Washington's Immortals

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  The Green River Road cut across the Cowpens, running in a general northwesterly direction. A ravine made it difficult to approach from the west, and one of the numerous creeks flowed along the road to the east. This arrangement suited Morgan perfectly, for it meant that the British would be unable to flank his troops. However, the topography would also make escape difficult for the American forces, a fact that Morgan hoped would encourage his men to fight to their utmost. He later wrote, “As to retreat, it was the very thing I wished to cut off all hope of. I could have thanked Tarleton had he surrounded me with his cavalry. It would have been better than placing my own men in the rear to shoot down those who broke from the ranks. When men are forced to fight, they will sell their lives dearly.”

  The Marylanders settled in on Cowpens for the night, lighting campfires and eating their evening meal of bacon and cornmeal. The brief pause gave the weary Americans at least some opportunity to rest and prepare for battle. Banastre Tarleton’s men, on the other hand, arrived at the battleground exhausted and hungry, having been on the march since 3:00 a.m.

  That night, as Morgan walked among the ranks, spirits ran high in the American camp. Marylander John Eager Howard related, “The [militia] were coming in most of the night, and calling on Morgan for ammunition, and to know the state of affairs. They were all in good spirits, related circumstances of Tarleton’s cruelty, and expressed the strongest desire to check his progress.”

  Vengeance weighed heavily on many of the men’s minds. The Marylanders, along with their Kirkland’s Delaware men, had incurred devastating losses at Camden. Private Henry Wells recalled, “Two of my Cosins fell into the hands of the enemy at Camden, and [one] died from the Severity of their treatment—the other lived to be exchanged, but returned with a shattered Constitution.”

  Morgan weighed his options. That evening, with the arrival of additional militia units, the general decided to fight. He first called a council of war with his officers. Morgan drew a rough map to illustrate his simple, yet brilliant, battle plan. He based it on an understanding of his opponent—an ancient, well-proven tenet of war. “I knew my adversary,” said Morgan, and “was perfectly sure I should have nothing but downright fighting.”

  The general knew his enemy, and he knew the terrain. But more important, he knew his men and how to employ them, especially the fickle militiamen. Morgan was a common man with an uncommon ability to understand a complex problem and devise an ingenious tactical solution. He proposed a defense in depth, which was novel for the time. He would seek to delay the advance of the attacker and buy time by having his men fall back to prepared positions as the enemy advanced. This allowed them to inflict additional casualties and exact a high price from the advancing British. The technique is particularly effective against an adversary that can concentrate its forces and focus them on a single point in the battlefield. Given its profound simplicity, it is remarkable that Morgan was the first officer known to employ defense in depth during the Revolution.

  The general’s first line consisted of skirmishers, handpicked men who were crack shots. They would position themselves about 150 yards in front of the militia. He told the riflemen to aim for the officers to soften up the British as they came forward. The second line consisted of militiamen, who Morgan knew were capable of only limited fighting. He asked them to fire three shots and withdraw through holes in the Continental line, where they would re-form and prepare for a counterattack.

  The third line consisted of the Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia Continentals. They would remain concealed behind a small ridge until their time to face the oncoming British. At that point, the militia, along with Lieutenant Colonel William Washington’s cavalry, would lead a counterattack and envelop the British.

  Upon hearing the plan during the council of war, William Washington concluded with certainty that there would be “No burning, no flying: but face about and give battle to the enemy, and acquit ourselves like men in defense of their baggage, their lives, and the interests of the country.”

  After the council of war, Morgan went from campfire to campfire, and told the groups of men about their role in the battle plan. In one of those groups was South Carolina volunteer dragoon Thomas Young, a veteran of Kings Mountain. Still only a teenager, the militiaman burned with the desire to avenge the death of his brother, who had been murdered by Tories. “I shall never forget my feelings when told of his death,” Young wrote in his memoirs. “I do not believe I had ever used an oath before that day, but then I tore open my bosom, and swore that I would never rest till I had avenged his death. Subsequently a hundred Tories felt the weight of my arm for the deed.” About Morgan’s visit that night, Young reflected:

  It was upon this occasion that I was perfectly convinced of General Morgan’s qualifications to command militia than I had ever before been. He went among the volunteers, helped them fix their swords, joked with them about their sweethearts, told them to keep in good spirits, and the day would be ours. And long after I laid down, he was going about among the soldiers encouraging them and telling them that The Old Wagoner would crack his whip over Ben in the morning, as sure as they lived.

