Tarleton, learning of Morgan's location, pushes his…

January 1781 CE

Tarleton, learning of Morgan's location, pushes his troops, marching at 3 a.m. instead of camping for the night.

Morgan turns to his advantage the landscape of Cowpens, the varying reliability of his troops, his opponent’s expectations, and the time available before Tarleton's arrival.

He knows untrained militiamen, which compose a large portion of his force, are generally unreliable in battle, and in the past had routed at the first hint of defeat and abandoned the regulars. (The Battle of Camden had ended in disaster when the militia, which was half of the American force, broke and ran as soon as the shooting started.)

To eliminate that possibility, he defies convention by placing his army between the Broad and Pacolet rivers, thus making escape impossible if the army is routed.

Selecting a low hill as the center of his position, he places his Continental infantry on it, deliberately leaving his flanks exposed to his opponent.

With a ravine on their right flank and a creek on their left flank, Morgan reasons his forces are protected against British flanking maneuvers at the beginning of the battle.

Over the whole period, Tarleton’s brigade has done a great deal of rapid marching across difficult terrain.

As soon as he reaches the spot, Tarleton forms a battle line, which consists of dragoons on his flanks, with his two grasshopper cannons in between the British Regulars and American Loyalists.

Morgan's stratagem works perfectly. The British drive in successive lines, anticipating victory only to encounter another, stronger line after exerting themselves and suffering casualties.

The depth of the American lines gradually soaks up the shock of the British advance.

Tarleton, realizing the desperate nature of what is occurring, rides back to his one unit left that is whole, the British Legion cavalry.

He orders them to charge, but they refuse and flee the field.

The Highlanders, surrounded by militia and Continentals, surrender.

Desperate to save something, Tarleton finds about forty cavalrymen and with them tries to save the two cannons his forces had brought, but they have been taken and held.

It is now 8:00 a.m. and the Battle of Cowpens had lasted approximately one hour.

In his retreat, Tarleton is able to escape capture by forcing a local planter named Adam Goudylock to serve as a guide.

Morgan's army takes seven hundred and twelve prisoners, which include two hundred wounded.

Even worse for the British, the forces losses (especially the British Legion and the dragoons) constitute the cream of Cornwallis' army.

Additionally, one hundred and ten British soldiers have been killed in action, and every artilleryman has been either killed or incapacitated by wounds.

Tarleton has suffered an eighty-six percent casualty rate, and his brigade has been all but wiped out as a fighting force.

Coming in the wake of the American debacle at Camden, Cowpens is a surprising victory and a turning point that changes the psychology of the entire war.

The Americans are encouraged to fight further, and the Loyalists and British are demoralized.

Furthermore, its strategic result—the destruction of an important part of the British army in the South—is incalculable toward ending the war.