The army was in three divisions—the main body under Cornwallis, at Camden; Tarleton’s Legion, at Winnsborough; and the Brigade of Provincial troops under Major Ferguson, at Post Ninety-Six. It was at this time that Morgan again took the field. The defeat of Gates at Camden had stirred his patriotism to its very depths. In the distress of his country he buried all resentment of the ill-treatment he had received from both Gates and the Congress—the hardy warrior again drew his sword. And Gates with his pride humbled and his heart filled with humility by adversity, desiring to retrieve his fallen fortunes, resolved upon giving Morgan an independent command. The British began their march in the second week of September—a delightful season in the southern clime, perhaps the loveliest of the year. The earlier cereals had yielded to the sickle, and the sheaves, standing like mute sentinels in the field, had been bound by the reapers. The maize was nearly ripe. Supplies for the troops were plentiful. Indeed, the proud Cornwallis had no thought of care for his army that did not dissolve in the kindling prospect of glory and renown.
In the opinion of Bancroft, the ablest British partizan officer at that time in America was Major Patrick Ferguson, in command of the left division of the army. He was ordered to enlist as he passed northward, the young loyalists who had fled to the mountains for security and those fugitives whose love of plunder would find indulgence and protection under the British standard. House-burners and assassins, plunderers and wrongers of women and children, were massed in his command. But neither Ferguson nor his desperate troops were fated much longer to pillage, burn and kill. At King’s Mountain, on the 7th day of October, the backwoodsmen from the Virginia mountains, the commands of Isaac Shelby and John Sevier, the men from North Carolina under McDowell and Cleaveland—all by common consent under the command of the redoubtable Virginian, William Campbell, a brother-in-law of Patrick Henry—every man armed with his own rifle and riding his own horse, determined to avenge the wrongs which they and their kinsmen had suffered at the hands of the British troops. A bloody battle was fought and Ferguson was pierced through the heart. His entire command was captured.
Six days after this event, on the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, and John Rutledge, the great chief magistrate of South Carolina, Congress appointed Daniel Morgan a Brigadier-General in the army of the United States. The news of the death of Ferguson and the surrender of his army at King’s Mountain reached Cornwallis on the march from Charlotte to Salisbury. The destruction of one-third of his army, at a single blow, and the death of his ablest commander were reverses as stunning as they were unexpected. His fears were at once aroused for the safety of the posts in his rear, now being constantly menaced by Marion and Sumpter.
He first halted. Then he retreated. Determining to reinforce his army, before resuming his march, with the three thousand men under General Leslie at Portsmouth, Virginia, he ordered that officer to join him by way of Charleston. He recrossed the Catawba and posted himself at Winnsborough on the 29th day of October, intending to await the coming of Leslie. On the 4th day of December, 1780, General Nathaniel Greene succeeded General Gates in command of the American army in camp at Charlotte. And now began the series of stirring events which culminated in the most remarkable and surprising battle of the war and the destruction of the second division of Cornwallis’ proud army.
The whole American force at this time did not exceed two thousand men, only eight hundred of whom were regulars. It was an army almost entirely devoid of necessary equipment. It had no tents and few wagons; it was badly armed and its supply of ammunition was short. Its men were almost naked, with not more than three days’ provisions in store. General Greene’s orders, under these circumstances, were as necessary as wise—he determined to divide his force into two bodies and post them on the right and left flanks of the British. Under his own command, the main body was to occupy a position on the Pedee River; while a detachment under General Morgan was to operate between the Broad and Pacolet. The detachment under Morgan consisted of five hundred and eighty men in all—three hundred and twenty-eight light infantry, two hundred Virginia militia and about eighty cavalry. They were put in motion on the 20th of December, 1780, for the country between the rivers I have just named. Greene offered him wagons. He refused them as being incompatible with the nature of light troops. When Cornwallis learned of Morgan’s movement, he misinterpreted it to mean an attack on the British post called Ninety-Six. On the 2d day of January, 1781, Cornwallis addressed this familiar note to Tarleton, which is indicative of the close personal relations existing between the parties to it, as well as the wholesome respect they had for Morgan:
“Dear Tarleton: I sent Haldane to you last night, to desire you would pass Broad River with the legion and the first battalion of the 71st as soon as possible. If Morgan is still at Williams’, or anywhere within your reach, I should wish you to push him to the utmost. I have not heard, except from McArthur, of his having cannon, nor would I believe it, unless he has it from very good authority. It is, however, possible, and Ninety-Six is of so much importance that no time is to be lost.
“Yours sincerely,
“Cornwallis.”
Tarleton promptly obeyed these instructions and was soon in possession of sufficient information to warrant him in assuring Cornwallis that Ninety-Six was in no immediate danger from Morgan. He then conceived and proposed to Cornwallis the plan of operations against Morgan which ended in the celebrated battle which we commemorate tonight and immortalized the name and fame of the big raw-boned boy with the Irish brogue who came to the Valley of Virginia in 1755 “out of the land of God-knows-where”!
That plan contemplated a joint movement against Morgan on the part of Tarleton and Cornwallis by which they would compel him “either to fight, disperse across the mountain or surrender.” It was at once approved. Cornwallis sent Tarleton a reinforcement of two hundred and fifty men and on the 7th of January put the main body in motion to act in conjunction with him. On the 16th day of January Cornwallis reached Turkey Creek. Filled with anxiety lest Greene should attack and defeat the troops under Leslie, and having no doubt that the dashing Tarleton with his superior numbers would defeat Morgan if he overtook him, Cornwallis determined to await at Turkey Creek until General Leslie joined the main army. It was a fatal decision. Not more than twenty-five miles away was about to be enacted the tragedy to the British arms, in which a rude and untutored genius, commanding undisciplined woodmen half-naked and half-starved, was matched against an educated and accomplished officer in command of regular troops greater in number, well-fed, well-conditioned, and as thoroughly disciplined as any troops in the world. The beginning of the end of British authority over American soil was at hand.