58. Greene's Unorthodox Strategy

It was inevitable, however, that Gates would be removed from command in semi-disgrace, as he was in October. A chastened Congress entrusted the choice of his replacement to Washington and, fortunately, Washington chose the one highly able general whom he had not turned against, a man whose talents had been languishing for years in the post of quartermaster general: Nathanael Greene. Both Greene and Morgan were fully cognizant of the necessity for a guerrilla strategy in fighting the British. Greene arrived at Charlotte, where the American army was now stationed, in early December, taking over a force of fewer than 1,500 fit for duty, and these hungry and wretched.

It was clear to him that a move must be made right away, for the food supply of the entire Charlotte area had been stripped clear by the foraging and plundering of British troops. In addition, Cornwallis was about to begin his long-delayed and final invasion of North Carolina. At first, Greene proposed an immediate hit-and-run attack on Winnsboro, but he deferred to Morgan’s judgment of its excessive risk. He then decided to march his army southeast for winter quarters to Cheraw Hill, 75 miles east of the British camp at Winnsboro. But so that this would not seem like a retreat from the British invasion route, he split his already inferior force in a daring and highly unorthodox maneuver. Accordingly, on December 16 Morgan quickly took 600 men to South Carolina north of Winnsboro, while Greene set out for Cheraw Hill on December 20 with 1,100 men, arriving there on December 26. Here was a brilliant piece of strategy in defiance of the sound classical injunction never to split an inferior force, lest each in turn be attacked and destroyed. But this injunction rested on the assumption that frontal engagements would then be fought, and in Greene’s strategy, it was the task of the American forces to be swift and mobile, and to avoid frontal battles.

In the face of this split, Cornwallis was in a bind. He could not chase Morgan or invade northward without leaving Charleston open to Greene’s invasion, and he could not strike out for Cheraw without allowing Morgan to strike west at Ninety-Six or Augusta. Furthermore, if Cornwallis advanced, he could be hit on both flanks, and if he tried to return to Charleston, he could be harassed on both flanks also. At the same time, the various and effective guerrilla bands could continually harry the British wherever they might be. To counteract the multiple threats posed by the two forces, Cornwallis would also have to split his army—indeed, to split it into three parts. He sent Leslie east to Camden to defend against any possible attack by Greene; he sent the mobile Tarleton north to find and crush Morgan; and he moved himself slowly into western North Carolina to destroy the expected remnants of Morgan’s force.

While Cornwallis was preparing his blow, American guerrilla action grew more and more menacing. Taking up his post at the Pacolet River and reinforced by over 300 North Carolina militia, Morgan threatened the British base at Ninety-Six: on December 27, he sent the mobile cavalry of Lt. Col. William Washington with over 200 men to the vicinity of Ninety-Six, where they crushed a Tory force at Faufort Creek. Nearly 200 of the 250 Tories were lost, while Washington lost nary a man. Meanwhile, to the east, the great cavalry unit of Col. “Light Horse Harry” Lee arrived from the north, and was sent east to assist Marion’s guerrilla operations. Marion and Lee struck against the British base at Georgetown and nearly captured the post.

In this deteriorating situation, it was clearer than ever to Cornwallis that the guerrillas, and especially Morgan, must be crushed in a frontal engagement before the invasion northward could proceed. As Higginbotham notes:

His Lordship was not the only British military leader in the war to discover that rear areas could not be treated in the European sense—as free of enemy forces and simply as zones of communication.... Because of the activities of Morgan, Sumter, Pickens and others, [the] front-behind-the-front became a theater of operations in its own right. Hence, before Cornwallis could launch his long-planned invasion of North Carolina and the upper South, Morgan would have to be eliminated.*

If anyone could catch up with Morgan, it was Tarleton; with more than 3,300 men, he gave chase to Morgan’s force of now a little over 1,000 —although it was soon to be raised to 1,100 when Colonel Pickens and his band joined him. In trained regulars, of course, Tarleton’s force outnumbered Morgan’s by over three to one. More militia had been expected to join Morgan, but Cornwallis had successfully roused the Indians to attack the frontier posts, and militia units had to remain in the West.

