Retreat of the British.—Encounter between Washington and Tarleton.—Result of the Battle.
thur, were too much mixed up with the main forces of Tarleton, to present a rallying point, and the whole body retreated along the Mill-gap road to the place near Scruggs's, delineated on page 636, then covered with an open wood like the ground where the conflict commenced. There the battle ended, and the pursuit was relinquished. It was near the northern border of that present open field that Washington and Tarleton had a personal conflict. In the eagerness of his pursuit of that officer, Washington had got far in advance of his squadron, when Tarleton and two of his aids, at the head of the troop of the 17th regiment of dragoons, turned upon him. An officer on Tarleton's right was about to strike the impetuous Washington with his saber, when his sergeant came up and disabled the assailant's sword-arm. An officer on Tarleton's left was about to strike at the same moment, when Washington's little bugler, too small to wield a sword, wounded the assailant with a pistol-ball. Tarleton, who was in the center, then made a thrust at him, which Washington parried, and gave his enemy a wound in the hand. * Tarleton wheeled, and, as he retreated, discharged a pistol, by which Washington was wounded in the knee. During that night and the following morning, the remnant of Tarleton's force reached Hamilton's Ford, on Broad River, and also the encampment of Cornwallis, at Turkey Creek, about twenty-five miles from the Cowpens. For this defeat, Tarleton's cotemporaries censured him severely. **
The loss of the Americans in this decisive battle was about seventy men, of whom, strange to say, only twelve were killed. The British, according to Cornwallis's letter to Sir Henry Clinton, written a few days afterward, lost ten officers and ninety privates killed, and twenty-three officers and five hundred privates taken prisoners. Almost the whole of the British infantry, except the baggage guard, were killed or taken. The two pieces of artillery, *** eight hundred muskets, two standards, thirty-five baggage wagons, and one hundred dragoon horses, fell into the possession of the Americans. **** To the honor of the victors, it is declared that, notwithstanding the cruel warfare which Tarleton had waged had exasperated the Americans to the last degree, not one of the British was killed or wounded, or even insulted, after they had surrendered.
The defeat of the British at the Cowpens has not been inaptly compared to that of the Germans of Burgoyne's army near Bennington. The disaster, in both cases, dealt a severe blow against the success of the main army. The battle near Bennington paralyzed the energies of Burgoyne's army; the battle at the Cowpens equally affected the power of Cornwallis. He was advancing triumphantly toward the heart of North Carolina, having placed
* It is related that this wound was twice the subject for the sallies of wit of two American ladies, who were sisters, daughters of Colonel Montfort, of Halifax county, North Carolina. When Cornwallis and his army were at Halifax, on their way to Virginia, Tarleton was at the house of an American. In the presence of Mrs. Wilie Jones (one of these sisters), Tarleton spoke of Colonel Washington as an illiterate fellow, hardly able to write his name. "Ah! colonel," said Mrs. Wilie, "you ought to know better, for you bear on your person proof that he knows very well how to make his mark.'" At another time, Tarleton was speaking sarcastically of Washington, in the presence of her sister, Mrs. Ashe. "I would be happy to see Colonel Washington," he said, with a sneer. Mrs. Ashe instantly replied, "If you had looked behind you, Colonel Tarleton, at. the battle of the Cowpens, you would have enjoyed that pleasure." Stung with this keen wit, Tarleton plaeed his hand on his sword. General Leslie, who was present, remarked. "Say what you please, Mrs. Ashe, Colonel Tarleton knows better than to insult a lady in my presence."—Mr. Ellet's Women of the Revolution.
** See Siedman, ii., 324.
*** These two pieces of artillery were first taken from Burgoyne at Saratoga; then retaken by the British at Camden; now were recovered by the Americans, and afterward fell into the hands of Cornwallis at Guilford. They were of the kind of small field-pieees called "grasshoppers."
**** Ramsay, Gordon, Marshall, Lee, Johnson, Tarleton, Moultrie.
The Heroes of the Cowpens.—Departure from that Place.—Cherokee Ford.—Indians in the Carolinas.
South Carolina, as he thought, in submission at his feet. The defeat of Ferguson at King's Mountain, and now of Tarleton, his favorite partisan, withered his hopes of Tory organization and co-operation. His last hope was the destruction of Greene's army by his own superior force, and for that purpose he now commenced the pursuit which we have considered in a preceding chapter, the capture of Morgan and his prisoners being his first object.