"Downright Fighting": The Story of Cowpens

by Thomas J. Fleming

This portrait of Tarleton and the illustration beneath of a troop of dragoons doing maneuvers appeared in a flattering biography shortly after he returned to England in 1782.

“Sumter is defeated,” Tarleton reported to Cornwallis, “his corps dispersed. But my Lord I have lost men—50 killed and wounded.” The war was becoming more and more disheartening to Tarleton. Deepening his black mood was news from home. His older brother had put him up for Parliament from Liverpool. The voters had rejected him. They admired his courage, but the American war was no longer popular in England.

While Cornwallis remained at Winnsborough, Tarleton returned from Blackstocks and camped at various plantations south of the Broad River. During his projected invasion of North Carolina, Cornwallis expected Tarleton and his Legion to keep the dwindling rebels of South Carolina dispersed to their homes. Thus the British commander would have no worries about the British base at Ninety Six, the key to the back country. The fort and surrounding settlement had been named by an early mapmaker in the course of measuring distances on the Cherokee Path, an ancient Indian route from the mountains to the ocean. The district around Ninety Six was the breadbasket of South Carolina; it was also heavily loyalist. But a year of partisan warfare had made their morale precarious. The American-born commander of the fort, Col. John Harris Cruger, had recently warned Cornwallis that the loyalists “were wearied by the long continuance of the campaign ... and the whole district had determined to submit as soon as the rebels should enter it.” The mere hint of a threat to Ninety Six and the order it preserved in its vicinity was enough to send flutters of alarm through British headquarters.

There were flutters aplenty when Cornwallis heard from spies that Daniel Morgan had crossed the Broad River and was marching on Ninety Six. Simultaneously came news that William Washington, the commander of Morgan’s cavalry, had routed a group of loyalists at Hammonds Store and forced another group to abandon a fort not far from Ninety Six. At 5 a.m. on January 2, Lt. Henry Haldane, one of Cornwallis’s aides, rode into Tarleton’s camp and told him the news. Close behind Haldane came a messenger with a letter from Cornwallis: “If Morgan is ... anywhere within your reach, I should wish you to push him to the utmost.” Haldane rushed an order to Maj. Archibald McArthur, commander of the first battalion of the 71st Regiment, which was not far away, guarding a ford over the Broad River that guaranteed quick communication with Ninety Six. McArthur was to place his men under Tarleton’s command and join him in a forced march to rescue the crucial fort.

The little village of Ninety Six was a center of loyalist sentiment in the Carolina backcountry. Cornwallis mistakenly thought Morgan had designs on it and therefore sent Tarleton in pursuit, bringing on the battle of Cowpens. This map diagrams the siege that Gen. Nathanael Greene mounted against the post in May-June of 1781.

Tarleton obeyed with his usual speed. His dragoons ranged far ahead of his little army, which now numbered about 700 men. By the end of the day he concluded that there was no cause for alarm about Ninety Six. Morgan was nowhere near it. But his scouts reported that Morgan was definitely south of the Broad River, urging militia from North and South Carolina to join him.

Tarleton’s response to this challenge was almost inevitable. He asked Cornwallis for permission to pursue Morgan and either destroy him or force him to retreat over the Broad River again. There, Cornwallis and his army could devour him.

The young cavalry commander outlined the operation in a letter to Cornwallis on January 4. He realized that he was all but giving orders to his general, and tactfully added: “I feel myself bold in offering my opinion [but] it flows from zeal for the public service and well grounded enquiry concerning the enemy’s designs and operations.” If Cornwallis approved the plan, Tarleton asked for reinforcements: a troop of cavalry from the 17th Light Dragoons and the infantrymen of the 7th Regiment of Royal Fusiliers, who were marching from Camden to reinforce Ninety Six.

Cornwallis approved the plan, including the reinforcements. As soon as they arrived, Tarleton began his march. January rain poured down, swelling every creek, turning the roads into quagmires. Cornwallis, with his larger army and heavy baggage train, began a slow advance up the east bank of the Broad River. As the commander in chief, he had more to worry about than Tarleton. Behind him was another British general, Sir Alexander Leslie, with 1,500 reinforcements. Cornwallis feared that Greene or Marion might strike a blow at them. The earl assumed that Tarleton was as mired by the rain and blocked by swollen watercourses as he was. On January 12, Cornwallis wrote to Leslie, who was being delayed by even worse mud in the lowlands: “I believe Tarleton is as much embarrassed with the waters as you are.” The same day, Cornwallis reported to another officer, the commander in occupied Charleston: “The rains have put a total stop to Tarleton and Leslie.” On this assumption, Cornwallis decided to halt and wait for Leslie to reach him.