Washington's Immortals

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  Chapter 30

  Washington’s Best General

  Despite the debacle at Camden, American partisans led by Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion continued to nip at Cornwallis’s troops, striking his outposts and ambushing his supply lines. The backbone of the southern army, the Maryland Continentals, continued to rebuild as reinforcements streamed south. Their role as veteran, elite troops that formed the nucleus of a new southern army was more important than ever.

  When Congress finally learned the full extent of the disaster at Camden, it offered Washington the opportunity to appoint a new commander of the southern army to replace Horatio Gates. Several men vied for the position, including William Smallwood, who selfishly bucked the chain of command and appealed directly to his contacts in Congress. According to Nathanael Greene, Smallwood also “intimated the great difficulties he encountered and the exertions he had made to save a remnant of General Gates’s army.”

  As backroom politics swirled around the selection of a new southern commander, Smallwood and Mordecai Gist reorganized the remaining Maryland Continentals, beginning the process of rebuilding the tattered army. They compressed the two Maryland brigades, the 1st and the 2nd, into a single regiment of two battalions. The 1st, 3rd, elements of the 5th,31 and 7th Marylanders became the 1st Battalion; the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and the Delaware Regiment became the 2nd Battalion. Within their ranks were key officers and a core group of enlisted men who had survived all the battles since Brooklyn.

  31. Most of the 5th, nearly one hundred men and two cannon, were detached prior to Camden and fought with Sumter. Nearly all these men were either captured or killed.

  Colonel Otho Holland Williams and Major John Eager Howard were given joint command of the regiment. Gist and Smallwood did not join their new Maryland Line; instead, they went back to Baltimore to recruit more men to rebuild the southern army.

  Once the Marylanders were formed into a new regiment, Gates had the foresight to re-designate a portion of them as light infantry and dubbed the unit the Flying Army. It consisted of two companies of one hundred men each from Maryland, along with one company from Delaware. The foot soldiers were accompanied by Lieutenant William Washington’s Continental Light Dragoons. A distant relative of George Washington, the twenty-eight-year-old was described as “six feet in height, broad, strong, and corpulent.” His peer, Light Horse Harry Lee, wrote that William Washington’s “military exploits announce his grade and character in arms. Bold, collected and persevering, he prefers the heat of action . . . than the drudgery of camp and watchfulness of preparation.” Perhaps Daniel Morgan characterized William Washington best: “War was his game, and he was good at it.” Severely wounded in the Battle of Brooklyn, William Washington fought through most of the major campaigns of the war and actively battled his archenemy Banastre Tarleton in the south.

  George Washington wisely chose his most able general, Nathanael Greene, to command the southern army. Greene had rehabilitated his reputation following the disasters at Fort Washington and Fort Lee. Throughout the long winter in Valley Forge, the army was in desperate need of supplies and food. To take this heavy burden off his shoulders, Washington had appointed Greene to the role of quartermaster general. A combat general who despised a chairborne command, the Rhode Islander was loath to accept the position. But when he became quartermaster general, Greene’s business and organizational acumen emerged and worked miracles on a broken American supply chain that was often out of money and matériel. Washington praised Greene’s efforts, writing that the army “in March 1778 was in great disorder and confusion and by extraordinary exertions You so arranged it, as to enable the Army to take the Field the moment it was necessary, and to move with rapidity after the Enemy when they left Philadelphia. From that period to the present time, your exertions have been equally great, have appeared to me to be the result of system and to have been well calculated to promote the interest and honor of your Country.”

  In addition, the former Quaker had devoured numerous books on military tactics, enabling him to provide Washington with excellent advice on numerous occasions.

  The general quickly assessed the situation in the South. His first move as commander was a controversial decision to divide the American army. Greene explained, “I’m well satisfied with the [army] movement, for it has answered thus far all the purposes for which I intended it. It makes the most of my inferior force, for it compels my adversary to divide his, and holds him in doubt as to his own line of conduct.” Logistics decided the fate of both armies. As Napoleon later declared in an iron maxim of war: “An army marches on its stomach.” Challenged by lack of supply, Greene would have had great difficulty supporting his army if it were all assembled in one place. By dividing his army, he was able to feed his men. In addition, his action served to divide the British army, which would have been most potent if united. On Greene’s orders, the Maryland and Delaware troops began marching south toward Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 7, 1780.

