Greene was a husky man of above-average height, whose portrait by Charles Willson Peale shows his friendly face, a broad, high forehead, somewhat narrow, penetrating eyes, a thin nose, and large, sensuous mouth. The Quaker’s knowledge of military matters and his perceptive, analytical mind impressed everyone with whom he came in contact, and Rhode Island selected him to command its armed force, giving him the rank of brigadier general. During the 1775–76 siege of Boston he played a valuable role in organizing the raw troops, and when George Washington arrived to take over the newly christened Continental Army, he and Greene hit it off at once. Washington considered Greene’s soldiers the best officered of all those around Boston; certainly they had the highest morale, and many officers, including Henry Knox, regarded Greene as nothing short of a military genius.
In less than a year, he was in charge of the troops on Long Island, a key to the defense of New York, and Washington’s aide Alexander Hamilton observed that the commander in chief’s discerning eye “marked him out as the object of his confidence.… He gained it, and he preserved it, amidst all the checkered varieties of military vicissitude.” In assigning him to the southern command, Washington knew that Greene would be up against just about every vicissitude a military man could face, but he was utterly confident in him, knowing that he was a good manager of men, extremely intelligent, patient, resourceful, and without question the best man for the onerous task ahead.
Greene reached Charlotte and Gates’s former command, only to find a ghost of an army with “the appearance of the troops … wretched beyond description,” suffering—as the army did everywhere—from an appalling lack of food and clothing. Gates had lost the confidence of his officers; the troops were undisciplined and were so accustomed to plundering as to be a terror to the local inhabitants. Summing up the deficiencies in a letter to Joseph Reed, a former aide to Washington, Greene said, “The wants of this army are so numerous and various that the shortest way of telling you is to inform you that we have nothing.…” He was doing everything in his power to bring order to the army, “but it is all an up-hill business.” As in the North, the militia here, “like the locusts of Egypt, have eaten up everything, and the expense has been so enormous that it has ruined the currency of the State.”
It was especially discouraging to note that in a state so large the powers of government were so weak that everybody did pretty much as they pleased. Greene believed the strength and resources of the region were greatly overrated, and observed that large numbers of the inhabitants were moving away, with the army forced to exist on charity and daily collections, mostly consisting of Indian meal and beef. Politically, the people were divided, with Whigs and Tories pursuing each other with “savage fury.” By contrast with the backcountry people, who were bold and daring, those in the tidewater region were sickly and, unfortunately, made indifferent militia. Greene noted that Daniel Morgan was in the area of the Broad River “with a little flying army,” while Colonel William Washington was not far from Morgan and had just defeated a party of Tories. He had plans for both those officers, and as for his own position, Greene described it as “a camp of repose, for the purpose of repairing our wagons, recruiting our horses, and disciplining the troops.”
On December 20 Greene made the risky decision to divide his small army, ignoring the military axiom that splitting an inferior force when faced with a superior one is to hazard having the enemy destroy one and then turn on the other. Yet Greene, as always, had thought through his dilemma and his options. In no way could he stand up to Cornwallis in a pitched battle, nor did he dare give the enemy or the Carolinians—or his own troops, for that matter—the impression that he was retreating. By sending his left wing west of the Catawba River, he would improve his chances of provisioning both wings of his army while their presence would protect and encourage the local folk.
The man to whom he gave command of the left wing, composed of his light infantry, was as close to being a legend as the Continental Army possessed. Daniel Morgan, who had spent most of his forty-five years on the rugged Virginia frontier as a farmer and teamster, drawing freight between the isolated mountain communities, was a six-foot, two-hundred-pound, barrel-chested giant, with a big smile on his friendly face and a famous temper. He carried a personal grudge against the king of England that went back to the French and Indian War, when he made the mistake of hitting a British officer who had slapped him with the flat of his sword. For this he was sentenced to receive 500 lashes on his broad, muscled back, and he liked to boast that the redcoats still owed him one, for he bore only 499 stripes—someone had miscounted. In addition to those scars, he had lost all his teeth on one side when an Indian bullet went through his neck and mouth, leaving an ugly scooped-out scar.
The old wagoner had been with General Edward Braddock’s doomed expedition in 1755, along with a host of other now-famous individuals such as George Washington, General Thomas Gage, Greene’s first cousin Daniel Boone, and others. He was a born leader and was his Virginia county’s unanimous choice to lead their riflemen to Boston in 1775, after which he fought with Arnold in the attack on Quebec and was taken prisoner and later exchanged. In 1777 he was detached with his corps of riflemen to join Gates and was instrumental in the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Like Benedict Arnold, Morgan resented being passed over, denied the rank he felt he had earned, and was so crippled by arthritis and sciatica that he returned home to Virginia. But he could remain there no longer when he learned of Cornwallis’s devastating victory over Gates at Camden. Belatedly, Congress made him a brigadier general, and now he was preparing for the battle of his life.