  Late that night, Morgan exhorted the militia, “Just hold up your heads, boys, three fires . . . and you are free, and when you return to your homes, how the old folks will bless you, and the girls kiss you for your gallant conduct.”

  In anticipation of battle, many of the men didn’t “sle[ep] a wink that night.” Nevertheless, Morgan ordered militia to actively patrol the area in front of his army for Tarleton. About two hours before daybreak, a scout galloped up to Morgan with news that Tarleton was about five miles away and bearing down fast on the Flying Army. With Andrew Pickens at his side, Morgan rode through the men, who were huddled in blankets for protection against the frost that lightly coated the South Carolina countryside.

  Morgan’s stentorian voice pierced the silence of the morning.

  “Boys, get up, Benny’s Coming!”

  Chapter 33

  Cowpens

  The first low purple rays of dawn cut through the morning mist on January 17, 1781. “The enemy came in full view. The sight . . . seemed somewhat imposing; they halted for a short time. We looked at each other for a considerable amount of time,” remembered one participant.

  With the temperature in the low twenties and a sprinkling of frost coating the ground, the Patriots clapped their hands together to keep them warm and prepare for the British onslaught.

  Three hundred yards in front of them, the Redcoats began dropping excess equipment and forming into lines as they readied themselves for battle. To size up the force facing him, Banastre Tarleton commanded his legion’s dragoons to charge the American riflemen. The Patriot officers ordered their men not to deliver their fire until the enemy was within fifty yards.

  “Aim for the men with the epaulets,” they ordered.

  Less than an hour before the British reached the battlefield, Sergeant Lawrence Everhart—the former Maryland infantryman who had made a daring escape from Fort Washington and was now riding in Lieutenant Colonel William Washington’s cavalry—and twelve of his men had trotted down the Green River Road into the predawn darkness on a special reconnaissance operation, three miles beyond American outposts. Their mission was to determine Tarleton’s exact location. For more than a mile, the cavalrymen rode silently through frostbitten trees dotting barren fields, when suddenly they collided head-on with Tarleton’s advancing legion, over a thousand strong. Stunned by the oncoming enemy onslaught, the Marylander and his men wheeled their horses and bolted in the opposite direction, with Tarleton’s advance guard in hot pursuit. The British rode the “fleetest race horses which [they] had impressed from their owners in this Country, and which enabled them to take Sergeant Everhart and one of the men.” The rest of the group barely outpaced Bloody Ban’s advance guard and upon their return urgently relayed to General Daniel Morgan “information of the
approach of the Enemy.”

  After shooting Everhart’s horse out from under him, a Loyalist quartermaster, an acquaintance of Everhart’s, took him prisoner and brought him before one of the British officers. “Do you expect Mr. Washington and Mr. Morgan will fight this day?” asked the officer.

  “Yes, if they can keep together only two hundred men,” Everhart replied.

  “Then it will be another Gates’ defeat,” asserted the unknown officer.

  “I hope to God it will be another Tarleton’s defeat,” said Everhart.

  Fixing him with a piercing glare, the officer replied, “I am Colonel Tarleton, sir.”

  Tarleton ordered his men forward. The British columns advanced across the frozen field toward the first line of Americans, the skirmishers, screaming, “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”

  BOOM! BOOM!

  Two three-pound grasshoppers fired into the American line. The piercing sound of fifes playing the “Scottish and English Duties” and drums beating out a rhythm reverberated over the din of battle. The British infantry broke into a jog, crossing nearly the length of two football fields in three minutes.

