"Downright Fighting": The Story of Cowpens

by Thomas J. Fleming

But events now occurred with a rapidity that made it impossible for the cavalry to respond. The center of Tarleton’s line of infantry surged up the slope after the Continentals, bayonets lowered, howling for American blood. With almost half their officers dead or wounded by now, they lost all semblance of military formation.

Far down the battlefield, where he had halted his pursuit of the British cavalry, William Washington saw what was happening. He sent a horseman racing to Morgan with a terse message. “They are coming on like a mob. Give them another fire and I will charge them.” Thomas Young, riding with Washington, never forgot the moment. “The bugle sounded,” he said. “We made a half circuit at full speed and came upon the rear of the British line shouting and charging like madmen.”

Simultaneously, Morgan reached the geographical crest of the slope, with the Continentals only a few steps behind him. He roared out an order to turn and fire. The Continentals wheeled and threw a blast of concentrated musketry into the faces of the charging British. Officers and men toppled. The line recoiled.

“Give them the bayonet,” bellowed John Eager Howard.

With a wild yell, the Continentals charged. The astonished British panicked. Some of them, probably the Fusiliers, flung themselves faced down on the ground begging for mercy. Others, Thomas Young recalled, “took to the wagon road and did the prettiest sort of running away.”

At almost the same moment, the Highlanders, whose weight, if they had joined the charge, would probably have been decisive, received an unexpected blast of musketry from their flank. Andrew Pickens and the militia had returned to the battle. The backwoodsmen blazed at the Scotsmen, the riflemen among them concentrating on the screen of the cavalrymen. The cavalry fled and McArthur’s men found themselves fighting a private war with the militia.

Astonished and appalled, Tarleton sent an officer racing to the British Legion cavalry with orders for them to form a line of battle about 400 yards away, on the left of the road. He rode frantically among his fleeing infantry, trying to rally them. His first purpose was “to protect the guns.” To lose a cannon was a major disgrace in 18th-century warfare. The artillerymen were the only part of the British center that had not succumbed to the general panic. They continued to fire their grasshoppers, while the infantry threw down their muskets or ran past them helter skelter. Part of the artillery’s tradition was an absolute refusal to surrender. They lived by the code of victory or death.

Once past the surrendering infantry, the Continentals headed for the cannon. Like robots—or very brave men—the artillerymen continued to fire until every man except one was shot down or bayonetted.

The last survivor of the other gun crew was the man who touched the match to the powder vent. A Continental called on him to surrender this tool. The artilleryman refused. As the Continental raised his bayonet to kill him, Howard came up and blocked the blow with his sword. A man that brave, the colonel said, deserved to live. The artilleryman surrendered the match to Howard.

Up and down the American line on the crest rang an ominous cry. “Give them Tarleton’s quarter.” Remembering Waxhaws, the regulars and their Virginia militia cousins were ready to massacre the surrendered British. But Daniel Morgan, the epitome of battle fury while the guns were firing, was a humane and generous man. He rode into the shouting infantrymen, ordering them to let the enemy live. Junior officers joined him in enforcing the order.