Audio
Loop Road Audio Tour Introduction
Transcript
[Musical introduction]
Welcome to Cowpens National Battlefield Auto Driving Tour. This is the site of one of the most important engagements of the American Revolution, and you will soon travel the perimeter of the battlefield and access battlefield and area history at various stops.
Prior to this battle, the Revolution, fought primarily in the North, was stalemated. In 1779-80, the British moved south hoping to rally those southerners still loyal to the mother country to put down the rebels. The British were successful at first. By early May 1780 they took Savannah, Georgia, and the two largest communities in SC, Charleston and Camden. The Patriot situation in the South was desperate with only Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, and other partisan leaders in the field still holding out against the British.
This situation did not last, however. General Washington ordered General Nathanael Greene to the South in December 1780 to command the Southern Continental army. In a masterful maneuver, he split his army, taking part of it himself to the Cheraw, South Carolina, area to put pressure on the British post at Camden, and sending General Daniel Morgan and his Flying Army west and south of the Broad River to “spirit up the people,” and forage for food. Believing Morgan’s movements a threat to the British post at Ninety-Six and to area Loyalists, Cornwallis sent Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton after him. The fast-moving Tarleton and his army marched for eleven days crossing the rain-swollen Enoree, Tyger, and Pacolet Rivers in their move to confront Morgan and possibly drive him into Cornwallis’s hands in the area of Kings Mountain.
Learning that Tarleton was moving in his direction, Morgan left his encampment at Grindal Shoals on the Pacolet River and began moving west on an old wagon road leading to the Green River in North Carolina. Morgan, afraid Tarleton would overtake him as he turned north and forded the rain-swollen Broad River into North Carolina, stopped at the Cowpens, a frontier pasturing area and well-known landmark in the upper Pacolet River watershed. The response for his call for area militia made it possible for him to make a stand at the Cowpens. Many militia had joined him at Grindal Shoals, but more responded to the call of “come to the Cow pens.” Although Tarleton had the edge in veteran troops under this command, Morgan had the advantage of being able to choose where their battle would take place. On January 16, Morgan rode his horse over the site alongside local resident Dennis Trammel. Like the Cherokee and Shawnee he had encountered in the French and Indian War, Morgan came to know the landscape and would use it to his advantage.
Incorporating slightly rolling terrain with subtle hillocks and low places that could conceal mounted horsemen, a forest floor cleared of undergrowth by foraging cattle, and the most welcome arrival of some three-hundred militia under Colonel Andrew Pickens, Morgan devised a battle plan that was both simple and effective.
The plan relied heavily on Banastre Tarleton’s impetuosity, and as we will learn as you take this driving tour, Morgan’s men carried it out almost to perfection.
Begin the battlefield auto tour by driving to the back of the parking lot and turning left onto the tour road. Stop at the first paved pull-off to your left to learn about early Carolina cattle culture, important to the local and regional economy at the time of the battle.
Description
This is an audio tour of the auto loop road, read by Edwin C. Bearss. Length 5:04 4.65 MB
Date Created
08/02/2011
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