  On the other side of the battlefield, Morgan thought to himself, “They are running at us as if they intend to eat us up.” Riding up and down the lines, he encouraged his men: “They gave us the British halloo! Boys, give them the Indian halloo, by God!”

  Veteran militiaman Thomas Young recalled, “[Morgan] galloped along the lines, cheering the men and telling us not to fire until we could see the whites of their eyes.” The militiamen maintained the order “with great firmness.”

  Leading with bayonets, the British rushed forward. “The British line advanced at a sort of trot. . . . It was the most beautiful line I ever saw,” said Young.

  One militiaman remembered, “When they came near enough for us to distinguish plainly their faces, we picked out our man and let fly.”

  Another militiaman remembered seeing one of his men set his sights on a British officer. “[He] fixed his eye upon a British officer; he stepped out of the ranks, raised his gun, and he saw the officer fall.”

  “POP! POP! POP!”

  The British pushed past the skirmishers, then faced a devastating hail of well-aimed shots from the militiamen in the second line. With the Americans firing from killing range, or about fifty yards, “the effect of the fire was considerable; it produced something like a recoil.”

  The militia fire took a devastating toll. Lieutenant Roderick Mackenzie, a Highland light infantry officer, reported, “Two-thirds of the British infantry officers had already fallen, and nearly the same proportion of privates.”

  Despite their exhaustion from a night march that began at 3:00 a.m. and not having eaten since the previous day, the British continued to charge. A gap appeared in the American lines. According to plan, the militiamen had fired their three shots and were withdrawing. To the British, it appeared to be a rout.

  The Redcoats “rent the air with their shouts and quickened their advance.”

  Tarleton’s taut battle lines became uneven, as several units surged forward ahead of the others to bear down on the Maryland and Delaware Continentals. “The British approached the Continentals, and casualties mounted. The fire on both sides was well supported and produced much slaughter.”

  As the militia exited through the line of Continentals, British dragoons from the 17th Light Dragoons came around the rear of the left wing of the rebel force. The fighting was brutal, as British sabers hacked and slashed at the Americans. One militiaman received “seven wounds on his head and two on his shoulders. . . . The wounds on the head opened the skull to the brains.”

  Unwittingly, the British were moving directly into Morgan’s carefully laid trap.

  Exhausted, they finally reached the crest of a small ridge. To their surprise, they saw Commander John Eager Howard’s Continentals lying in wait.

  Badly bloodied by the skirmishers and militia, the British Legion infantry were stunned to see the dauntless, blue-jacketed Continentals armed with bayonets. Despite their exhaustion and depleted ranks, the British closed ranks and charged. Musket balls went whizzing through the air, some striking bone and flesh. The smell of burnt powder wafted on the breeze. Maryland officers Enoch Anderson, Henry Dobson, and Gassaway Watkins, and Delaware’s Robert Kirkwood, shouted out the commands that many of the men had drilled for years.

  “Prime and load!”

  “Shoulder!”

  “Make ready!”

  “Take aim!”

  “Fire!”

  When the Continentals fired, “it seemed like one sheet of flame from right to left.”

  Kirkwood’s Delaware Blues, attached to the Marylanders, bore the brunt of the British attack, suffering 25 percent casualties. British bayonets wounded one-third of Captain Kirkwood’s men in the hand-to-hand fighting.

  Both sides maintained their positions “with great bravery; and the conflict between them and the British troops was obstinate and bloody.”

  Howard and Morgan moved up and down the lines encouraging the men. Maryland Private Andrew Rock recalled, “[I] saw [Morgan] frequently at the battle of Cowpens.”

  As the two sides slugged it out, exchanging one volley after another, Tarleton laid out his trump card. He ordered his cavalry into action. The fearless leader recalled that he “thought the advance of the 71st Regiment of Foot into line, and the movement of the cavalry in the reserve to threaten the enemy’s right flank, would put a victorious period to the action. No time was lost performing this maneuver.”

  William Washington’s cavalry met the threat and broke up Tarleton’s horsemen. Nevertheless, the American line stood in danger of being enveloped. Howard observed, “I had but about 350 men, and the British about 800 that their line was extended much further than mine, particularly on my right, where they were pressing forward to gain my flank.”

