Conceived in Liberty (260 page)

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.

Morgan, however, was not yet safe, for Cornwallis was coming north with his main army to catch and crush him. Caught between two courses of action—abandonment of the North Carolina plan and a swift march north to King’s Mountain to intercept Morgan (which Tarleton had urged)—Cornwallis did neither, and thus had fallen between two stools. His advance northward was slow, and he lost his chance to block Morgan’s path of retreat. He was in his camp at Turtle Creek, 25 miles east of Cowpens when he heard of the disastrous results. He should have abandoned the entire North Carolina scheme as he had done after King’s Mountain the previous year, but he was completely committed to the advance. He set after Morgan with 3,000 men, sending 700 under Lord Rawdon to Camden to assist Leslie against Greene. But delays and forays in the wrong direction lost precious time, and Cornwallis found, when he reached the anticipated point of interception at Ramsour’s Mill, that Morgan, who had been marching away into North Carolina at remarkable speed, covering one hundred miles over difficult terrain in less than five days, was already two days’ march away. Cornwallis, ever inclined to be rash and impetuous, now so embroiled himself in the task of invasion and of catching Morgan that he overlooked more strategic, long-run considerations: for the sake of speed in the race with Morgan, he jettisoned all of his stores and baggage. This desperate destruction led 250 Hessians to desert.

When Nathanael Greene, at Cheraw Hill, heard of Morgan’s victory, he did not let his joy becloud his realization of the immediate danger to Morgan. He ordered General Huger to march his men north to and
beyond Salisbury, North Carolina, for a link-up with Morgan’s force, while Greene himself raced heroically all the way to Morgan’s camp on the Catawba River. Here the two generals disagreed over strategy. Morgan counselled a rapid retreat into the western mountains—certainly a prudent course which would have insured that Cornwallis could not follow. But Greene, a man of broader strategic visions, saw that Cornwallis’ reckless destruction of his supplies could bring about his defeat. He therefore overruled Morgan, even though he failed to rouse rebel militia to his aid, and he ordered his force to march northeast through Salisbury and across the Yadkin River to join with Huger’s troop marching northward.
*

As he retreated, Greene kept just close enough to Cornwallis to keep him advancing in furious pursuit, meanwhile luring him ever further from his supply base and ever closer to Greene’s own supply lines from Virginia and the North.

When Huger’s army was held up by heavy rains and bad roads, Greene changed the junction point from Salisbury to Guilford Courthouse, in northern North Carolina directly north of Cheraw. It was now evident to both parties that the safe sanctuary for the American army would be north of the swollen Dan River, in Virginia, where supplies would be available to them. The Dan could be crossed either at the upper fords or in its lower stretches by boats. At Salisbury, Cornwallis, not knowing that Greene’s foresight had arranged for sufficient boats on the lower Dan, abandoned hope of catching up with Morgan and Greene before their link-up with Huger, and instead swung north to intercept the united American army before it reached the upper fords. Greene and Morgan raced northeast and effected a junction with Huger’s force at Guilford Courthouse on February 9. The American army of the South was once more united, and Cornwallis was twenty-five miles due west at Salem.

Greene was by no means committed to retreat behind the Dan; his cherished goal was to turn upon his supply-depleted pursuer and smash him decisively. He called for, and expected to receive, additional forces from Virginia and local militia; but no Virginia troops arrived and the militia were disappointing. His army totalled only 2,000 men against nearly 3,000 for Cornwallis. His council of war unanimously urged him to press on to the Dan on February 10. The race for the Dan, 70 miles away, had begun, but it had to begin without Morgan, whose ill health, perhaps aggravated by his opposition to what he considered a reckless course, led him to retire permanently from the fray.

Of America’s top generals, only Greene was left in the field; but he would be enough. He detached 700 picked men under Col. Otho Williams to move west and then to the north to harass the British advance, and to fool the British into believing that the Americans were making for the upper fords. Cornwallis
was
fooled, and he began to race north toward the upper Dan. Both Cornwallis and Williams sped through wretched winter weather, sometimes covering thirty miles a day, with Williams’ men getting little or no food or sleep. On February 13, Tarleton saw through Greene’s plans, and at his urging, Cornwallis shifted east toward Greene, with Williams racing to keep ahead and following Greene’s route to the crossing at Irwin’s Ferry. Cornwallis followed in hot pursuit, but Colonel Washington’s and Harry Lee’s cavalry were more than a match for Tarleton’s attempts to rush the Americans fording streams. Marching night and day, Williams was able to follow Greene across the Dan River on February 15, just in time to elude Cornwallis. The American army had reached sanctuary.