  1781

  Chapter 31

  The Ragtag Army

  The condemned man slowly walked in front of the southern Patriot army, which had assembled in parade formation to witness the execution. As the deserter approached the tree, a thick hemp rope was placed around his neck. On Nathanael Greene’s orders, the man was hanged in sight of his brothers-in-arms. The Marylanders stared in silence while the last vestige of life left the dead man’s body, as it swung back and forth in the cold Carolina air.

  The poorly equipped southern army Greene had inherited was in shambles; morale and discipline were awful. Desertion was rampant. Greene noted, “The officers have got in such a habit of negligence and the soldiers so loose and disorderly that it is next to impossible to give it a military complexion.” He addressed the problem immediately by making an example of the deserter. The execution had an instant effect on discipline; one private summed up the mood in the camp: “new lords, new laws.”

  Demonstrating solid leadership, Greene tackled multiple problems at once. He sent Polish volunteer and engineer Thaddeus Kosciuszko to find and construct a suitable base camp for the army, a “camp of repose,” where the men could refit. Born in 1746 in the Polish-Lithuanian Common­wealth, Kosciuszko graduated from a military academy before traveling to France to study drawing, painting, and architecture. In 1776 he sailed to America to aid the Patriot cause, and the Continental Congress soon put his civil engineering skills to use.

  In late December 1780 Kosciuszko selected a spot on the banks of the Pee Dee River in the northeast corner of South Carolina, near the town of Cheraw. Here the army could regroup, clean its weapons, and drill. Planning to go on the offensive, Greene next sent his quartermaster general, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Carrington, to explore and map the major rivers of North Carolina, from the Yadkin to the Catawba. He also directed Carrington to begin to build or collect flatboats that could be used to ferry the army across the various waterways for their upcoming operations against British commander Charles, Earl Cornwallis.

  After the disaster at Camden, replacements had filtered in from several states, including several hundred troops from Maryland. The ragtag American force now numbered about fifteen hundred militiamen and approximately 950 Continentals, the bulk of whom were Marylanders. Its ranks continued to swell and ebb as groups of militiamen came and went. The unpaid militiamen often needed to deal with issues at home, such as running their farms and businesses and protecting them from vindictive Tory neighbors or the British. The bulk of the American army, several thousand troops, still remained in and around West Point pinning down the British garrison in New York. In the North, the strategic stalemate of 1779 continued. Since neither side had adequate forces to defeat its adversary, the war raged in the South.

  On December 3, 1780, one of the greatest battle captains of the Revolution rode into the camp of repose: Brigadier General Daniel Morgan. Born on July 6, 1736, Morgan was a man of the frontier. A quin
tessential American, he ran away from home in his early teens and eventually settled in the wilderness of Virginia; his rugged individualism determined his destiny. A born leader with a commanding presence and high intelligence, Morgan rose from a menial farm laborer to a foreman and operated an independent wagon team for the British during the French and Indian War; later, this job earned him the nickname The Old Wagoner. He also saw action in the war that ignited a deep and burning hatred of the British after an incident where he struck a British officer and received several hundred lashes as punishment. At the start of the War for Independence, Morgan had organized a group of riflemen from the backcountry of Virginia. They fought in Boston and later in Canada during the bloody assault on Quebec. When the American commander of the Quebec assault, Benedict Arnold, went down with a bullet to the leg, Morgan took charge and led the troops through the rest of the battle. In the Battle of Saratoga, Morgan also played a pivotal role, leading the regiment of Virginia riflemen in a crucial counterattack that cut off the British retreat from the battlefield. But failing health forced him to take a leave of absence from June 1779 to June 1780. The wounds he suffered at Saratoga contributed to his ailing constitution, which plagued him throughout the entire war. Congress recruited Morgan, although he was only partially recovered from his service in Canada and Saratoga, back into the army and commissioned him a brigadier general. Greene wisely appointed him commander of the Flying Army.