When Cornwallis had recovered from his fever and heard that Morgan was threatening his post at Ninety-Six, he immediately detached Colonel Banastre Tarleton with 750 men and a pair of three-pounders to push Morgan “to the utmost,” forcing him to fight or withdraw. Both Greene and Morgan got wind of this, and the former sent a message to the old wagoner: “Colonel Tarleton is said to be on his way to pay you a visit. I doubt not but he will have a decent reception and a proper dismission.”
The infamous Banastre Tarleton, a stocky redhead whose very name was anathema to southern patriots, came from a wealthy Liverpool family and was educated there and at Oxford, after which a cornet’s commission was purchased for him in the king’s Dragoon Guards in 1775. His unsavory reputation grew in 1780 after a series of victories that earned him the names “Bloody Tarleton” and “Butcher” for his savage attacks. When the hard-driving Tarleton came close enough to Morgan to ferret out his movements, he realized that the American was in no position to menace Ninety-Six and ordered his lieutenant to forward his baggage—“but no women”—while notifying Cornwallis that he planned to destroy Morgan or drive him in the direction of Kings Mountain. That way, if Morgan escaped, Cornwallis would have an opportunity to head him off.
Meanwhile, Morgan’s scouts had tracked the British cavalryman, and the American was reacting with moves of his own—first to Thicketty Creek, then, on the evening of January 16—raw and cold at sundown—he reached Cowpens. This was where Morgan decided to stand and fight, and he chose the position “at the risk of its wearing the face of a retreat” though it provided security in case he “should … be unfortunate.”
In the fading light of day, Morgan and some of his officers rode back and forth across the pastures, and he liked what he saw: a long, wide opening with some scattered trees, sloping upward, then a dip, then another upward slope to a ridge, behind which was a grassy swale, deep enough that riders on horseback could not be seen from the approach below.
Five miles behind the site was the Broad River, and the old wagoner sent his baggage there. He had no boats, so crossing the river was out of the question; his militia would have to fight, and he had in mind a very important and unorthodox role for them. During the night he went from one group of volunteers to another; one of them recollected:
[Morgan] helped them to fix their swords, joked with them about their sweet
hearts, 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 could crack his whip over Ben [Tarleton] in the morning, as sure as they lived.
“Just hold up your heads, boys, three fires,” he would say, “and you are free, and then when you return to your homes, how the old folks will bless you, and the girls kiss you for your gallant conduct.”
I don’t believe he slept a wink that night.
The sign and countersign for the next day were “Fire” and “Sword,” with a suggestion that the Lord was on the rebels’ side, and during the night hours small parties of militia arrived in camp, bringing tales of Tarleton’s cruelty and boasting of how they would stop him.
Tarleton had bivouacked for the night about twelve miles from Morgan’s position, and an hour before daylight American scouts reported him within five miles, coming on fast. Although Morgan was suffering such pain that he could hardly sit his horse, he was moving among his men, telling the militia again that all he wanted was a couple of good volleys, after which they could fall back to the next line. The undergrowth on the battleground had been cropped short by grazing cattle, and the trees—mostly red oak, hickory, and pine—were scattered so they offered little hindrance to his infantry’s movements. Morgan was sufficiently confident of his plan that he posted militia in the front line, but the men he chose were all good riflemen from North and South Carolina and Virginia, and they were commanded by a superb fighter: Andrew Pickens, the South Carolina guerrilla leader. A taciturn, homely man, Pickens was a staunch member of the Presbyterian Church who was described by a contemporary as a fellow who would “first take the words out of his mouth, between his fingers, and examine them before he uttered them.”
Morgan told Pickens’s men to take shelter in or behind trees and “Shoot for the epaulets, boys! Shoot for the epaulets!”—picking off every British officer they could before falling back to the line behind them. There, spread out in a line about three hundred yards wide, were his least experienced troops—militiamen from the Carolinas, who had been ordered to hold their fire until they could see the buttons on the redcoats’ uniforms and then to shoot three times, aiming low, before they filed off to the left and took shelter behind a small hill.
In a third line, on rising ground, were three hundred Maryland and Delaware Continentals with fixed bayonets—Morgan’s best troops—bolstered on either side by seasoned militiamen from Virginia and Georgia, many of them former Continentals who had reenlisted and returned. These men—all of them under Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard—had strict orders not to fire until Morgan gave the word. To their rear, behind another hillock, were Colonel William Washington’s cavalry and some mounted infantry under Lieutenant Colonel James McCall.
While his men waited in various stages of nervousness, slapping their hands together to keep warm in the bitter cold, Morgan rode slowly through the lines, telling them to sit down and “ease your joints” to calm them. He knew how to talk to soldiers, Morgan did, and it was said that he visited every unit in his thousand-man force, explaining to them exactly how they were going to beat “Benny” Tarleton. Shortly after sunrise the enemy force came into view, and as they hurried to form a battle line they shed their gear, prodded by Tarleton, who wanted immediate action. “It was the most beautiful line I ever saw,” said the sixteen-year-old private Thomas Young, who remembered that the redcoats sent up a shout.
