Battle of Cowpens

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Battle of Cowpens (oil painting by William Ranney, 1845)

The Battle of Cowpens took place during the American Revolutionary War on January 17, 1781 at Cowpens , South Carolina, near the North Carolina border . The American troops made up of continental soldiers and volunteer militias (supporters of the political grouping of the so-called patriots under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan ) achieved a clear victory against the British colonial power and the local loyalists .

After this American victory, the British commander Cornwallis gave up his efforts to pacify South Carolina. The Battle of Cowpens thus represents a significant turning point in the military conflict of the American Revolution and the developments that ultimately led to the recognition of American independence by the British Empire .

The battle went down in military history as a masterpiece of tactics .

prehistory

General Washington (oil painting by John Trumbull)

After considerable tension between the American colonies and the British metropolitan area, tax increases between 1770 and 1775 led to the amalgamation of the colonies against the British crown. The attempt by the British to suppress the looming uprising by sending troops led to the outbreak of the American War of Independence in April 1775. Initially the British tried to recapture the colonies in both the northern and southern theater of war . After the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge in 1776 and the failed British attempt to take Charleston across the sea, the self-confidence and morale of the American troops rose and for the time being prevented further attempts by the British to regain control in the south.

After the conclusion of the American-French alliance negotiated by Benjamin Franklin in 1778, the balance of power in the north changed. During the resulting patt-like situation in the northern theater of war, the British leadership decided to re-engage in the south. Assuming that large parts of the population would remain loyal to the crown, the British wanted to support the loyalists in the south in order to ultimately crush the revolution in the north from the south. The British efforts in 1779 and 1780 were successful. Most of the southern American Continental Army was razed or captured in the battles of Savannah , Charleston, and Camden . These victories gave the British Army the confidence that they would soon take control of the South together with the Loyalists. They did not expect strong resistance from the hinterland and the Appalachians .

General George Washington , the commander of the Continental Army, handed the Southern Army over to General Nathanael Greene . After just two weeks in command, he separated his armed forces and sent Brigadier General Daniel Morgan to the southwest of the Catawba River , near the present-day border between North and South Carolina, to cut the supply lines of the British and the range of the British in the hinterland and the border region of the Restrict Appalachian Mountains . The aim of this operation was also "to spirit up the people" - the moral strengthening of the inhabitants of the region, which was heavily stressed by the war and the procurement of supplies by the troops.

General Cornwallis (After a portrait by JS Copley)

The British commander, General Cornwallis , opposed Morgan to Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton from Liverpool , who had been very successful in the previous battles of Camden and Waxhaw . In Waxhaw, Tarleton, only 26, allegedly continued to fight and kill the soldiers of the Continental Army who wanted to surrender and, according to contemporary British and American witnesses , had hoisted the white flag . His refusal to capture them (English Quarter ) led to the catchphrase "Tarleton's Quarter" as a term for "no prisoners". Although Tarleton's personal involvement in the massacre is controversial, he was hated by the patriots and viewed as a butcher. Both "Tarleton's Quarter" and "Revenge for Waxhaw" became battle cries for the continental army.

On January 12, 1781, Tarleton's scouts spotted Morgan's army at Grindal's Shoals on the Pacolet River in upstate South Carolina, and he began to pursue them ceaselessly. As Tarleton's army drew nearer, Morgan retreated toward Burr's Mill on Thicketty Creek. After reports that Tarleton was many times closer than expected, he hastily broke camp and marched towards Cowpens, a well-known intersection and an important grazing area in the border region.

Forces involved

American Army

American Flag (Cowpens Flag)

The American troops were under the command of Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, who stated in his official report that he had only led just over 800 men into the Battle of Cowpens. The historian Lawrence Babits, who has studied the battle in depth, comes up with the following figures:

  • Divisions of the 1st and 3rd Continental Light Dragoon, American Mounted Infantry (82)
  • Three Departments of State Dragoons (55)
  • A company of dragoons of the militias (45)
  • A battalion of American infantry (300)
  • Three companies of infantry from the state armies (around 150)
  • A brigade with four battalions, another battalion and several companies of infantry formed from militias (1255–1280)

Overall, this results in a troop strength between 1887 and 1912 officers and men. The breakdown among the participating states gives about 855 men from South Carolina , 442 from Virginia , 290 to 315 men from North Carolina , 180 from Maryland , 60 from Georgia and 60 men from Delaware .