Hearing of Tarleton’s advance, Morgan began to flee northward, properly trying to avoid open combat. But Tarleton was approaching with remarkable speed, and Morgan was forced to turn and fight on open ground at the plain of the Cowpens on the south side of the Broad River, a little bit south of the North Carolina border. On the highly unfavorable terrain, an open field with no protection on his flanks and no protection from Tarleton’s famed horsemen, Morgan seemed doomed.*

If Morgan’s terrain for making a stand could scarcely have been worse, his disposition of troops was novel and displayed his brilliance as a tactician. He decided to make use of the sharpshooting skills of his frontier militia without forcing them to stand for long in the front lines. He stationed a small body of 150 frontier riflemen in the front line, with Colonel Pickens’ Carolina militia of 300 directly behind them. Behind these, on the crest of the slope behind the militia, were stationed Col. John Howard, in charge of the Continentals, and some militia totalling 450. Behind Howard, Colonel Washington commanded a force of over 100 cavalry as a reserve, stationed behind a rear hill. The plan was for the front line militia to fire a few volleys from behind trees, and then to retreat quickly to the second line militia, who, after further firing, would also retreat on their horses to Howard’s forces and re-form behind them. With this plan, Morgan brilliantly incorporated the militia’s propensity to flee under the fire of an open confrontation into a favorable aspect of the plan of battle itself.

Morgan knew that a successful militia war rested on the high morale of the troops, particularly if a complex plan were to succeed. He went to great pains to instill confidence and high morale, spending the whole night exhorting the troops by reminding them of British and Tory atrocities and of the great past successes of the American arms during the war, and promising them victory. In addition, he carefully explained his subtle battle plan to all his men. The popular and respected Morgan was thereby highly successful in inspiring, encouraging, and enlightening his troops.

The British launched the attack on the morning of January 17, 1781, with a charge by Tarleton’s formidable cavalry. Thus there came face to face two of the most formidable military instruments developed during the Revolutionary War: Tarleton’s cavalrymen and Morgan’s sharpshooting riflemen. A foreshadowing of the day’s result came as the riflemen shattered and drove off the assault. The first line soon retreated to join the second line as prearranged. Tarleton threw his whole line forward against the Americans; again, the Americans coolly and skillfully took a heavy toll; and again the line withdrew to the rear as prearranged, with Colonel Washington’s cavalry suddenly appearing from the rear and routing the dragoons. The British, understandably fooled into thinking that the withdrawal of the line was a full-scale retreat, rushed forward against Howard’s main line, but were again met with cool and accurate fire. As Howard, due to a mixup in orders, began to retreat behind the hill, the British were sure that the Americans were now beaten and in rout; Tarleton’s men rushed forward in wild disarray for the kill. Morgan, his American line seemingly in retreat, ordered Howard’s line to wheel about en masse and fire foursquare into the wildly onrushing British. Confusion and panic hit the British, and the Americans immediately followed with a bayonet charge, which for once was wielded by the American forces. In the meantime, the British right and left were simultaneously surrounded in a crushing double envelopment by Pickens and Washington. It was a great victory for Morgan and exhibited perhaps the most brilliant battle tactics of the war.

The American victory at Cowpens had been total and shattering. The British lost no fewer than 900 men killed and captured, nearly nine-tenths of their force, along with a large quantity of arms, supplies and ammunition. In contrast, the American casualties totalled only 70. Tarleton’s force had been decisively smashed and the flower of the British forces in America had been destroyed. The victory was understandably cheered throughout the country.

*Don Higginbotham, “Daniel Morgan, Guerrilla Fighter,” p. 306.

*Weigley contends that Morgan could have avoided the highly unfavorable position, but that an impetuous desire for a confrontation led him into what could have been a fatal error. Russell F. Weigley, The Partisan War: The South Carolina Campaign of 1780–1782 (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1970), pp. 29–30.