This day in History

There isn't a single day of the year that isn't the anniversary of some historical event or the birthday of some famous person, but today is particularly special to me, as this is the anniversary of the Battle of Cowpens. (My father, a professor at Army Command & General Staff School, used this as one of his two primary teaching examples, and I studied this battle for years in his classes.)

In 1781, the British Army under Cornwallis was pretty much forcing the southern half of the United States back into the British Empire. The only American military force was a tiny Army under General Greene. To avoid annihilation, Greene divided his small force, sendind about a third of it inland under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and keeping the other 2/3 closer to the coast. Corwallis sent a force of about a thousand troops to hunt Morgan. Running away as fast as he could, Morgan knew he was eventually going to get caught. On 17 Jan, 1781, he picked his battlefield: The Cowpens, an open field that sloped gently uphill, flanked on either side by swampy forests. The British would have to come straight at him, and the British had no problem with this. Morgan knew that, without something special, he was going to get destroyed. He arranged his forces in three lines. First, a handful of picked men with rifles (slow firing but accurate) were put at the bottom of the hill and told to shoot the British sergeants as this would disrupt their ranks. This bunch was told it could run away whenever it wanted, and every man could decide for himself if he had time to load and fire one more shot. Behind them were the militia, notorious for running away when the going got tough. Morgan told them that if they would fire two shots (the one already loaded, plus one reload cycle) they had his permission to run for it. He figured that was one more volley than he would get otherwise. The militia took the deal, fired its two volleys (which imposed a small attrition charge on the British) and then skedaddled over the hill. (Many of the first-line sharpshooters had stopped at the militia line to fire another shot or two. Some of these sharpshooters then joined the third line.) And finally Morgan had the Continental Line, six battalions (maybe five, I forget) of regular troops, long term veterans, in bright blue coats. These guys were to be the final line. The British marched head on into them, taking their losses from the American volleys, knowing that in just another minute or two, they would close to bayonet range and this silliness would be over. And, Frankly, Morgan was about to lose bigtime. But a mistaken order told the five battalions of American regular soldiers to turn and march away (reloading on the march as von Steuben had taught). The British marched a little faster and got closer and closer. Finally, Morgan got control of his army and told them to turn and fire, and they fired a devastating volley into the startled British from a range of less than 50 feet. The British were flabbergasted and stopped advancing. At this point, the militia which had run away and was watching the battle from a safe distance, figured that they actually were on the winning side and charged headlong (their officers had made them reload while waiting) and fired a hellacious volley into the British flank. Game over. The British regular troops of the line surrendered on the spot, and Tarelton and his small cavalry unit ran like heck back to Cornwallis with wild tales of huge American forces in the hinterland. Cornwallis (after winning a narrow victory at Guilford Court House where he had to have his cannons fire on his own soldiers to avoid losing) decided that he would head for a small sleeping port village called Yorktown to await the British Navy bringing him more men. Thanks to the French Fleet, Cornwallis was trapped and forced to surrender. The World turned upside down and the US won the war.

Lots of other things happened today (besides Benjamin Franklin's Birthday):
1377 Pope Gregory XI ends the Avignon period and returns the papacy to Rome.
1746 Falkirk: Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highlanders defeat the English
1773 Captain Cook in Resolution reaches the Antarctic Circle
1821 Mexico grants Moses Austin extensive lands in Texas. (big mistake)
1893 Republican coup deposes Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii
1945 Raoul Wallenberg, "Righteous Gentile", disappears in Hungary into Soviet custody
1955 USS Nautilus underway on nuclear power for the first time
1961 Pres. Eisenhower warns of a "military industrial complex"
1966 B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashes off Spanish coast
1991 Iraq fires eight Scud missiles at Israel
1991 Operation Desert Storm: Coalition airstrikes against Iraq; Jeffrey Zahn is the first US pilot shot down