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  A Devil of a whipping

  A Devil of a whipping

  The Battle of Cowpens

  Lawrence E. Babits

  The University of North Carolina Press

  Chapel Hill & London

  © 1998

  The University of North Carolina Press

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  The paper in this book meets the guidelines for

  permanence and durability of the Committee on

  Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the

  Council on Library Resources.

  Library of Congress

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Babits, Lawrence Edward.

  A devil of a whipping: the Battle of Cowpens /

  Lawrence E. Babits.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

  ISBN 978-0-8078-2434-4 (cloth : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-0-8078-4926-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Cowpens, Battle of, 1781. I. Title.

  E241.C9B33 1998

  973.3’37—dc21 98-13059

  CIP

  To

  Ernest W. Peterkin

  historian, teacher, gentleman

  1920—1995

  Peter Thorbahn

  historian, archaeologist, teacher

  1946—1987

  The private soldiers of the 21st Infantry, U.S. Army,

  who died

  1963—1973

  Contents

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1 Tactics

  2 The Opponents

  3 Prebattle Activities

  4 The Stage Is Set

  5 The Skirmish Line

  6 The Militia Line

  7 The Main Line

  8 Cavalry Actions

  9 The Aftermath

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Maps

  1 Map of the Carolinas Showing Points of Strategic Interest, 4

  2 American and British Movements, 12–16 January 1781, 50

  3 Topography of the Cowpens Battlefield, 64

  4 The Hammond Map—First View, 68

  5 The Hammond Map—Second View, 69

  6 The “Clove Map,” 70

  7 The “Pigree Map,” 71

  8 Hayes’s Battalion Movements, 74

  9 The Skirmish Line, 83

  10 British Deployment and Skirmish-Line Withdrawal, 85

  11 The Militia Line, 90

  12 Militia-Line Firefight, 91

  13 Militia-Line Withdrawal, 96

  14 Main-Line Positions after Militia Withdrawal, 102

  15 McDowell’s Right-Flank Action, 108

  16 The Misunderstood Order, 110

  17 Main-Line Withdrawal, 116

  18 The American Counterattack, 118

  19 Cavalry Movements in the Counterattack, 128

  Photographs, Tables, and Figures

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  Daniel Morgan, 26

  Banastre Tarleton, 43

  John Eager Howard, 67

  William Washington, 88

  Andrew Pickens, 121

  Nathanael Greene, 146

  TABLES

  1 Ratio of Unit Size to Survivors Who Made Pension Application, 32

  2 North Carolina Cowpens Pensioners by County, 37

  3 Wounds in American Main-Line Companies, 105

  4 Seventy-first Regiment Firing Distance on American Right Flank, 113

  5 Distances Covered at Common and Quick Step, 114

  6 British Casualties, 142

  FIGURES

  1 Nomenclature of a Musket, 12

  2 Battalion Firing Sequence According to the Von Steuben Manual, 17

  3 South Carolina Militia Battalions Firing Sequence, 92

  Preface

  Although a very short battle, Cowpens was an important turning point in the Revolutionary War. The engagement was the finest American tactical demonstration of the war. The battle caught the American public’s imagination because it came after large-scale victories left the British in nominal control of the Deep South. After Cowpens, Major General Charles, the Earl Cornwallis, was deprived of his light troops. He reduced his baggage to pursue Brigadier General Daniel Morgan’s force, and then Major General Nathanael Greene’s southern army, only to run his own army into the ground. The impact of Cowpens on the manpower and the psyche of the British army was immense and helped lead to the Yorktown surrender.

  Despite its impact at the time, Cowpens is not well known today. This is unfortunate because it is significant as a tactical masterpiece. Compared with Lexington, Concord, and Yorktown, Cowpens receives little attention from historians or the American public. This omission may be due to a concentration on Washington and his campaigns, especially by northern historians, yet Cowpens helped create the Yorktown victory.

  Contemporary and historical accounts about the battle vary. In particular, conflicting claims about numbers are a primary clue to a different battle than has traditionally been reported. Both Morgan and Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton minimized their own numbers and enlarged their opponent’s. There was no reason to pursue this until Bobby G. Moss published his compilation of data relating to the battle.1 A simple matter of addition and a basic knowledge of statistics confirmed glaring discrepancies between official statements and actual American numbers.

  Final stimulation to work on Cowpens came from the brilliant work by Douglas Scott and Richard Fox. Assigned to investigate the battlefield at Little Bighorn National Monument, they located artifacts, excavated, and computerized their data. Their work did not change the battle’s outcome, but the new details challenged traditional interpretations about how Custer met his end.2 Cowpens cannot be investigated the same way because eighteenth-century weapons technology was different. At Cowpens, the many written accounts from both sides make its interpretation easier than that of the battle of the Little Bighorn, where only Indians survived to tell what happened.

