The Battle of Cowpens
17 January 1781
Near present-day Chesnee, Cherokee County, South Carolina
At a Glance
- When: early morning, 17 January 1781, eighteen days after Hammond’s Old Store.
- Where: a pasture ground called the Cow Pens, near the Broad River, now Cowpens National Battlefield.
- Americans: about 1,065 under Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan: Continentals, Lt. Col. William Washington’s dragoons, and militia under Col. Andrew Pickens.
- British: about 1,150 under Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton.
- Result: a complete American victory, the only double envelopment of the war. Tarleton escaped with a small remnant.
- For Laurens County: Col. Joseph Hayes led the Little River Regiment on the far left of the American front line. A rise on the field and a road beside it still carry his name.
On This Page
- The Battle
- The Numbers
- The Little River Regiment at Cowpens
- The Night Before
- The Battlefield Today
- Sources, Open Questions, and How You Can Help
The Battle
In December 1780 Gen. Nathanael Greene split his small Southern army and sent Daniel Morgan west of the Catawba to rally the backcountry. The victory at Hammond’s Old Store on 30 December brought the militia in. Durant Ashmore counts about 1,000 Patriot militiamen who came to Morgan’s camp, while only 50 Loyalists answered Tarleton’s call. Cornwallis sent Tarleton to run Morgan down, and Morgan chose to stand and fight at the Cowpens, with the Broad River at his back.
Morgan knew his militia. He put them in front, asked them for just two volleys, aimed at the officers, and then let them fall back behind the Continentals on the rise. Tarleton’s tired men charged straight in. When the militia fell away, the British rushed after them into the fire of the Continental line; Washington’s cavalry came around one flank and the rallied militia around the other. In less than an hour Tarleton’s force was killed, wounded or captured.
Video
What They Said
“The Carolinas were sparsely settled by poverty-stricken, hard and hating people who longed to be let alone, but were constantly harassed by raiders -armed bands, partisans, guerrillas, who lived only to keep themselves and the war alive.”
Kenneth Roberts, The Battle of Cowpens: The Great Morale-Builder (Doubleday, 1958)
“Seldom has a battle, in which greater numbers were not engaged, been so important in its consequences as that of Cowpens.”
John Marshall
The Numbers
| Source | Americans | British | American losses | British losses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Battlefield Trust | about 1,065 | about 1,150 | 25 killed, 124 wounded | 110 killed, 229 wounded, 529 captured |
| Carolana | — | — | 24 killed, 104 wounded | 110 killed, 229 wounded, 600 captured |
| 1932 monument, American Forces plaque | 970 | — | — | — |
The Little River Regiment at Cowpens
Cowpens was the Little River Regiment’s finest hour. Col. Joseph Hayes led it in the militia line under Col. Andrew Pickens. According to Carolana, his field officers were Majors James Duggin, Garret Smith and Samuel Taylor, with fourteen known companies.
Where Hayes Stood
Morgan’s own account gives the order of his front line, the riflemen, from left to right: the regiments of “Hays and McCall,” then Cunningham, then McDowell, then Brandon and Thomas. Hayes’s Little River men anchored the far left of the American line. The “Clove map,” a sketch drawn by Maj. Jean-Bernard-Bourg Gauthier de Murnan and sent with a letter of 15 February 1781, shows the deployment along the Green River Road, though it draws six rifle regiments where there were four (Cowpens maps).
Hayes’ Rise and Hayes Road
A slight rise on the left of the main militia line is known as Hayes’ Rise, after Col. Hayes. The road beside the park carries his name too: the National Park Service puts the trailhead for the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail “at the corner of SC Highway 11 and Hayes Road.”
On the battlefield trail today, the skirmish line is along the first stretch of the paved path, and the militia line, with Hayes’ Rise, is further along where the ground begins to slope. The Liberty Trail tour marks it as stop 7, “The Militia”: about 150 yards behind the skirmishers, some 300 men stood shoulder to shoulder “on the reverse slope of a slightly higher ridge that hid them from the British,” each of the four battalions to fire “two or three shots then retreat toward the Continentals.”
On the Monument
The American Forces plaque on the 1932 monument lists the South Carolina militia, 115 men, under “Colonel Thomas Brandon, Colonel John Thomas, Jr., Colonel Joseph Hays.”
Editor’s note: the plaque lists “Capt. Samuel Hammond” among the Georgia militia. Hammond led South Carolina men at Hammond’s Old Store three weeks before.