The discrepancy between Morgan's information and the actual troop strength can be explained, among other things, by the arrival of volunteers who were not organized in Morgan's combat units. The news of the likely conflict had spread in the hinterland. In addition to Picken's troops, who did not arrive until the night shortly before the battle at Morgan, several smaller groups of men willing to fight, modeled on the " Overmountain Men ", the volunteer fighters from the Appalachians , appeared on the battlefield without being asked . Morgan's American troops consisted mostly of inexperienced volunteer militias. In addition, he had a few veterans and a few trained militias who had experience from the battles at Musgrove Mill and Kings Mountain . Among them were some of the "Overmountain Men" from the border regions of the provinces who had also fought at Kings Mountain.

British Army

British Flag (Kings Colors)

Under the leadership of Colonel Banastre Tarleton fought at Cowpens on the British side:

  • A legion of loyalists : 250 cavalry and 200 infantry
  • A division of the 17th Light Dragoons (50)
  • A battery (24) of the Royal Artillery with two 3-pounders armed.
  • The 7th Regiment, the Royal Fusiliers (177)
  • The company of light infantry of the 16th regiment (42)
  • The 71st Regiment, Fraser's Highlanders (334)
  • The Light Company of the Prince of Wales's American Regiment (31)
  • A company of scouts (50)

A total of over 1,150 officers and men.

300 men belonged to the cavalry and 24 to the artillery, while the rest were infantry (553 soldiers, 281 militias). The men of the Royal Artillery, 17th Light Dragoons, 16th and 71st Regiments were reliable and well-trained soldiers. On the other hand, the section of the 7th Regiment had just been raised and was actually supposed to be brought to the garrison of Fort 96 for basic training, instead of being led directly into battle. Tarleton's own unit, the British Legion, was seen as excellent at pursuing a defeated enemy, but unreliable when the latter was determined to face battle.

The start of the battle

Morgan's tactical considerations

Daniel Morgan (portrait of Charles Willson Peale)

Morgan knew he had to take advantage of the defender's favored Cowpens' grounds and the time until Tarleton arrived. The hilly landscape of the Cowpens, overgrown with red oaks, offered cover on the one hand, and on the other hand, due to the intensive grazing there was no undergrowth there that would have hindered movement. Furthermore, the cowpens were familiar to the bulk of the American troops. Morgan could assume that both voluntary militias from the immediate vicinity and Colonel Picken's subsequent troops would visit the chosen battlefield without further information to join him, as the Overmountain Men, who were very popular with the population, had already been there a year earlier before the Battle of Kings Mountain . In addition, he knew both his men and his opponent, knew how they would behave in certain situations, and made use of this knowledge. The positions he assigned to his troops contradicted the conventional tactical conceptions of the time. They lay between the Broad and Pacolet Rivers , making a retreat impossible if the battle went bad. His reasons for this decision were obvious: he wanted to prevent the inexperienced, new troops from abandoning the veterans and fleeing the battlefield at the first shot, as had happened in the past in Camden, for example.

In the center of his positions was a hill on which he assigned the continental infantry their position. As a result, he deliberately offered his unprotected flank to the opponent. Morgan assumed that Tarleton would attack him there first and prepared accordingly. He had the infantry set up in three meetings , tactical bodies that were independent of one another, but dependent on cooperation, in a linear line-up that were to stand behind each other at a short distance of about musket shooting range. He placed hand-picked snipers in the first meeting, followed by militias, and soldiers in the rear meeting. The 150 snipers selected by their commanders for the first meeting were from Carolina and Georgia provinces and were commanded by Major McDowell and Major Cunningham, respectively. Behind this meeting he put 300 militia men under the command of Andrew Pickens . The third meeting, about 550 men, consisted of remnants of American troops from Delaware and Maryland and veteran militias from Georgia and Virginia . Colonel John E. Howard was to command the American troops, and Colonels Tate and Triplett would lead the militias into battle.

