a devil of a whippin' -- 10/28/24

28 Oct 2024

a devil of a whippin' -- 10/28/24

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Today's selection -- from This Fierce People by Alan Pell Crawford. The Battle of Cowpens was a crucial American victory in the Revolutionary War, further weakening British attempts to control the Southern colonies.

“At 2 a.m. on January 17, Tarleton sounded reveille. An hour later, his men broke camp, and at 6:45, about fifteen minutes before sunrise, his advance patrol made its first contact with Morgan's pickets. Shots were exchanged, and the Americans scrambled back to their camp. Fifteen minutes after that, the drums rolled, then Tarleton's redcoats gave what Morgan called a ‘prodigious yell, and came running at us as if they Intended to eat us up.’ Morgan's men were in position and waiting, but they did not have to wait for long. Tarleton's men ‘came on like a thunder storm,’ James Potter Collins recalled, ‘as if certain of victory.’ Pickens made sure that his men did not fire until the British were within fifty yards—his order was ‘executed with great firmness’—and then ‘it was pop, pop, pop, and then the whole volley,’ Thomas Young said. ‘It seemed like one sheet of flame from right to left.’ More than half the British officers dropped to the ground, and things were developing even more favorably than Morgan had hoped. The militia had performed admirably. Having inflicted more damage than anyone could have anticipated, they were also filing off as instructed, which the overconfident British interpreted as panicked flight.

“Battles are messy affairs, however. Even the most well-planned and ably executed meet with unforeseen complications, and that was the case this day. In its giddy rush toward the line of Continental regulars, the British infantry had become overconfident, confused, and disorganized. Tarleton saw that his men were breaking formation and sent his Legion cavalry, until then in reserve, charging into the Americans' right flank, which was under the command of the capable John Eager Howard of Maryland. Howard responded by ordering the Virginians to pivot to the right to meet the charge. Unfortunately, the order was misunderstood, and the Virginians began to pull back. Other officers saw this, figured they had missed an order to retreat, and began to withdraw as well, emboldening Tarleton's oncoming horsemen. With the momentum suddenly shifting to the British, Collins felt something akin to horror. ‘Now,’ he thought, ‘my hide is in the loft.’

The Battle of Cowpens, painted by William Ranney in 1845.

“William Washington, meanwhile, was also witnessing this worrisome turn of events and got a message to Morgan. ‘They're coming on like a mob,’ Washington reported. ‘Give them a fire, and I'll charge them.’ Morgan, watching as well, rushed to Howard, demanding an explanation for why his men were withdrawing. Assuring his commander that his men were still under his control, Howard told Morgan that they could repulse Tarleton's men, if given a position on which to reform and make a stand. Morgan selected one, and Howard's men converged there, turned, and at a mere thirty yards ‘commenced a very destructive fire, which [the British] little expected, and a few rounds occasioned great disorder in their ranks. While in this confusion, I ordered a charge with the bayonet.’ Washington and his dragoons came crashing out of the woods toward Tarleton and his mounted men, and the momentum shifted yet again. They came on ‘like a whirlwind,’ Collins said, and the British ‘began to keel from their horses, without being able to remount. The shock was so sudden and violent, they could not stand it, and immediately betook themselves to flight; there was no time to rally, and they appeared to be as hard to stop as a drove of wild Choctaw steers.’

“Tarleton, whose horse had already been shot from beneath him, grabbed another, and ordered his Legion to follow him into the worst of it and reverse the tide. This at least some of them did, though there as clearly more fight left in Tarleton than in his Legionnaires, many of whom, he quickly discovered, had already left Cowpens, heading back to Cornwallis's camp at Winnsboro. Swinging their sabers, those who were still with their commander ‘began to make a few hacks’ at Howd and Washington's men, Collins said, ‘without doing much injury.’ There was also a good deal of fight left in Washington, who, while slashing away at a British officer, had his saber break near the handguard.

“This rendered Washington vulnerable to the blows of his intended victim, and a fourteen-year-old bugler used his pistol to shoot the redcoat in the shoulder, thereby rescuing his commander. Washington was not out of danger yet, however, because now Tarleton himself charged him. Washington flailed away with his broken saber, and Tarleton pulled his pistol and fired. ‘The ball missed Washington,’ Robert D. Bass wrote in The Green Dragoon, his biography of Tarleton, ‘but wounded his horse,’ though not badly enough to prevent him from galloping back to camp and from there to follow the Legionnaires who had fled.

“The British by this point were ‘falling very fast [and] could not stand it long,’ Collins wrote. They too appeared to panic, and some ‘began to throw down their arms, and surrender themselves prisoners of war.’ Others continued to run, and as the Marylanders gave chase, Howard spotted one of Tarleton's cannons, a highly mobile, horse-carried ‘grasshopper,’ so-called because of its tendency to recoil upon firing. Howard ordered one of his captains to seize it, but another of his junior officers heard the command too, and ‘both being emulous for the prize,’ they scrambled toward it. The second placed the business end of his spontoon—a long, steel-tipped spike—into the ground and ‘made a long leap which bought him upon the gun and gave him the honor of the prize.’

“When Tarleton got back to camp, he found that the men left to guard the wagons had fled, and even their horses, cut free, had gone. Rebel militia, who were gleefully plundering the wagons, fled at his approach, and the few men Tarleton had with him burned the wagons, then set out to rejoin Cornwallis at Winnsboro. Mounted men under Washington and Pickens chased Tarleton for two miles, taking prisoners along the way, before calling off the pursuit.

“The battle ended well before noon, and the more Greene learned, the more evident it became that his plan, even with hitches and complications and momentary setbacks, had worked. Thinking they would have ‘another Fishing creek frolic,’ in Collins's words, the overconfident redcoats had acted exactly as Greene had envisioned. Just as they believed they had routed the Americans, they had been driven back and then cut to pieces, courtesy of quick thinking and decisive action by Washington and Howard.

“When ‘the fight was over,’ Collins recalled, ‘the sight was truly melancholy.’ Scores of red coated corpses lay in straight lines where they had run into rifle fire. ‘The dead on the side of the British, exceeded the number killed at the battle of King's Mountain, being if I recollect aright, three hundred or upwards,’ Collins would write. ‘The loss, on the side of the Americans, was only fifteen or sixteen, with a few slightly wounded.’ As is so often the case, actual totals remain in dispute, but the results were gratifyingly lopsided. ‘I was desirous to have a stroke at Tarleton—my wishes are gratified & [I] have given him a devil of a whippin', a more compleat victory never was obtained,’ Morgan crowed to a friend. Though slightly outnumbered—Morgan had one thousand men in the battle, to Tarleton's eleven hundred. British losses came to 110 killed and 830 captured, which included two hundred wounded. That compares to twelve of Morgan's men killed and sixty-one wounded."