  When Greene assigned Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard to the Flying Army (Otho Holland Williams remained behind with Greene and the bulk of the army), he gave Morgan a stalwart confrere. Together, they proved to be nearly invincible. Howard’s battalion comprised three sixty-man Maryland companies, formed from what was left of the regiments that previously fought at Camden, as well as the Delaware Blues and two companies of Virginians. Captain Richard Anderson led the 1st Maryland Company, which included one platoon of the 1st and 7th Maryland Regiments. Captain Henry Dobson commanded the 2nd Maryland Company, a mixture of veterans from the 2nd, 4th, and 6th Maryland Regiments. Lieutenant James Ewing, who had been with the Marylanders since the beginning, assisted Dobson in command of the company. The third sixty-man company, led by Lieutenant Nicholas Mangers and Lieutenant Gassaway Watkins, was composed of veterans from the 3rd and 5th Maryland Regiments. Watkins had also been with Smallwood’s Battalion since its inception, enlisting on January 14, 1776. He had fought at Long Island, White Plains, Germantown, and Monmouth, and had barely survived a brush with Banastre Tarleton’s cavalry at Camden.

  The intrepid Captain Bob Kirkwood led the Delaware Blues, which included fifty-one privates, three sergeants, three corporals, an ensign, a lieutenant, and a captain—sixty Continentals in all.

  Two Virginia companies rounded out the infantry, which included many Continental soldiers who survived the Waxhaws Massacre.

  About one hundred Light Dragoons under Lieutenant Colonel William Washington rode with the force. On December 16, the Flying Army left Greene in Charlotte and marched southwest. The Marylanders and the rest of the combined force pushed toward Ninety Six to link up with the North Carolina militiamen under the command of General William Lee Davidson. Greene gave Morgan a free hand to conduct operations “either offensively or defensively, as your own prudence and discretion may direct—acting with caution and avoiding surprises by every possible precaution.”

  Meanwhile, the bulk of Greene’s army, including many of the Marylanders, remained on the Pee Dee River near Cheraw, South Carolina. Through spies and reconnaissance patrols, Cornwallis received intelligence that Greene had split his army, and he immediately recognized the threat Morgan’s Flying Army posed. Greene’s strategy forced the earl to do exactly what the American wanted: divide his army into not two but three parts. Cornwallis sent Major General Alexander Leslie to defend Camden, and he directed Tarleton to secure Ninety Six and then crush Morgan. With its heavy baggage and cannon, Cornwallis’s main army was to move slowly northwestward from Winnsboro, South Carolina, into North Carolina and attempt to destroy any remaining elements of Morgan’s force. Cornwallis hoped to crush the Flying Army between the two British pincers.

  Tarleton would first strike Morgan with a task force that totaled approximately eleven hundred men. Tarleton’s cavalry was reinforced with two hundred men of the 7th Regiment of Foot, the Royal Fusiliers. They had seen action in 1775 in Canada, where they had suffered a brutal defeat, but they re-formed and fought in numerous battles over the next few years. A battalion of Frasier’s Highlanders the 71st Regiment of Foot also augmented the force, along with two three-pound artillery pieces known as grasshoppers. In addition, fifty men of the 17th Light Dragoons joined them. The Marylanders had faced the 17th at Camden and the 71st at Stony Point.

  Cornwallis’s orders to Tarleton were clear: “Dear Tarleton, If Morgan is still in Williams’ or anywhere within your reach I should wish you to push him to the utmost . . . no time is to be lost.”

  Tarleton wrote back, “My Lord . . . I must either destroy Morgan’s corps or push it before me over the Broad river, toward King’s Mountain.” Cornwallis confirmed the plan, responding, “Dear Tarleton . . . You have understood my intentions perfectly.”