  Cowpens is unusual for an American Revolutionary War battle. A small, quick fight with immense impact, Cowpens is fairly well documented because it was recognized as a turning point in the war. Primary records make it possible to study this engagement using participant observations. Obscure published documents and the long unutilized pension records provide a new opportunity and good reasons for reexamining the battle. The combination of well-known accounts, lesser-known documentary materials, including the pension records, makes reevaluation of Cowpens necessary, especially since the most-used published accounts were often taken out of the battle’s chronological and spatial contexts.

  The starting point was Bobby G. Moss’s Patriots at the Cowpens.3 Utilizing letters, memoirs, official reports, and pension applications, Moss listed more than 950 Americans who served, or probably served, at Cowpens. While some names were later eliminated, nearly thirty Marylanders and forty Delawares were added. Even with deletions, there were more names than Morgan’s official strength at Cowpens. Since pension records represent only those who survived the battle and lived an additional forty years, Morgan had far more men than he claimed. Computerizing the pension data allowed examination of details such as the number in each battle line, militia organization, company positions, and individual soldiers’ locations. In some cases, casualty types and locations illuminated previously unsuspected battle segments.

  Even though Cowpens was documented by contemporaries4 and following generations, a new study is necessary because most secondary accounts rely heavily on earlier historians and very few participant accounts.5 Virtually every writer quoted a few first-
person accounts, often without citing them. In most cases, however, statements were taken out of chronological order without regard for battlefield location.6 No author used all published sources or attempted to resolve differences of chronology and tactics. Furthermore, most recent writers tend to present the southern campaign within a broader context, such as overall strategy in the war or Loyalists.7 Cowpens then becomes only a small segment of a campaign.

  Two historians provide alternative ways of reporting combat. S. L. A. Marshall pioneered battle analysis by examining small units during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Marshall used post-battle interviews to create a consensus of what happened. He then drew conclusions about improving American combat effectiveness.8 John Keegan studied war from a detailed chronological perspective, and his first work, The Face of Battle, articulated his approach. Keegan reduced battles to increments of time and types of combat. Using participant accounts, he reconstructed and reinterpreted battles using documentary sources to provide information about types of fighting, states of mind, and unit cohesion. His interpretations resulted in a better understanding of medieval, Napoleonic, and World War I combat.9

  I tried to integrate both the Marshall and Keegan approaches by treating participant accounts as if they were post-battle interviews. Once a computer organized pension information into categories such as arrival time, wounds, and company commanders, patterns involving groups of men were linked to other narrative accounts. Following Keegan’s model, I divided Cowpens into chronological elements to provide viewpoints at specific times and places during the battle.

  Participants’ details often seem to be in conflict with other contemporary and later accounts. This conflict is misleading. A person saw events from his own perspective based on rank, field position, and perception of time. An officer on horseback, for example, saw more than a private standing in ranks. An officer probably had better knowledge of the planned battle and, later, what actually happened. A private usually remembered things that concerned him directly, or that struck him as notable.10 Once all accounts were ordered into a coherent chronology, and observers were located on the battlefield, most conflicts resolved and actions became comprehensible.

  Cowpens documents can be grouped into several categories. They include eyewitness accounts, secondary accounts by people in direct association with participants shortly after the battle, historians who wrote accounts while participants were living and who corresponded with veterans, participants who wrote memoirs sometime after the battle, and, finally, the pensioners.

  An eyewitness was limited by what a soldier could see and his knowledge of the fighting. Lieutenant Roderick MacKenzie and others had clear bias and slanted their accounts to suit their own purposes. Knowing MacKenzie hated Banastre Tarleton makes his commentary valuable for details mentioned in passing and unrelated to his attack on Tarleton. Others, including Sergeant Major William Seymour, Lieutenant Thomas Anderson, and Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, presented what they knew as accurately as they could. Later, battle recollections were written by Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard and Lieutenant James Simons in response to questions about the battle or to support a veteran’s pension application.11

  Some secondary authors wrote about Cowpens with knowledge acquired from participants soon after the fighting occurred. All were military men with good reason to know what happened and why. These writers include George Hanger, Samuel Shaw, Charles Stedman, and Henry Lee. These writers had access to participants, and since they were still engaged in the conflict, they had a need to know from a tactical viewpoint.12

  Histories written after the war ended, and later participant memoirs, form another group of battle records. Historical accounts written by William Gordon, David Ramsay, John Marshall, William Johnson, and William Moultrie include participants’ information. Memoirs by Thomas Young, Joseph Mcjunkin, Christopher Brandon, and John Shaw include details not found in other accounts. These authors presented battle information, and errors were certain to draw criticism from eyewitnesses.13

  Finally, there are the pension accounts. A very few, for badly injured and destitute soldiers, were compiled before 1810. More were recorded after the first pension act was enacted in 1818. Most, perhaps three-fourths, were drawn up during or after 1832 when the second pension act was passed more than fifty years after the battle. Sworn testimony is not free of bias. Veterans trying to demonstrate Revolutionary War service, often without discharge certificates and muster rolls, provided information about comrades, commanding officers, tours of duty, and battles. The passage of time affected memory, but many veterans carefully stated that their declarations were as best recollected.14

  Even fifty years after the battle, with faulty recollection about dates and places and a tendency to enhance their own participation, sworn pension applications contain details that did not otherwise survive. Even with misspelled names and the wrong rank or date, most accounts fit into useful patterns and are valuable precisely because the information was not intended for historians. Personal comments had no bearing on whether or not a veteran obtained a pension. These “asides” presented in passing provided important details about Cowpens.