He was aware that he could not rely on the poorly trained militias of the second meeting in battle, in particular he feared panic in the event of a British cavalry attack. He therefore decided that these militias should fire only two volleys and then retreat to regroup under the protection of the reserve, the cavalry commanded by William Washington, behind the third meeting formed by experienced colonial soldiers. The night before the battle, he went from campfire to campfire, encouraging his men and explaining to the militias the importance of their task and the considerations behind it. This was an essential step in Morgan's psychological preparation of his inexperienced volunteers for battle. In the contemporary and historical assessment of Morgan, for example by Baron von Steuben , this procedure of including every single man regardless of his rank in the battlefield established his military success.

The movement of the second meeting should also distract the British from the third. The purpose of this arrangement of the battle was to weaken and disorganize the attacker who would attack the third meeting up hillside before the own counterattack. Howard's men at the third meeting would not be demoralized by the expected attack, and unlike the inexperienced militia, they would be able to withstand the attack. The first and second meetings would have worn out attacking British forces by the time the third had even gotten to work.

Morgan placed his men in a slight sloping position. He took advantage of a well-known weakness of the British to aim too high in battle. In addition, the rear slope allowed Morgan's men to fire against the light of the rising sun; the British standing on the ridge of the hill were supposed to offer an easier target for his snipers with their silhouettes. With a ravine on the right wing and a stream on the left wing , Morgan's troops were largely protected against flank maneuvers at the beginning of the battle. Morgan said:

"The whole idea is to lead Benny [Tarleton] into a trap so we can beat his cavalry and infantry as they come up those slopes. When they've been cut down to size by our fire, we'll attack them. "

Historian John Buchanan wrote of Morgan's tactical performance that he was believed to have been "the only general on either side of the American Revolution who had a significant tactical thought of his own."

Tarleton's arrival and line-up

Banastre Tarleton (oil painting by Joshua Reynolds, 1782)

On January 7, 1781, Tarleton woke his troops at 2:00 a.m. and continued his march towards Cowpens. Babits noted that during the five days leading up to the battle, the British troops were exposed to considerable physical strain, which would have required rest and adequate nutrition to compensate. According to Babits, the British ran out of food 48 hours before the battle and the men had slept less than four hours. Tarleton's brigade marched, sometimes at a run, over difficult terrain, through swamps and over the rivers, which had swelled after heavy rains. But Tarleton had victory in mind and would not allow any delay when he reached the battlefield. His scouts had told him of the area where Morgan would face battle, and he was sure of victory. After all, Morgan's men, mostly militiamen, were wedged between the experienced British Army and a river.

Once on the battlefield, he set up his troops directly opposite the Continental Army. Sure of victory, he sent his exhausted men into battle. His plan was simple. His cavalry was clearly superior at three to one, and unlike the Americans, he had artillery. He opted for a frontal attack with the infantry and thus fulfilled Morgan's expectations. The bulk of his infantry stood in a line in order to take direct action against Morgan. The center of the line was the British Legion, which was flanked by a cannon on the left and right. Tarleton deployed the Royal Fuseliers to the left of the Legion and the light infantry to the right. He protected the flanks by a unit of 50 dragoons each. The reserve was formed by the 250-man battalion of the Scottish Highlanders under Major Arthur MacArthur, a long-serving and experienced soldier of the Dutch-Scottish Brigade. Tarleton also kept the 200-strong cavalry in reserve for the pursuit of the defeated enemy. He ordered these two units about 140 meters behind his line of attack.