  Perceiving that Morgan did not intend to attack Ninety Six, the hard-driving Tarleton immediately set out to neutralize his adversary. Unable to assault Ninety Six because he didn’t have the manpower to attack a large, fortified enemy force, Morgan requested permission from Greene to advance into Georgia and attack British outposts. “Here we cannot subsist, so we have but one Alternative. Either Retreat or move in Georgia.” He warned of dire consequences of retreating. “The spirit which now begins to pervade the People and call them into the field will be destroyed. The Militia who have already Joined will desert us, and it is not improbable that a regard for their own safety will Induce them to join in the Enemy.” Morgan understood that the population and the militia would gravitate to whichever side was winning.

  Not knowing the threat closing in on The Old Wagoner from Tarleton in the south and Cornwallis in the east, Greene ordered Morgan to move north to a position near the Saluda and Broad Rivers, near present-day Columbia, South Carolina. Morgan was to conduct raiding parties against the British supply lines that supported the network of outposts across South Carolina and “harass their rear if they should make a movement this way.”

  Morgan attempted to defend a ford at the Pacolet River, but ­Tarleton outmaneuvered him and crossed six miles below. Tarle­ton’s task force, over one thousand strong, moved at lightning speed, quickly but quietly closing the ground between them and their quarry. Employing the same tactics George Washington had used at Long Island and Trenton, Tarleton kept the fires in his bivouac lit as a ruse while his men went on the march at night in pursuit of Morgan. Tarleton was now just one day behind Morgan.

  On January 13, Greene sent a letter to Morgan responding to Morgan’s request to enter Georgia by asking for more details on Morgan’s plan and passing on some intelligence: “Col. Tarleton is said to be on his way to pay you a visit . . . I doubt not that he will have a decent reception and a proper dismission.”

  The British were closing in on the Americans. Morgan faced a stark choice: cross the Broad River or make a stand.

  Chapter 32

  Hunting the Hunter

  Casting an imposing shadow, General Daniel Morgan strode with confidence and determination beside the rows of blazing campfires. The fearless veteran of numerous military campaigns stood a full six feet tall. Morgan didn’t wear many of the trappings of a typical eighteenth-century military officer, and he carried only a simple sword. As a result, the men felt an affinity with Morgan: he was one of them.

  Like all the other men in the Flying Army, the Marylanders stared transfixed at their general. His personal battle history was etched deeply across his body. On his left cheek, he bore an angry scar from a ball that entered his neck, passed through his mouth, took out most o
f his rear teeth, and exited his upper lip. It was at that moment, the night of January 16, 1780, according to legend, one of Morgan’s aides lifted the general’s shirt, exposing the leather-like scars on his back. Morgan told the Continentals that at one point during the French and Indian War, he had knocked down a British officer who assaulted him with the flat portion of a sword. For the offense, Morgan’s superiors condemned him to four hundred lashes, “of which only three hundred and ninety-nine were inflicted. I counted them myself,” The Old Wagoner continued, laughing, “and am sure that I am right, nay, I convinced the drum-major of his mistake . . . so I am still their creditor to the amount of one lash.”

  The unforgettable scene demonstrated Morgan’s unwavering commitment to the cause. His resolve was put to the test in the upcoming battle, which afforded little opportunity for retreat. Tactically, the Flying Army’s back was up against a river. With the British poised to pounce should he make himself vulnerable by attempting a crossing, he had little choice other than to fight. Recognizing the do-or-die nature of the undertaking, the general told his aides, “Here is Morgan’s grave or victory.”

  Morgan then informed the men that they would fight the next day on the ground where they bivouacked—Cowpens.

  Earlier in the day, Morgan had surveyed the ground near present-day Spartanburg. Approximately five hundred yards long, the Cowpens was an open meadow dotted by only a few lonely trees, thanks to the thousands of cattle that grazed there every spring before being driven roughly a hundred miles southeast to Camden and the coast. A collection of oaks, hickories, chestnuts, and maples ringed the field, and nearby springs and creeks provided plenty of water. Although the ground was largely even, a few low rises, including one small hill that would later be known as Morgan’s Hill, swelled the landscape. A landmark ground familiar to all the backcountry men and militia, the wide plain served not only as a roundup for cattle but also as a local rallying point. Prior to Kings Mountain, it had been the final staging area for the Overmountain Men.