Part 21

But while he was held in the highest esteem by his superior officers and had rendered extraordinary services to his country, Congress ignored him in dispensing its favors and continued to promote over his head men of smaller talents who had friends at court. Finally he determined to resign. Not even the influence of Washington, once his mind had been formed, was powerful enough to dissuade him from his purpose. Early in July, 1779, he presented a laudatory letter from Washington to Congress and offered his resignation. It was accepted, and the war-worn hero mounted his horse and rode homeward to the verdant valley of the Shenandoah. Greatly was his departure regretted in the army. In a letter to him dated “Haverstraw, Nov. 9, 1779,” General John Neville, then an officer in Woodford’s brigade, said: “Then, say they, for old Morgan a brigadier, and we would kick the world before us. I am not fond of flattery; but I assure you, on my word, that no man’s ever leaving the army was more regretted than yours, nor no man was ever wished for more to return.”

For fifteen months he remained with his family, a close student of passing events in the progress of the war. The attention of the British was now directed towards the South and Morgan was filled with apprehension by the preparations being made to bring it under British subjection. Leading three thousand fresh troops from New York, Cornwallis had arrived near Charleston to take command in that section. So rapid and effective were his operations that on the 12th day of May, 1780, when he was ready to assault the town by land and water, General Lincoln signed a capitulation of the city and surrendered his army. By the end of June, the British commander was able to report that he had put an end to all resistance in South Carolina and Georgia; and that in accordance with his plan of operations, he would after the September harvest reduce the province of North Carolina, continue his march to the Chesapeake, and from that base conquer the province of Virginia.

Disregarding the wishes of Washington, Congress on the 13th day of June unanimously named General Gates, instead of General Greene, to succeed Lincoln in command of the Southern Department. It proved to be one of the saddest blunders of the war.

In receiving this independent command, Gates was instructed to report directly to Congress and not to the commander-in-chief. He was authorized to appoint his own staff-officers; to address himself directly to Virginia and to the States north of it for supplies; and to engage his army in such manner for the defense of the South as his judgment alone should approve. Ambitious as Lucifer, and vain by nature, this mark of great distinction—bestowed in spite of the known opinion of Washington concerning its unwisdom—gave Gates unlimited confidence in his abilities. Miscalculating the fighting strength of his “grand army,” two thirds of which consisted of raw militia from the various provinces that had never been paraded together, he marched against the best disciplined troops in the world, led by Cornwallis, at Camden, and suffered a defeat which demoralized the entire South, deprived him of his command and terminated his military career. “Two thirds of the army ran like a torrent,” he wrote, forgetting to add that he ran with them and did not quit running until he arrived, ahead of the fleetest of the fugitives, at Hillsborough, North Carolina, two hundred miles away—making the distance in the splendid time of three and one half days!

[Illustration:

MAJOR JOHN W. BOURLET.

Of Concord, N. H.

Many years in charge of the printing and publishing of the volumes of the Society.

Deceased, January 19, 1910. ]

At this juncture, Cornwallis was the most conspicuous figure in the British Army in America. Already “the pride and delight” of Lord George Germain, his successes vindicated the opinion which that minister entertained of his military talents, and he was now designed by the Cabinet to supersede Clinton as commander-in-chief—being considered “the one man on whom rested the hopes of the ministry for the successful termination of the war.” Proud of this favoritism on the part of the Cabinet and conscious of the hopes and expectations of the King, Cornwallis began preparations for his northward march. Success had elated him. He believed he would swing from victory unto victory until he had brought all of the people south of the Delaware again under the dominion of the crown.

He began the work of subjugation by inaugurating a reign of terror not excelled in point of barbarity in the annals of civilized warfare. After his victory at Camden, he erected a gibbet, and began the summary and indiscriminate execution of those among his prisoners who had formerly received their parole. He gave stringent orders to his subordinates to imprison all who refused to enter the British Army and thus became the instrument of their own subjection. The confiscation of property and the destruction of life assumed hideous forms. “South Carolina,” says Bancroft, “was writhing under the insolence of an army in which every soldier was licensed to pillage, and every officer outlawed peaceful citizens at will.” The gold and silver plate and other valuables divided amongst the victors at the fall of Charleston amounted in value to a million and a half dollars, the dividend of a major-general alone being four thousand guineas. Cold-blooded assassinations by men holding the King’s commission, often in the presence of the wives and children of the helpless victims, were frequent. No engagements by capitulation were respected. Woodsmen in their rude cabins were suddenly surrounded and put to death, not because they were in arms against the King, but because they were not in arms for him. The tomahawking in June, 1777, of poor Jane McRae by one of the two Indians in the British service who were escorting her under British protection from Fort Edward, New York, to her expectant betrothed in the British lines, and who quarreled over the reward promised for her safe arrival, found a fitting complement three years later in South Carolina when Colonel Tarleton, of His Majesty’s service, personally beat the wife of a general officer of the Continental army because of his activity in the cause of his country. Equalling this villainy, Lord Rawdon, one of Cornwallis’ commanders on the Santee, who had found great difficulty in forcing his Irish Regiment to fight against the American patriots, issued an order dated July 1, 1780, in which he said: “I will give the inhabitants ten guineas for any deserter belonging to the volunteers of Ireland and five guineas only if they bring him in alive.”