The Companies
Carolana names the captains of the regiment’s fourteen known companies. Those on our Honor Roll are linked:
John Anderson · James Dillard · Thomas Duggin · Samuel Ewing · Robert Gillam, Jr. · William Harris · James Irby · Pendleton Isbell · James Miller (killed) · John Ridgeway, Sr. · Lewis Saxon · Samuel Sexton · James Starke · Isaac White
Capt. Samuel Ewing’s company was Robert Long’s own (“Capt. Ewing’s Company,” in Long’s pension, S7157).
In Their Own Words
Capt. Samuel Sexton was eighteen. He joined Morgan the day before the battle with twenty-five men he had raised on the way:
“…I made my escape, and joined the American army at the Cowpens, the day before the battle of the 17th of January, 1780 or 1781 was fought at that place. On my route to the Cowpens I succeeded in inducing twenty-five men to join me, and was chosen their captain. … We proceeded and offered our services to the army at the Cowpens, were received and I and my Company were put under the command of Colonel Hays, who was under General Pickens under General or Colonel Morgan of the Regular or Continental Army. I was in the battle of Cowpens, at the head of and in command of my company, under Col. Hays. … After the battle I was ordered, together with three or four other companies, of Colonel Hays command, to Hillsborough.”
Samuel Sexton, in John Moncure, The Cowpens Staff Ride and Battlefield Tour, p. 100
Pvt. Aaron Guyton of Ninety Six District, who had enlisted at seventeen, remembered how thin the militia regiments had worn by then:
“Some times we had 75 Some Times 150 men, and some times we had 4 or 5 Cols with from 50 to 150 men. Each of them had Command of a Regt at home & some times not more than 5 of his men with him. The Cols were Brandon, Hayes, Roebuck, White…”
Aaron Guyton, in Moncure, The Cowpens Staff Ride and Battlefield Tour, p. 108
Honor Roll Men at Cowpens
Our pages place these Little River men at Cowpens:
- Col. Joseph Hayes, commanding the regiment
- Capt. James Dillard, who scouted Tarleton’s approach the night before (see below)
- Mary Ramage Dillard, who followed her husband’s camp, and was at Cowpens
- Capt. Lewis Saxon
- Capt. John Ridgeway, Sr.
- Capt. Thomas Dugan (Duggin)
- Robert Long and Thomas Entrekin, by their own and each other’s pension testimony (see the Robert Long page)
- John Hicks, “in the battle of the Cowpens, under the command of General Morgan & Col. Pickens”
- George Wiggington, on prisoner guard during and after the battle; he turned nineteen that day
- Joseph Kerr
Also from nearby: Col. David Glenn and John Boyce of Duncan Creek fought at Cowpens. Stephen Cumbo, who joined Samuel Hammond after the fall of Charleston, was probably there too (Stephen Cumbo).
The Night Before
On his march toward Cowpens, Tarleton made his headquarters at Robert Long’s house. And the night before the battle, according to the Logan Manuscript, “Capt. Inman, James Dillard and Isaac Greer were sent by General Morgan in the night before the fight at Cowpens to notice Tarleton’s approach.” See the Robert Long page for both stories.
The Battlefield Today
The field is Cowpens National Battlefield. A one-mile trail loops past the lines, the old Green River Road and the monuments. These photos are from my walk with Durant Ashmore in April 2023. More are in Cowpens Battlefield Walk.
Sources and Resources
- Cowpens, American Battlefield Trust
- The Battle of Cowpens, Carolana
- Lt. Col. John Moncure, The Cowpens Staff Ride and Battlefield Tour (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College)
- Cowpens National Battlefield, National Park Service
- Cowpens maps (Morgan’s order of battle and the Clove map)
- Cowpens tour, The Liberty Trail (American Battlefield Trust)
- Touring the Battlefield, NPPlan
- Kenneth Roberts, The Battle of Cowpens: The Great Morale-Builder (Doubleday, 1958)
- Robert Long, pension application S7157, and the Logan Manuscript
- Stephen Cumbo, South Carolina Audited Account SC1735, transcribed by Will Graves
- Little River Regiment Honor Roll and Laurens County Rev War Timeline
Open Questions
- Who else was there? Captains Ewing, Anderson, Gillam, Harris, Irby, Isbell, Miller, Sexton, Starke and White are not yet on our Honor Roll. Which of them, and which of their men, can be confirmed?
- Capt. James Miller was killed at Cowpens. Who was he, and where is he buried?
- Why is Hammond listed with Georgia on the 1932 plaque?
How You Can Help
Did your ancestor fight at Cowpens under Col. Hayes? Do you have a pension application, family papers or a Bible record that places him there? Please get in touch.
Related pages: Hammond’s Old Store · Kings Mountain · Little River Regiment Honor Roll · Robert Long · Mary Ramage Dillard · Hayes Station · Cowpens Battlefield Walk · Laurens County Rev War Timeline