme right to wheel about so as to face this new threat, but somehow the order was misunderstood and the men began heading for the rear. Other soldiers, seeing this, assumed that an order to retreat had been given, and followed them.

Morgan confronted Howard, demanding to know what was going on, and when Howard convinced him that the men were not retreating, the commander told him that he would pick a place where they could establish a new line.

Tarleton was certain that the rebels were on the run now and decided to throw everything he had at them, including the legion cavalry, who were not yet committed. Infantry and cavalry alike, eager to be in at the kill, began racing up the slope in complete disorder, and William Washington, who was out in front of the American lines and off to the right, could see the confusion of the British and sent word to Morgan that the enemy was behaving like a mob. Give them one fire, he proposed, and he would charge them. Morgan received this message just as Pickens's riflemen, who had, incredibly, made a complete circuit of the entire battlefield, suddenly appeared on his right. That was all he needed to make his decision. He gave an order to the Continentals: “Face about, give them one fire, and the day is ours!”

By this time the British, running forward wildly, as if every man wanted the honor of winning this fight, had appeared on the crest of the slope and were pounding downhill in a mad rush, about fifty yards from the Americans, when Morgan's order was obeyed. The whole line of Delaware and Maryland Continentals, plus the riflemen at the ends of their line, faced about and fired in a burst of flame and blinding smoke, shooting from the hip at the onrushing redcoats, who were stopped dead. From the right side, Pickens's men were firing, Howard yelled, “Give them the bayonets!” and the startled British, in complete disarray, broke ranks, threw down their weapons and cartouche boxes, and made for the wagon road. The elated Thomas Young said it was “the prettiest sort of running.”

Lieutenant Roderick Mackenzie of the Highlanders, who was wounded in the battle and was extremely critical of Tarleton's decisions, described the chaos. When the British fell back, it “communicated a panic to others, which soon became general: a total rout ensued. Two hundred and fifty horse which had not been engaged, fled through the woods with the utmost precipitation, bearing down such officers as opposed their flight.…”

Although it was clear that the British were defeated, Tarleton chose to attack with no more than fifty horse against Washington's cavalry, who were supported by Continentals, and his entire force was repulsed. Before it ended, the hundred Highlanders fought on until nine of their officers were dead or wounded, and then surrendered. One of them, a Major McArthur, spoke with Colonel Howard, who expressed surprise at the precipitate manner in which Tarleton sent his troops into battle. Nothing better could be expected, said the major, “when troops were commanded by a rash, foolish boy.” The defeat of the cocky young cavalryman at Cowpens, with the loss of many fine officers and veteran troops, released a lot of pent-up anger of senior military men in the British army—enough that Tarleton submitted his resignation, which was rejected by Cornwallis.

Colonel Howard also talked with Captain Duncanson of the British First Grenadiers, who handed him his sword and stood there, pulling at Howard's saddle. The colonel was annoyed at this and asked what he was doing, to which the Briton replied that they had orders from Tarleton to give no quarter and he feared the rebels would treat him accordingly. Howard reassured him. As Morgan was to say, in contrast to “Tarleton's Quarter,” “Not a man was killed, wounded, or even insulted after he had surrendered.”

When the fighting ceased, the extent of Morgan's victory could be seen. The British lost 110 men killed, including 39 officers; 229 were wounded and captured, and 550 others surrendered. The stunning defeat cost Cornwallis nearly one-fourth of his entire army in the South. In addition to the prisoners, the booty included the two three-pounders, 800 muskets, 100 horses, 35 wagonloads of baggage, 60 black slaves, enormous quantities of ammunition, and “all their music”—their prized band instruments. Against this, Morgan, who had gone into battle with 800 men—two-thirds of them militia—lost 12 killed and 60 wounded against Tarleton's 1,150 veterans.

Tarleton and some fifty mounted men were the only British to escape, and they were hotly pursued by William Washington, who rode well ahead of his own cavalrymen in his eagerness to take the man known as the “Butcher.” He caught up with the enemy, and Tarleton and two other officers turned suddenly and came at him with sabers. Washington lashed out at one and broke his own sword in half when their blades met. The other officer with Tarleton raised his saber, but fortuitously Washington's senior sergeant galloped up, parried the blow on his own weapon, and then wounded the man in his sword arm. Tarleton headed for Washington, swung his saber, which the American managed to ward off with his broken sword, and with other rebel cavalrymen almost upon him, Tarleton fired his pistol at Washington but missed the American and wounded his horse. Then the Green Dragoon raced off.

Morgan's stunning victory was cause for rejoicing and celebration by patriots everywhere—“a healing cordial to our drooping spirits,” as Congressman John Mathews wrote to Nathanael Greene. It was not only a tactical masterpiece, but astonishing in that a majority of Morgan's outnumbered force consisted of untrained militia, who had overcome Tarleton's veterans. Best of all, the most despised British officer in America had been defeated and humiliated—an achievement not lost on the British at home. Gloomily, Horace Walpole wrote, “America is once more not quite ready to be conquered, although every now and then we fancy it is. Tarleton is defeated, Cornwallis is checked, and Arnold not sure of having betrayed his friends to much purpose.”