At that, Morgan yelled to his men, “They give us the British halloo, boys. Give them the Indian halloo, by God!” That produced a series of loud war whoops, and the old wagoner trotted along the lines, bucking up the men, reminding them not to fire at the redcoats till they could see the whites of their eyes. Tarleton had sent fifty of his three hundred cavalrymen to probe the American position, judging from past experience that the untrained rebels would run, but the riflemen behind trees opened fire on the advancing British horsemen and emptied fifteen saddles. When the other riders saw that, they reined in their mounts and galloped back to Tarleton’s lines. Seeing those empty saddles convinced the commander that this was not going to be as easy as he had thought, but at the sight of Morgan’s first line retiring toward the second, as if retreating, he deployed his infantrymen in formal battle formation, with his two small fieldpieces in the center and two hundred cavalry and the kilted Highlanders in reserve.
These British had had little sleep the night before. They began their march at 3 A.M., and for the next five hours were slogging through the darkness, on sodden roads, into swamps, streams, and rough terrain until they finally came in sight of the Americans. They were tired and had barely formed up when their impetuous commander ordered them to move forward. Stepping off as if on a parade ground, they were an impressive sight—the red-coated British regulars, Tarleton’s British legion in green, bayonets and cavalry sabers glinting in the rising sun. As Tarleton said later, “the animation of the officers and the alacrity of the soldiers afforded the most promising assurances of success.”
Facing them were some 450 militiamen in buckskin or homespun, for most of whom a formal battle like this was a wholly new and terrifying experience. But the moment for which Morgan had planned so carefully was upon them, and the old wagoner continued to ride back and forth behind them, telling them again and again not to fire. On the British came, closer and closer, and Pickens’s men took careful aim with their rifles or muskets, and when the oncoming bayonets were a hundred yards away they got the signal they were waiting for and let loose a deadly blast, reloaded, and fired again, killing most of the British who fell in battle that day. There were great gaps in the British line, but they kept moving forward while Pickens’s troops, according to orders, ran across to the American left, where the Continentals waited. For soldiers on the right, it was a long way to run, and fifty British dragoons were thundering down on them, racing in for the kill.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Washington’s and McCall’s horsemen appeared, sabers waving in the air, and charged into the flank of Tarleton’s cavalry, who were outnumbered at this moment almost three to one. In moments ten British dragoons were dead or wounded and the rest fled, while the American militiamen who had come so near destruction were still intact, off on one side of the hillock.
Convinced that the rebels were retreating, the British infantry came on at a run but they were now confronted by veterans—the three hundred Continentals and former Continentals, who made up the main American line. Kneeling for greater accuracy, they aimed low, exchanging volley after volley with the redcoats in a firefight that continued for half an hour. At that point Tarleton called on his reserve, the Highlanders, and ordered them forward on his left. With bagpipes keening, they advanced toward the side of the hill where the Continentals were engaged. Seeing that he would be outflanked, John Eager Howard ordered the company on his extreme right to wheel about so as to face this new threat, but somehow the order was misunderstood and the men began heading for the rear. Other soldiers, seeing this, assumed that an order to retreat had been given, and followed them.
Morgan confronted Howard, demanding to know what was going on, and when Howard convinced him that the men were not retreating, the commander told him that he would pick a place where they could establish a new line.
Tarleton was certain that the rebels were on the run now and decided to throw everything he had at them, including the legion cavalry, who were not yet committed. Infantry and cavalry alike, eager to be in at the kill, began racing up the slope in complete disorder, and William Washington, who was out in front of the American lines and off to the right, could see the confusion of the British and sent word to Morgan that the enemy was behaving like a mob. Give them one fire, he proposed, and he would charge them. Morgan received this message just as Pickens’s riflemen, who had, incredibly, made a complete circuit of the entire battlefield, suddenly appeared on his right. That was all he needed to make his decision. He gave an ord
er to the Continentals: “Face about, give them one fire, and the day is ours!”
By this time the British, running forward wildly, as if every man wanted the honor of winning this fight, had appeared on the crest of the slope and were pounding downhill in a mad rush, about fifty yards from the Americans, when Morgan’s order was obeyed. The whole line of Delaware and Maryland Continentals, plus the riflemen at the ends of their line, faced about and fired in a burst of flame and blinding smoke, shooting from the hip at the onrushing redcoats, who were stopped dead. From the right side, Pickens’s men were firing, Howard yelled, “Give them the bayonets!” and the startled British, in complete disarray, broke ranks, threw down their weapons and cartouche boxes, and made for the wagon road. The elated Thomas Young said it was “the prettiest sort of running.”
Lieutenant Roderick Mackenzie of the Highlanders, who was wounded in the battle and was extremely critical of Tarleton’s decisions, described the chaos. When the British fell back, it “communicated a panic to others, which soon became general: a total rout ensued. Two hundred and fifty horse which had not been engaged, fled through the woods with the utmost precipitation, bearing down such officers as opposed their flight.…”
Victory at Yorktown Page 12