Course of the battle

Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781

Morgan's plan worked perfectly: after Tarleton's deployment, the snipers were able to wound or kill 15 Dragoons from cover in the first attack by the British before retreating to the height of the second meeting. The British hesitated briefly, but marched on and met the militias, who fired two volleys into the British ranks on orders. 40% of the losses suffered by the British were officers, whereupon the British lines temporarily withdrew in surprise and confusion. They regrouped and invaded the American army again. The militias under Colonel Pickens seemed to be disintegrating from the British point of view and were fleeing to the rear. Tarleton responded by ordering one of his officers named Ogilvie to break into the ranks of what he believed to be defeated Americans with some dragoons. His men attacked in a drill-like formation and were immediately caught by the fire of the militia officers' muskets without allowing themselves to be stopped. The British successfully broke through the ranks of the Americans and already believed themselves victorious. But after losing momentum and taking losses, they hit a much stronger line. The deep staggering of the American lines weakened the force of the attack. After misunderstanding the withdrawal of the first two meetings as an escape, the British clashed with the last line of the disciplined professional soldiers holding the hill.

Even so, Tarleton believed that he would be able to defeat the only steadfast line of Americans he could see and sent his infantry into another frontal attack. The Highlanders were ordered to flank the Americans. Under Howard's command, the Americans turned back to prevent the British from bypassing the right flank. With the supposed victory in mind and completely disorganized, the British followed, interpreting the orderly withdrawal of the troops as an escape. Unexpectedly, Howard turned his men around and fired a volley into the British pursuers. Triplet's Musketeers also attacked, with devastating consequences for the British, while Washington and McCall's cavalry attacked. When caught by the Americans, the British dragoons fled. After Washington had defeated Ogilvie's troops, he also rode against the British infantry. When the British attack finally came to a standstill, the American cavalry struck on the right flank and from behind, while the regrouped militia emerged from behind the hill again. It had circled the entire American position once to meet the British on the left flank.

The shock of this sudden counterattack and the reappearance of the militia on the flanks where the exhausted men of Tarleton awaited their own cavalry disheartened the British so much that more than half of the British and loyalist infantry fell to the ground, wounded or not . A process that the historian Lawrence Babits diagnosed as battle fatigue ( shell shock ) , which describes a form of acute stress reaction in war situations. Trapped in a double enclosure by American forces, many of the British gave up.

William Washington in battle (engraving by HH Gimber, 1781)

After the right wing and the center of the British formation collapsed, only a small group of the Highlanders fought against part of the troops under Howard. Tarleton saw the hopeless situation and rode to his only remaining fresh unit, the cavalry, which he had kept in reserve. In a desperate attempt to save at least something, he organized a group of cavalrymen so as not to at least let the cannons fall into the hands of the Americans. When he realized that these had already been conquered, he returned to the actual battlefield. After he was immediately attacked there by the troops of Washington, he finally decided to flee. Allegedly General Washington caught him with a saber on this retreat, but Tarleton shot Washington's horse and escaped.

The patriots, enraged by the previous battles and the notorious cruelty of Tarleton, were prevented by Morgan, together with Pickins and Howard, from repaying the British "Tarleton's Quarter". Thanks to Morgan's leadership qualities, there were no attacks on the prisoners, which would ultimately have diminished the significance of this victory.

86% of Tarleton's army was captured, wounded or killed: Morgan's forces captured 712 British and loyal soldiers, 200 of whom were wounded and 110 British were killed. In addition, 2 cannons, 2 regimental flags , 53 carts, 100 horses, 800 muskets, a portable smithy, 60 slaves and, as Morgan's report to Greene said, “all the music” could be captured. A devastating blow to the British, as the lost troops, particularly Tarleton's Legion and the Dragoons, were among the best soldiers in the Army of Cornwallis. However, it was not only the number of fallen and prisoners that was essential for the further course of the war, but above all the destruction of the combat units in Tarleton's Brigade and the British Legion, one of the most respected units of the British Expeditionary Army.

According to Fleming, 12 soldiers were killed and 62 wounded on the American side. Babits, however, assumes that the 73 fallen from the official report from Morgan's pen only included the dead of his regular troops; he was able to identify 128 killed or wounded Americans by their names. In addition, he presents an entry in the state deeds of the state of North Carolina that 68 soldiers and 80 militiamen were killed. It appears that both the casualties and troop strength that Morgan reported in his report are about half what they actually were.