  Disaster then struck. Howard ordered Captain Andrew Wallace of Virginia to wheel right, but Wallace misinterpreted Howard’s orders. Instead, the men turned their backs on the British and began marching to the rear. Morgan, alarmed at the unexpected reversal, galloped up to Howard. In a loud tone of voice, Howard pointed at his men and “soon removed [Morgan’s] fears by pointing to the line and observing that the men were not beaten and retreated in that order.”

  The botched order profoundly changed the course of history. Seeing the backs of the Continentals, the British surged forward to deliver a knockout blow. Delaware Lieutenant Anderson recalled, “Thinking that We Were broke, [the British] set up a great Shout, Charged us With their bayonets, but in no order.”

  The Continentals were marching toward the small knoll that history has called Morgan’s Hill. As the men reached the hill, Howard issued an order:

  “Battalion! Halt! To the Right About,—Face!”

  They did an about-face in lines, which Howard described as “perfectly formed.” Each company and platoon then unleashed a devastating fire. As Howard recalled, “The enemy pressed upon us in rather disorder, expecting the fate of the day was decided. They were by this time within 30 yards of us. . . . My men, with uncommon coolness, gave them an unexpected and deadly fire.”

  The coup de grâce came when a messenger from Colonel Washington handed Howard a note: “They are coming on like a mob. Give them a fire and I will charge them.”

  Just then, Morgan galloped upon the scene. Waving his sword, he shouted at the men, “Form, form, my brave fellows! Give them one more fire and the day is ours. Old Morgan was never beaten.” Delaware Private Henry Wells vividly remembered that the “powerful and trumpet-like voice of our Commander drove fear from every bosom and gave new energies to every arm.”

  Emboldened by Morgan’s words, “We then advanced briskly, and gained the right flank,” James Collins, a seventeen-year-old veteran of Kings Mountain, recalled. The Americans fired a devastating vo
lley. In the “close and murderous” fire, nearly half of the Redcoats fell. Stunned, some of the British troops “threw down their arms and fell upon their faces.”

  Howard ordered the Continental drummers to beat out a familiar cadence—charge bayonets. “The order was obeyed with great alacrity,” Delaware Lieutenant Enoch Anderson remembered. As the Continentals surged forward into the Redcoats, they were “in amongst them With the Bayonets, Which Caused them to give ground and at last to take To The Flight, But We followed them up so Close that they never could get in order again until We Killed and took the whole of the infantry prisoners.”

  Sergeant Major William Seymour, who was near Anderson, added, “Officers and men behaved with uncommon and undaunted bravery, but more especially, the Brave Captain Kirkwood and his company, who that day did wonders, rushing on the enemy without either dread or fear.”

  The fighting remained close in. Marylander John Bantham “received three severe wounds on my right side by bayonet.” Another Marylander, Cudbeth Stone, was injured “in the thigh by a ball of a musket passing through it.”

  As their world closed in on all sides, the Scots of the 71st Regiment broke. Washington’s cavalry swooped in and hit their left flank and rear. The American militiamen also joined the envelopment. Coming over Morgan Hill, they charged into battle “seeing the fortune of the day had changed.” Firing erratically, the Scots fell back “in a panic” and “a total rout ensued.”

  A tide of screaming Continentals descended on the vulnerable British artillery. The three-pound grasshoppers were left alone to fend for themselves. John Eager Howard ordered Marylander Captain Nathaniel Ewing to take one. Within earshot, Marylander Captain Anderson also heard the command from Howard. Only a few yards from the artillery piece, which was leveled at them, Anderson saw that the artillerist was “about to put a match to it. At this critical moment, [Anderson] ran up, and, with the assistance of his spontoon, made a spring, and lit immediately upon the gun.” In one of the more bizarre and colorful exploits of the Revolution, Anderson had pole-vaulted onto the artillery piece. He then disabled the match-wielding artillerist with his spontoon.