Around this time, a man who had known Daniel Morgan as a boy in Virginia visited his camp. Richard Winn, after whom Winnsborough was named—and whose mansion Cornwallis was using as his headquarters—discussed Tarleton’s tactics with his old friend. Winn told Morgan that Tarleton’s favorite mode of fighting was by surprise. “He never brings on [leads] his attacks himself,” Winn said. He prefers to send in two or three troops of horse, “whose goal is to throw the other party into confusion. Then Tarleton attacks with his reserve and cuts them to pieces.”
Much as he dreaded the thought of a retreat, Morgan was too experienced a soldier not to prepare for one. He sent his quartermaster across the Broad River with orders to set up magazines of supplies for his army. This officer returned with dismaying news. General Sumter had refused to cooperate with this request and directed his subordinates to obey no orders from Morgan.
Adding to Morgan’s supply woes was a Carolina military custom. Every militiaman brought his horse to camp with him. This meant that Morgan had to find forage for over 450 horses (counting William Washington’s cavalry), each of whom ate 25 to 30 pounds of oats and hay a day. “Could the militia be persuaded to change their fatal mode of going to war,” Morgan groaned to Greene, “much provision might be saved; but the custom has taken such deep root that it cannot be abolished.”
Bands of militiamen constantly left the army to hunt for forage. This practice made it impossible for Morgan to know how many men he had in his command. In desperation, he ordered his officers, both Continental and militia, to call the roll every two hours. This measure only gave him more bad news. On January 15, after retreating from the Pacolet to Thicketty Creek, he reported to Greene that he had only 340 militia with him, but did not expect “to have more than two-thirds of these to assist me, should I be attacked, for it is impossible to keep them collected.”
Making Morgan feel even more like a military Job was a personal problem. The incessant rain and the damp January cold had awakened an illness that he had contracted fighting in Canada during the winter of 1775-76, a rheumatic inflammation of the sciatic nerve in his hip. It made riding a horse agony for Morgan.
In his tent on Thicketty Creek, where he had rendezvoused with William Washington and his 80 cavalrymen, who had been getting their horses shod at Wofford’s iron works, Morgan all but abandoned any hope of executing the mission on which Greene had sent him. “My force is inadequate,” he wrote. “Upon a full and mature deliberation I am confirmed in the opinion that nothing can be effected by my detachment in this country, which will balance the risks I will be subjected to by remaining here. The enemy’s great superiority in numbers and our distance from the main army, will enable Lord Cornwallis to detach so superior a force against me, as to render it essential to our safety to avoid coming to action.”
It would be best, Morgan told Greene, if he were recalled with his little band of Continentals and Andrew Pickens or William Davidson left to command the back-country militia. Without the regulars to challenge them, the British were less likely to invade the district and under Pickens’ leadership the rebels would be able to keep “a check on the disaffected”—the Tories—“which,” Morgan added mournfully, “is all I can effect.”
When he wrote these words on January 15, Morgan was still unaware of what was coming at him. From the reports of Pickens’ scouts, he had begun to worry that Tarleton might have more than his 550-man British Legion with him. With the help of Washington’s cavalry, he felt confident that he could beat off an attack by the Legion. But what if Tarleton had additional men? “Col. Tarleton has crossed the Tyger at Musgrove’s Mill,” Morgan told Greene. “His force we cannot learn.”
Into Morgan’s camp galloped more scouts from Pickens. They brought news that Morgan made the last sentence of his letter.
“We have just learned that Tarleton’s force is from eleven to twelve hundred British.”