Daniel Morgan had fought brilliantly in a battle whose double containment tactics were compared to the Battle of Cannae . His choices and leadership had enabled one of the clearest victories of the war to be won with an army consisting largely of volunteer militias.

Consequences of the battle

Monument on the battlefield

After the debacle at the Battle of Camden, the surprise victory at Cowpens marked a turning point for the psychological state of Americans. He encouraged not only the citizens of the hinterland, but all people in the southern colonies who rebelled against the British. After this battle they were ready to continue fighting for their freedom while the British and Loyalist forces were demoralized. The annihilation of such a prestigious and essential part of the British Army in the south was of vital importance towards the end of the war; not only had Tarleton's British Legion been completely crushed, but an army consisting largely of volunteer militias had inflicted the defeat on well-trained British soldiers. Along with the victory in the Battle of Kings Mountain , Cowpens was the decisive blow against Cornwallis, which would likely have put down much of the resistance in the south if Tarleton had triumphed at Cowpens. Instead, the battle sparked a series of events that led to the end of the war.

According to John Marshall, "seldom had a battle in which no major troops were involved had such significant consequences as that of Cowpens" . In assessing the British statesman Sir GO Trevelyan, she gave General Nathanael Greene the opportunity to carry out a campaign with surprising twists and turns that led Cornwallis through an "unbroken chain of consequences to the Yorktown disaster that ultimately led America to the British Crown solved '“'.

As an immediate result of the Cowpens defeat, Cornwallis abandoned efforts to pacify South Carolina. He pursued Greene's forces to North Carolina to force a decisive battle in the south. After a long chase, the so-called Race to the Dan , he met Greene at the Battle of Guilford Court House and won a Pyrrhic victory that cost him 500 men, which the British were unable to replace. Greene, who had lost 1,300 men in the battle, could get over this loss and in the rear of the Cornwallis moving north, he destroyed its conquests in the south. Cornwalli's army was so weakened that he had to retreat to Yorktown to rest his troops. Cornwallis was cut off, giving George Washington, together with the allied French Lieutenant General de Rochambeau, the chance to bring about a decisive battle. They put the British in the battle of Yorktown with 15,000 men. On October 17, 1781, Cornwallis asked for an armistice and surrendered his command and nearly 8,000 soldiers on October 19, 1781. This defeat led the British to abandon their attempts to recapture the American colonies and hold North America. Peace negotiations began in 1782 between the British and their former colonies; in the Peace of Paris in 1783 , Great Britain finally recognized the independence of the thirteen colonies.

Commemoration of the battle

The battle in the movie

  • The final battle in The Patriot is inspired by two historical battles from the American Revolution: Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse. The Americans used the basic tactics of the two battles there; the name of the battle and the victorious troops was borrowed from the Battle of Cowpens, while the troop size and the participating Generals Nathanael Greene and Lord Cornwallis are attributed to the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
  • The film Sweet Liberty , produced by Alan Alda , parodies the freedom that a film crew takes when filming the Battle of Cowpens.

literature

  • Lawrence E. Babits: A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1998, ISBN 0-8078-2434-8 .
  • Edwin C. Bearss: The Battle of Cowpens: A Documented Narrative and Troop Movement Maps . Overmountain Press, Johnson City, Tennessee 1996, ISBN 1-57072-045-2 .
  • Mark Mayo Boatner: Cassell's Biographical Dictionary of the American War of Independence, 1763-1783 . Cassell, London 1966, ISBN 0-304-29296-6 .
  • John Buchanan: The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas . John Wiley and Sons, New York 1997, ISBN 0-471-16402-X .
  • Burke Davis: The Cowpens-Guilford Courthouse Campaign . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2002, ISBN 0-8122-1832-9 .
  • Thomas J. Fleming: Cowpens: Official National Park Handbook . National Park Service, 1988, ISBN 0-912627-33-6 .
  • John Marshall : The Life of George Washington: Commander in Chief of the American Forces, During the War Which Established the Independence of his Country, and First President of the United States. Second Edition, Revised and Corrected by the Author . James Crissy, Philadelphia 1832.
  • Kenneth Roberts : The Battle of Cowpens: The Great Morale Builder . Doubleday and Company, Garden City 1958.
  • Christine R. Swager: Come to the Cow Pens !: The Story of the Battle of Cowpens January 17, 1781 . Hub City Writers Project, 2002, ISBN 1-891885-31-6 .
  • Sir George Otto Trevelyan: George the Third and Charles Fox: The Concluding Part of The American Revolution . Longmans, Green and Co, New York and elsewhere 1914.