To the disgrace of the ministry of Lord North, these practices were not only known to but were approved by the Cabinet. Indeed, they met the “hearty and repeated applause” of those charged with the conduct of the war, Germain declaring in orders to Clinton that “no good faith or justice is to be expected from them and we ought in all our transactions with them to act upon that supposition.”

Such was the temper of the British and such was the condition of the people of South Carolina when Cornwallis moved forward.

The army was in three divisions—the main body under Cornwallis, at Camden; Tarleton’s Legion, at Winnsborough; and the Brigade of Provincial troops under Major Ferguson, at Post Ninety-Six. It was at this time that Morgan again took the field. The defeat of Gates at Camden had stirred his patriotism to its very depths. In the distress of his country he buried all resentment of the ill-treatment he had received from both Gates and the Congress—the hardy warrior again drew his sword. And Gates with his pride humbled and his heart filled with humility by adversity, desiring to retrieve his fallen fortunes, resolved upon giving Morgan an independent command. The British began their march in the second week of September—a delightful season in the southern clime, perhaps the loveliest of the year. The earlier cereals had yielded to the sickle, and the sheaves, standing like mute sentinels in the field, had been bound by the reapers. The maize was nearly ripe. Supplies for the troops were plentiful. Indeed, the proud Cornwallis had no thought of care for his army that did not dissolve in the kindling prospect of glory and renown.

In the opinion of Bancroft, the ablest British partizan officer at that time in America was Major Patrick Ferguson, in command of the left division of the army. He was ordered to enlist as he passed northward, the young loyalists who had fled to the mountains for security and those fugitives whose love of plunder would find indulgence and protection under the British standard. House-burners and assassins, plunderers and wrongers of women and children, were massed in his command. But neither Ferguson nor his desperate troops were fated much longer to pillage, burn and kill. At King’s Mountain, on the 7th day of October, the backwoodsmen from the Virginia mountains, the commands of Isaac Shelby and John Sevier, the men from North Carolina under McDowell and Cleaveland—all by common consent under the command of the redoubtable Virginian, William Campbell, a brother-in-law of Patrick Henry—every man armed with his own rifle and riding his own horse, determined to avenge the wrongs which they and their kinsmen had suffered at the hands of the British troops. A bloody battle was fought and Ferguson was pierced through the heart. His entire command was captured.

Six days after this event, on the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, and John Rutledge, the great chief magistrate of South Carolina, Congress appointed Daniel Morgan a Brigadier-General in the army of the United States. The news of the death of Ferguson and the surrender of his army at King’s Mountain reached Cornwallis on the march from Charlotte to Salisbury. The destruction of one-third of his army, at a single blow, and the death of his ablest commander were reverses as stunning as they were unexpected. His fears were at once aroused for the safety of the posts in his rear, now being constantly menaced by Marion and Sumpter.

He first halted. Then he retreated. Determining to reinforce his army, before resuming his march, with the three thousand men under General Leslie at Portsmouth, Virginia, he ordered that officer to join him by way of Charleston. He recrossed the Catawba and posted himself at Winnsborough on the 29th day of October, intending to await the coming of Leslie. On the 4th day of December, 1780, General Nathaniel Greene succeeded General Gates in command of the American army in camp at Charlotte. And now began the series of stirring events which culminated in the most remarkable and surprising battle of the war and the destruction of the second division of Cornwallis’ proud army.

The whole American force at this time did not exceed two thousand men, only eight hundred of whom were regulars. It was an army almost entirely devoid of necessary equipment. It had no tents and few wagons; it was badly armed and its supply of ammunition was short. Its men were almost naked, with not more than three days’ provisions in store. General Greene’s orders, under these circumstances, were as necessary as wise—he determined to divide his force into two bodies and post them on the right and left flanks of the British. Under his own command, the main body was to occupy a position on the Pedee River; while a detachment under General Morgan was to operate between the Broad and Pacolet. The detachment under Morgan consisted of five hundred and eighty men in all—three hundred and twenty-eight light infantry, two hundred Virginia militia and about eighty cavalry. They were put in motion on the 20th of December, 1780, for the country between the rivers I have just named. Greene offered him wagons. He refused them as being incompatible with the nature of light troops. When Cornwallis learned of Morgan’s movement, he misinterpreted it to mean an attack on the British post called Ninety-Six. On the 2d day of January, 1781, Cornwallis addressed this familiar note to Tarleton, which is indicative of the close personal relations existing between the parties to it, as well as the wholesome respect they had for Morgan:

“DEAR TARLETON: I sent Haldane to you last night, to desire you would pass Broad River with the legion and the first battalion of the 71st as soon as possible. If Morgan is still at Williams’, or anywhere within your reach, I should wish you to push him to the utmost. I have not heard, except from McArthur, of his having cannon, nor would I believe it, unless he has it from very good authority. It is, however, possible, and Ninety-Six is of so much importance that no time is to be lost.

“Yours sincerely, “CORNWALLIS.”

Tarleton promptly obeyed these instructions and was soon in possession of sufficient information to warrant him in assuring Cornwallis that Ninety-Six was in no immediate danger from Morgan. He then conceived and proposed to Cornwallis the plan of operations against Morgan which ended in the celebrated battle which we commemorate tonight and immortalized the name and fame of the big raw-boned boy with the Irish brogue who came to the Valley of Virginia in 1755 “out of the land of God-knows-where”!

That plan contemplated a joint movement against Morgan on the part of Tarleton and Cornwallis by which they would compel him “either to fight, disperse across the mountain or surrender.” It was at once approved. Cornwallis sent Tarleton a reinforcement of two hundred and fifty men and on the 7th of January put the main body in motion to act in conjunction with him. On the 16th day of January Cornwallis reached Turkey Creek. Filled with anxiety lest Greene should attack and defeat the troops under Leslie, and having no doubt that the dashing Tarleton with his superior numbers would defeat Morgan if he overtook him, Cornwallis determined to await at Turkey Creek until General Leslie joined the main army. It was a fatal decision. Not more than twenty-five miles away was about to be enacted the tragedy to the British arms, in which a rude and untutored genius, commanding undisciplined woodmen half-naked and half-starved, was matched against an educated and accomplished officer in command of regular troops greater in number, well-fed, well-conditioned, and as thoroughly disciplined as any troops in the world. The beginning of the end of British authority over American soil was at hand.

Through his superior system of scouts and their knowledge of woodcraft, Morgan was always thoroughly informed of the movements of his enemies. The orders of General Greene required him to hold his ground as long as he possibly could and not to dispirit the inhabitants by a retreat unless it were a necessity to save his troops from destruction or capture. But the time had now come for him to retire in haste before the British or to give battle to Tarleton before Cornwallis could join him. With a noble confidence in his troops, Morgan determined to fight. He made his camp on the night of January 16, 1781, two miles from a grazing-ground for cattle known as the Cowpens, sixteen miles from Spartansburg, South Carolina, and five miles from the North Carolina line. The news that he had determined to give battle to Tarleton was received by his men with exclamations of joy. He knew the enemy’s strength was superior to his own—that the British infantry embraced twice his number and the cavalry three times the little force under his command. He knew the advantage of the British because of their artillery. But he was unafraid. Against the superiority of numbers, he placed the skill of his riflemen and their zeal to punish an enemy who had wantonly inflicted upon them and their kinsmen and kinswomen personal wrongs of the most grievous character. But above all, he placed their love of country and a willingness to die in its defense.

“The night before the battle,” says Major Thomas Young in Orion, Vol. III., page 88, “he went among the volunteers, helped them to fix their swords, joked them about their sweethearts, and told them to keep in good spirits, and the day would be ours. Long after I laid down, he was going about among the soldiers encouraging them, and telling them that the ‘Old wagoner would crack his whip over Ben (Tarleton) in the morning, as sure as he lived.’ ‘Just hold up your head, boys,’ he would say, ‘three fires and you are free! And when you return to your homes, how the old folks will bless you and the girls will kiss you for your gallant conduct.’ I don’t think he slept a wink that night.”

It is as far beyond my purpose, Mr. President, as it is beyond my ability, to describe the action which began at sunrise on the 17th day of January, 1781, and ended at “two hours before noon.” In the judgment of Bancroft, Morgan was at this time the “ablest commander of light troops in the world,” and I content myself with saying that on that bloody but happy day his disposition of his troops, his personal bravery, and the result which attended it, all, all confirm the pronouncement of the great historian. The battle was fought in an open wood, “affording to the movements of an army all the facilities of a plain.” Tarleton himself declared it to be “as proper and convenient a place for an action as he could desire.” It resulted in an American loss of twelve killed and sixty wounded. Of the enemy, “ten commissioned officers were killed and more than a hundred rank and file; two hundred were wounded; twenty-nine commissioned officers and more than five hundred privates were taken prisoners besides seventy negroes.” Two standards, upward of a hundred dragoon horses, thirty-five wagons, eight hundred muskets and two field pieces were also captured. The British army was practically destroyed—the fragment which survived, with the flying Tarleton at their head, being driven pell-mell in ignominious flight to the main body at Turkey Creek. Thus again, by a single blow, was another third of Cornwallis’ proud army annihilated.

