Exploring History

"There isn't a cloud in the sky," observed Andy. "Another week of this and the trees will bud, but it's still too cold at night. It was 29 degrees this morning. That's why it's so clear out." We cruised north on Interstate #26 toward North Carolina.
Robert Scruggs, a yeoman farmer, and his wife Catharine Connel Scruggs built a modest log cabin and cleared, planted and harvested 200 acres at Cowpens, South Carolina. It was land given to Scruggs by his father Richard as a wedding gift. Eventually 11 children joined them. As the family grew, so too did the house, with additions, paneled walls and clapboard siding that preserved the original structure. On Green River Road near Cowpens Battlefield, the house, restored to 1830's style, represents a typical back country homestead.

Cow Pens, a frontier pasturing ground on Green River Road, six miles northwest of a ford across Broad River, changed the course of the Revolutionary War through a series of strange twists of fate and some tactical genius.
In the film Cowpens: A Battle Remem-bered, Grandpa told little Sammy, "If it had not been for Cowpens, there would not have been a Yorktown. If there had not been a Cowpens, the South would have remained a British colony." In narrative flashback, Grandpa recounted battle details, as actors illustrated the 1781 confrontation. Here Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, a frontiersman experienced at fighting Indians and a genius at leading men in battle, faced Commander Banastre Tarleton, a British noble who had earned a reputation for ruthlessness and fearlessness and the nickname of "Bloody Tarleton." "Bloody Ban" became a Patriot cry for revenge.

We walked the 1.5-mile Battlefield Trail and down old colonial Green River Road.

Aware of three small rises, the open fields and stands of trees, and men who had prowess with rifles, deadlier and more accurate than British muskets, Morgan devised a battle plan to match the terrain and strengths of his militia and volunteers.
Knowing Tarleton was hated for his ruthlessness in cutting down unarmed and fleeing soldiers and his butchery at Waxhaws, South Carolina, in earlier combat, Morgan counted on the men's desire for revenge.
Interpretive signs marked Morgan's strategy: front line on the lip of the rise, sharpshooters in small groups; second line 90 yards behind them, Andrew Pickens' regional militia; third line 150 yards back along the crest, John Howard's 600 Maryland and Delaware Continentals and veteran Virgina militia; in the woods behind the crest, William Washington's cavalrymen, 150 strong.

As we walked, we visualized the clever tactics by Morgan. The sharpshooters slowed Tarleton's advance with well-aimed fire. The less experienced regional militia sent two volleys at killing distance. When they all fell back, Tarleton thought they had retreated. The militia dropped two-thirds of the British officers. In a confused mix-up Continental Commander John Howard ordered the right flank to fall back and reform. But when the whole line misinterpreted his order and retreated, he demanded they reload, turn face, and fire on the Red Coats at point-blank range. Washington's cavalry rode in and Pickens' militia opened fire on the dragoons and Highlanders on the left. Surrounded, the British collapsed. Tarleton and a few cavalry dashed pellmell off the field and fled.

Morgan had given the British "a devil of a whipping" which "spirited up the people" to support the Revolution. The British, with 110 killed, 229 wounded and 600 captured or missing, lost a third of their American army. The movie helped us picture the scene, but walking the peaceful fields on the brisk clear morning made it difficult to imagine the horrors of a battle here on January 17, 1781, more than 230 years ago.
We drove north to the site of a battle at Kings Mountain, three months before Cowpens. Again, so often ignored, this battle on October 7, 1780, changed the face of the Revolutionary War.

In 1930, President Herbert Hoover said, "It was a little army and a little battle, but it was of mighty portent. History has done scant justice to its significance which rightly should place it beside Lexington and Bunker Hill, Trenton and Yorktown, as one of the crucial engagements in our long struggle for independence."

News of the Kings Mountain Patriot victory motivated hundreds to enlist while Loyalists lost courage and refused to serve. It dealt a deathblow to the British cause, leading eventually to their surrender at Yorktown.

"I guess my history lessons were skewed to a northern approach," I admitted to Andy. "We barely touched on this."

He agreed.
After we watched the historical video, he said, "I can't believe Major Patrick Ferguson could have shot George Washington at Brandywine and didn't take the opportunity. He must have been really honorable to refuse to shoot him in the back."

"And he was reputed to be the best marksman in the British Army," I added. "I can't believe he actually triggered the Kings Mountain battle with his threat to Colonel Isaac Shelby of the "backwater men."

If they did not desist from their opposition to the British arms, he would march his army over the mountains hang their leaders, and lay their country to waste with fire and sword.

"That just intensified all the bitter feelings," I said.

The film explained how the "backwater men" mostly Scots-Irish hunters, farmers and artisans, vowed to finish off Major Ferguson, designer and creator of the breechloading rifle. They met at Sycamore Shoals and tracked Ferguson for two weeks to Kings Mountain in northern South Carolina. The rocky spur of the Blue Ridge, 150 feet high with sliced ravines, gave Ferguson a seemingly excellent position for his army of 1,000 Loyalist militia and 100 red-coated Provincials.

But within an hour in the early afternoon of October 7, 1780, Ferguson was dead, his army was slaughtered and the supplies, tents, horses, cattle and 19 large wagons had fallen to the Patriots.
Andy and I found the history fascinating. We walked through the woodlands to the steep slope. Here, 900 of the best Patriot riflemen, divided into two columns, encircled the mountain. With all footsteps muffled by an earlier rain on the fallen leaves, they climbed, using the trees for cover. Forested slopes provided good protection for Patriots when surprised Loyalists grabbed their muskets. The Patriots, skilled at guerrilla tactics used on the frontier, dodged from tree to tree. Twice they had been driven back down by Loyalist bayonets, but the third strike gained the crest. Surrounded and silhouetted on the open mountain top, the Loyalists had been easy targets for the sharpshooters with their long rifles.
The movie had explained that Ferguson dashed back and forth on his horse, issuing coded commands with blasts on a silver whistle. Seriously injured in the right elbow in an earlier campaign, he needed his good left arm to reign the horse.
We walked along the crest to the spot where he was hit by seven bullets at once. One interpretive sign said a young courier and a young girl gave him up. The movie said one of his two mistresses pointed out the man on horseback in the red-checkered shirt. Chaos ensued of the mountaintop. Ignoring surrender flags, the Patriots sought revenge and continued shooting until the commanders regained control.
But the "backwater men" had accomplished their mission in about an hour. Ferguson was dead, and a third of General Lord Cornwallis' Army of Britain, destroyed.
The militia in South Carolina, fighting on its own terms and in its own way without authoritarian command, turned the tide on England's attempt to conquer and subdue the South and so the nation. A sudden battle, a few ironic twists of fate and a lot of courage changed the course of the new united colonies. It was a fascinating lesson in history at our own pace.