Web links

Commons : Battle of Cowpens  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This assessment of tactical performance is supported by Babits in his monograph on Cowpens, by Alan C. Cate in Founding Fighters: The Battlefield Leaders who Made American Independence (page 19) and by the "Center of Military History of the United States Army" Divided into Chapter 4 of the American Military History (Ed. Office of the Chief of Military History)
  2. ^ Theodorus Bailey Myers: Cowpens Papers, Being a Correspondence of General Morgan and Prominent Actors. , Charleston, 1881, pp. 9-10.
  3. ↑ William Dobein James: A Sketch of the Life of Brigadier General Francis Marion. , Letter from Dr. Robert Brownfields, surgeon of the British troops on the "Buford massacre" (Waxhaw) ( Memento of the original of July 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.patriotresource.com
  4. ↑ National Park Service: “G. Scott Withrow: Banastre Tarleton. “ Last accessed June 6, 2008
  5. ↑ James Graham: The Life of General Daniel Morgan of the Virginia Line of the Army of the United States. New York, 1859, pp. 281-283
  6. ^ Don Higginbotham: Daniel Morgan — Revolutionary Rifleman. Chapel Hill, 1961. page 129
  7. ↑ a b Kenneth Roberts: The Battle of Cowpens: The Great Morale Builder. Doubleday and Company 1958. pp. 65-68
  8. ↑ Divisions of the 1st and 3rd Continental Light Dragoon (mostly recruited in Virginia) under Lieutenant Colonel William Washington, a total of 82 men. Babits, pages 40-41
  9. ↑ Departments of the State Dragoons from North Carolina and Virginia with 30 men. Babits, p. 175, footnote 101. A division of the South Carolina State Dragoons with some riders from Georgia under Major James McCall with 25 men. Babits, pages 41-42 and page 175, footnote 101
  10. ^ A company of freshly recruited volunteers from the South Carolina militia under Major Benjamin Jolly. Babits, pages 41-42
  11. ↑ A battalion of American infantry under Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard, a company from Delaware , one from Virginia, and three from Maryland , each 60 men strong, 300 total. Babits, pp. 27-29
  12. ^ A company of state troops from Virginia under Captain John Lawson with 75 men. Babits, pages 28 and 77. A company of state troops from South Carolina under Captain Joseph Pickens with 60 men. Babits, p. 73. A small company of North Carolina State Forces under Captain Henry Connelly (number unknown). Babits, page 28
  13. ^ A battalion of Virginia militias under Frank Triplett. Babits, pages 33 and 104. Two companies of Virginian militias under Major David Campbell with 50 men. Babits, page 34. A battalion of North Carolina militia under Colonel Joseph McDowell of 260-285 men. Babits, pages 35-36. A brigade consisting of four battalions of South Carolina militias under Colonel Andrew Pickens, consisting of a battalion with three companies of the Spartanburg Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Roebuck, a four-company battalion of the Spartanburg Regiment under Colonel John Thomas; five companies of the Little River Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Hayes and another seven companies of the Fair Forest Regiment under Colonel Thomas Brandon. Babits states (page 36) that these battalions "comprised between 120 and more than 250 men". If Roebuck's three companies consisted of 120 men and Brandon's seven companies consisted of 250 men, then the troop strength of the Thomas companies was around 160 men and the five Hayes companies about 200 men, for a total of 730 men. Three small companies of militias from Georgia with 55 men under Major Cunningham. Babits, pp. 40 and 187, footnote 14.
  14. ^ Graham, p. 290
  15. ^ Babits, p. 46, "British Legion Infantry strength at Cowpens was between 200 and 271 enlisted men". However, this statement is referenced to a Note on Page 175-176, which says, “The British Legion infantry at Cowpens is usually considered to have had about 200-250 men, but returns for the 25 December 1780 muster show only 175. Totals obtained by Cornwallis, dated 15 January, show that the whole legion had 451 men, but approximately 250 were dragoons ”