The fame of this surprising victory spread throughout the country. Greene announced it to the army in general orders, saying the victors were “the finest fellows on earth, more worthy than ever of love.” The governors of the Southern States made proclamation of the event. The Commonwealth of Virginia, in the plenitude of her gratitude, voted Morgan a house and sword as a testimonial of “the highest esteem of his country for his military character, so gloriously displayed.” From Charlotte, under date of January 21, 1781, the gallant General Davidson, who was so soon to yield his life in resisting Cornwallis’ passage of the Catawba, sent Morgan a note by “Parson McCaully” extending his “warmest congratulations on the late glorious victory,” and saying “you have, in my opinion, paved the way for the salvation of the country.”

Greene wrote him from Camden August 20, 1781: “The people of this country adore you.” “Great generals are scarce—there are few Morgans to be found.” From Montok Hill, August 15, 1781, while Morgan was recuperating his health, Lafayette wrote: “My dear Friend: I have been happy to hear your health was better. I hope the springs will entirely recover it; and then, my dear sir, I shall be happier than can be expressed, at seeing you with the army. You are the general and the friend I want.” In the Congress, a resolution was adopted placing on record on behalf of the people of the United States “the most lively sense of approbation of the conduct of Morgan and the men and officers under his command.” It ordered that a medal of gold be struck and presented to him in commemoration of the gratitude of his countrymen. It attempted to sum up his merit in three words: “_Virtus unita valet._”

Modest, indeed, was the report of Morgan himself of the battle. “Our success,” said he to Greene, “must be attributed to the justice of our cause and the gallantry of our troops. My wishes would induce me to name every sentinel in the corps.” He did name some of his officers in that original report of the battle dated “Camp near Cain Creek, Jan. 19, 1781,” and it will arouse the pride of every man of Irish blood to read them. Listen to this much of it: “Major McDowell, of the North Carolina volunteers, was posted on the right flank in front of the line, one hundred and fifty yards; and Major Cunningham, of the Georgia volunteers, on the left, at the same distance in front. Colonels Brannon and Thomas, of the South Carolinians, were posted in the right of Major McDowell and Colonel Hayes and McCall, of the same corps, on the left of Major Cunningham. Captains Tate and Buchanan, with the Augusta riflemen, to support the right of the line.” In the Maryland Regiment, were Major Edward Giles, Morgan’s aid; Captain Gilmore, and Ensign McCoskell. McDowell and Cunningham and Tate and Giles and Gilmore and Hayes and McCoskell and McCall and Brannon, commissioned officers all, in one battle! From this array, it would seem that the Irish may modestly lay claim to have struck at least one blow for Independence!

The military career of Morgan was now nearly ended. Immediately upon the termination of the engagement, he began that masterly retreat for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles before the troops of Cornwallis and Leslie, to form a junction with Greene, which was so necessary to save his little corps from annihilation or capture. To overtake him, Cornwallis destroyed his entire baggage train, and converted his army into light troops. But in vain. Though heavily encumbered by the captured munitions of the enemy and his celerity retarded by the prisoners of war, Morgan conducted his retirement with great prudence and success, and in twenty-one days joined Greene at Guilford Court House, his pursuers being but twenty-five miles in his rear. His heroic band was saved.

Emaciated from want and crippled with disease resulting from hardships he endured in the Canadian campaign, Morgan was now scarcely able to sit upon his horse. When mounted he could not ride out of a walk. He “was a sufferer to the verge of human endurance, and was forced to ask for leave of absence to regain his broken health. Slowly and painfully he made his way homeward; and he was never again physically fit for active operations. But his warlike spirit was never at rest while an armed enemy of his country was in the field. In June, 1781, when Tarleton was raiding eastern Virginia, he raised and equipped a body of cavalry at his own expense and at the earnest importunity of Benjamin Harrison and Archibald Cary, Speakers of the House of Delegates and Senate of Virginia, he placed himself at their head to join Lafayette. But in August his old malady compelled him again to retire.

The spirit of the old hero chafed under his enforced idleness. The termination of the titanic struggle was now discernible to his experienced eye and he longed to participate in the closing events. The French fleet was in the Chesapeake, cutting off the escape of Cornwallis by sea. In his rear was Lafayette—there was no retreat to the southward. On his flank was the Marquis of St. Simon—there was no flight to the mountains. And from the north, at the head of the main army, marched George Washington with his veteran troops.