*
It must be noted that the Americans were greatly aided in all these maneuvers by Greene’s precaution of assembling small boats in advance to help in crossing the swollen rivers.

Lord Cornwallis now found himself in a position often faced by imperialist commanders fighting against guerrillas and a revolutionary people. By classical standards he was in an excellent position; he was the conqueror of Georgia and all of the Carolinas, and no real army was left to oppose him south of the Dan River. But, in fact, he had no boats and few supplies, and could not pursue Greene into Virginia. Furthermore, Greene’s army would outnumber his when it was reinforced by the divisions of Continentals being raised in Virginia by General Steuben. Cornwallis, therefore, fell back on the fundamental axiom of British strategy: the rallying of the supposed majority of North Carolina Tories to form the solid support for a British occupation and regime. He withdrew to Hillsboro and eagerly issued a proclamation on February 20 inviting all loyal subjects to join his army in the reestablishment of legitimate government in the province.

Meanwhile, Greene was having his troubles across the Dan. His militia, their enlistments up, had largely left him, and neither the expected reinforcements from Steuben’s Virginia Continentals nor Virginia militia had appeared. In addition the level of the Dan was falling, exposing him to a potential blow from Cornwallis. He therefore determined to cross the river back into North Carolina. He sent Williams and Lee across to join Pickens’ guerrillas in harrying the British and suppressing armed Tories. On February 23, they found a company of 400 mounted Tory recruits at Haw River under the command of Col. John Pyle. Pickens and Lee duped, surprised, and virtually massacred the enemy. Most of the Tory force was killed or wounded; not a man in the American force was even injured.
Understandably, the massacre at Haw River dried up Tory recruiting in the state.

On the same day, Greene, finally reinforced by Virginia riflemen, recrossed the Dan and headed towards Hillsboro, his force now numbering 2,100. His plan was to harass Cornwallis, discourage Tory risings, and wait for reinforcements before engaging in any frontal action. Cornwallis found to his dismay that Greene’s recrossing and the harassment by his light infantry under Williams were, like the rout of Pyle, effectively crushing the incipient flocking of North Carolina Tories to the British cause. At Hillsboro, Cornwallis found himself among more and more enemies and ever fewer friends, the increase of enemies aggravated by British plundering and requisitions of foodstuffs, which were growing increasingly scarce in the area. It was clear that he had to leave Hillsboro. On February 27, he marched southwest to the south side of the Alamance, where he would be in a strategic position to march west to Guilford or Salisbury, or southeast to Cross Creek or Wilmington on the Atlantic coast. Greene encamped on the north side and shifted his camp continually, keeping Cornwallis offbalance while awaiting reinforcements. On March 6, Cornwallis tried to attack Williams in a sudden surprise, but Williams’ corps managed to escape. Finally, both armies rested. Greene received his long-awaited reinforcements of over 1,000 North Carolina militia, nearly 1,700 Virginia militia, and a few Virginia Continentals. By mid-March, he was at peak strength, over 4,500 men, greatly outnumbering the better-trained British force of about 1,900. Finding his food supplies running low, Greene decided to make his stand promptly at Guilford Courthouse. This decision to do battle was strategically sound; Greene’s great numerical superiority insured that the worst would be a minor defeat and victory could well have led to the final rout of the British troops. For his part, Cornwallis could do nothing else; the entire long-run British strategy of occupying the South and calling forth the Tories rested on triumph over the American army in open battle.

Following Morgan’s earlier advice, Greene arranged his army as Morgan had done with such success at Cowpens: a front and second line of militia, a third line of crack Continentals, and two cavalry units on the flanks under Washington and Lee. But while Greene was a brilliant strategist, he was far inferior to Morgan as a tactician, and he made the grave error of stationing his three lines much too far apart. Morgan had placed the lines 150 yards apart; Greene now placed them 300 and 400 yards apart, leaving the militia too great a distance before they could find cover. This also forced the cavalry to cover too much ground before it could come up to aid the front lines.

The British swung into battle on March 15; the first American line of North Carolina militia panicked at the British advance and fled from the
scene without bothering to re-form at the rear. The second line of Virginia militia fought well, however, and did great damage to the British troops with its withering rifle fire. The third line of Continentals was again very effective, but twice Greene failed to administer the
coup de grâce
to the British for fear of risking his army. Cornwallis finally managed to stop Washington’s advance by firing his artillery indiscriminately into the fray. As the British re-formed and advanced, Greene withdrew from the battle —a technical defeat for the Americans, but actually a smashing victory, for at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse the British had lost no fewer than 530 men, more than one-fourth of their army. In contrast, Greene had suffered only 260 casualties.