Free North Carolina

This Week in American Military History:

W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Jan. 17, 1781: Continental Army forces -- including infantry, cavalry, dragoons (horse-mounted infantry), and militia – under the command of Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan, clash with a better-equipped, more-experienced force of British Army regulars and Loyalists under the command of Lt. Col. Banastre “Bloody Ban” Tarleton in a sprawling pastureland known as Hannah’s Cowpens in the South Carolina upcountry.

Celebrated today as the Battle of Cowpens, the engagement ends in a decisive victory for Morgan – who defeats Tarleton in a classic double-envelopment – and a near-irrevocable loss of men, equipment, and reputation for the infamous Tarleton and his “British Legion.”

Tarleton’s boss, Gen. Sir Charles Cornwallis, will abandon South Carolina and in less than two months chalk up a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (N.C.). Meanwhile, word of Morgan’s victory will spread like wildfire throughout the Carolinas and up into Virginia where – at Yorktown – Cornwallis’ entire army (including Tarleton and his feared green-jacketed horsemen) will surrender to the combined American-French forces of Generals George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau on October 19, almost nine months to the day after Cowpens.