  16. ↑ My Revolutionary War: The Battle of Cowpens Last accessed June 17, 2008
  17. ^ National Park Service: "Edwin C. Bearss: Battle of Cowpens. “ US Department of the Interior, 1967. ISBN 1-57072-045-2 Last accessed June 6, 2008
  18. ↑ All units according to the Babits list
  19. ↑ United States Government Printing Office: Historical Statements Concerning the Battle of King's Mountain and the Battle of the Cowpens. 1928 ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Last accessed June 6, 2008  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.army.mil
  20. ↑ a b Babits, page 46.
  21. ^ National Park Service: "VG Fowler: Brigadier General Daniel Morgan. “ US Department of the Interior. Last accessed December 10, 2007
  22. ^ Petition of Samuel Dinwiddie, Landon Carter, and other Amherst County militiamen. dated November 9, 1780, Virginia State Library, Richmond
  23. ^ Graham, pp. 295-296
  24. ↑ John McAuley Palmer: General von Steuben. Yale University Press, 1937. page 157
  25. ^ John Buchanan: The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas. John Wiley and Sons, 1997, ISBN 0-471-16402-X . Page 316-319.
  26. ^ Victor Brooks, Robert Hohwald: How America Fought Its Wars: Military Strategy from the American Revolution to the Civil War. Da Capo Press, 1999, ISBN 1-58097-002-8 . Page 134
  27. ^ Babits, p. 156
  28. ↑ Tarleton describes the initial situation in a report: “The situation of the enemy was desperate in case of misfortune; an open country, and a river in their rear, must have thrown them entirely in the power of a superior cavalry; While the light troops, in case of a repulse, had the expectation of a neighboring force to protect them from destruction. " Banastre Tarleton: A History of the Campaign of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America. Dublin, 1786. page 221
  29. ↑ Buchanan, pp. 319-321
  30. ^ Graham, p. 303
  31. ↑ Babits, pp. 155–159
  32. ^ A b Joseph Cummins: Turn Around and Run Like Hell: Amazing Stories of Unconventional Military Strategies THAT WORKED. Murdoch Books, 2007, ISBN 1-921208-64-3 . Page 40
  33. ^ Franklin and Mary Wickwire: Cornwallis: The American Adventure. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970. Pages 149-165
  34. ^ William Johnson: Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene, Major General of the Armies of the United States in the War of the Revolution. in 2 volumes, Charleston, 1822. Volume I, page 382
  35. ↑ a b Buchanan, pp. 325–326
  36. ↑ Note: The number of British dead is given differently by the victorious Americans: 100, 110 or 120. It can be assumed that the number of dead was exaggerated by the victors
  37. ↑ Thomas J. Fleming: Downright Fighting: The Story of Cowpens. US Department of the Interior, Washington, DC, 1988. page 80
  38. ↑ Babits, pp. 150–152
  39. ^ William J. Hourihan, Ph.D .: The Cowpens Staff Ride: A Study In Leadership. ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Last accessed June 6, 2008  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.usachcs.army.mil
  40. ↑ Cornwalli's deeply sad reaction to the defeat is described: "an inferior force, two-thirds militia should gain such a decisive advantage over his favorite hero." By Colonel Roderick Mackenzie in Strictures on Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton's History. London 1787. page 117
  41. ^ John Marshall: The Life of George Washington: Commander in Chief of the American Forces during the war which established his country and President of the United States , Volume I, New York Public Library, 1836, p. 404. Available online in English
  42. ↑ Trevelyan, Volume II, page 141.
  43. ↑ As of 2005
  44. ↑ National Park Service: Cowpens National Battlefield. Accessed June 6, 2008
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