  A single individual account is not as reliable as a whole range of statements in which several men identified the same commanding officers, approximate arrival time at Cowpens, and other soldiers in their companies. Recitation of details about commanders and tours of duty by one man is neither very important nor potentially very accurate. However, if a group of men residing in different locales in 1832 repeat virtually the same information, their mutual recollections have great validity for re-creating company and regimental organization that survived in no other form. More obviously accurate are statements that a veteran served as a Continental and not as a militiaman, that he volunteered or served as a substitute for someone who is named, or that it was his first, biggest, or only battle. If a veteran reported being wounded at Cowpens, a certain credibility must be given to his recollection for obvious reasons. Many pension applications include depositions containing additional details from former officers. Other supporting documents include statements by physicians who detailed war wounds and scars.

  These crucial battle details are presented in passing to document Revolutionary War service. One man recalled that he saw Tarleton; another remembered Morgan’s facial scar; a third noted he fired his rifle five times. Inserted into a battle chronology, the recollections bring the combat into focus and better explain what happened and why. Some accounts provide different versions of an incident, as can be seen by comparing Young’s and Simons’s descriptions of cavalry movement. While details had no real utility for determining pension eligibility, they enhance our understanding of what happened.

  The original question about the number of Morgan’s men has been answered. Tracing guns across the landscape was impossible; it could not be done because muskets used paper cartridges and rifle balls were patched with cloth. The patched bullets would not exhibit rifling, and there were no brass shell cases for firing-pin analysis, as with the Little Big Horn artifacts. Forensic information was simply not available even though ball size, buttons, and flint types may indicate battle lines or unreported battle episodes.15

  Additional questions about what happened at certain times and places during the battle were raised. Where did the North Carolina militia go after the initial skirmishing; why were so many wounded by sabers if British dragoons never reached them? Why did South Carolina militiamen run across the battlefield directly toward dragoons they feared? How did forty British dragoons rout several hundred militiamen? What caused a “mistaken order” on the Continental right flank? What did American cavalry do and where? Did Tarleton’s men really plunder his baggage and did he attack them? These questions guided research and resulted in a more accurate view of Cowpens than any study presented before.

  Acknowledgments

  This work is heavily indebted to Bobby G. Moss, Limestone College, Gaffney, South Carolina. He cr
eated the initial database of Cow-pens participants. If it were not for his drudge work, this study would not be possible. Douglas Scott, National Park Service Midwest Regional Archaeological Center, and Richard A. Fox, Department of Anthropology, University of South Dakota, provided original stimulation with their work on the Custer battlefield. Doug and Rich freely shared information and provided guidance.

  From 1967 to 1984,1 was a member of the First Maryland Regiment, a group portraying the Revolutionary War Continental soldier. The experience provided practical information and experience about Revolutionary War soldier life. Regimental members William L. Brown III, Burton K. Kummerow, Ernest W. Peterkin, Ross M. Kimmell, Frederick C. Gaede, Michael Black, Thomas Murray, Luther Sowers, John D. Griffiths, Robert L. Klinger, Denis Reen, Jeremy Reen, and others from the “Swamp Platoon” and the “Musick” gave me insights and resources about the past. Many were veterans, and our exposure to Revolutionary War material culture, tactics, rates of fire, weapons accuracy, and the tedium of standing in ranks taught us more about the Revolutionary War’s physical aspects. In the words of another war, we drank from the same canteen.

  At Cowpens, National Park Service personnel helped greatly. Peter Givins answered questions and provided materials, maps, and encouragement. Patricia Ruff served as liaison during document research. She orchestrated logistics to copy documents at the Southeastern Regional Branch of the National Archives in Atlanta and provided a steady stream of questions about the battle.

  At Armstrong State College in Savannah, Georgia, many people contributed to my research. Norman Crawford wrote a computer program to consolidate Cowpens pension data. The Department of History, especially Roger Warlick and Diane Wagner, provided supplies, communications, and encouragement during initial research. The Military Science Department provided a vehicle for a “staff ride” to Cowpens and encouraged continuing research into eighteenth-century military behavior. I wish to acknowledge William C. McManus, G. D. McAdams, and the cadets. Richard Leech created base maps and raised questions about tactics, landscape, and units at Cowpens.