Brave Enemies by Robert Morgan

Cornwallis’s plan to conquer the Carolinas and march on to Virginia where he would link up with the rest of the British army. And that turned out to be true, because he began to move his huge army up the river to the wilderness of South Carolina in the summer of 1780. We heard great stories about how militias led by Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter harried the royal army. The patriots lived in swamps and thickets, ambushed patrols, stole horses and supply wagons.
    Pretty soon everybody knew about Cornwallis’s cavalry commander,Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. He was only twenty-six but already famous as a fierce fighter that never lost a battle. They said Tarleton was bold to the point of recklessness. He led his Green Dragoons across South Carolina, riding down on militias and chopping rebels to pieces with razor-sharp sabers.
    The worst story was of the Waxhaws south of Charlotte in May 1780 when he won a battle, then ordered all the prisoners killed. That’s when the phrase “Tarleton’s quarter” became known. Tarleton’s quarter was no quarter at all. He never took prisoners, and he became known as “Bloody Tarleton,” as he won victories all over South Carolina. I read about it in a newspaper I got from Charlotte. Newspapers were passed from hand to hand, but you had to be careful who saw you had a rebel newspaper or a loyalist newspaper. Just reading the enemy’s newspaper could get you whipped or your house burned.
    As I traveled on my circuit in the summer of 1780, preaching and praying, baptizing and singing, I heard about the terrible battle of Camden in central South Carolina on August 16. Gen. Horatio Gates who commanded the southern Continental army was defeated by Cornwallis. Word spread fast about how Gates fled on his horse and never stopped until he reached Hillsborough, North Carolina. He was relieved of command by George Washington and replaced by Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island, who everybody seemed to admire.
    People said a militia had been organized in the upcountry of South Carolina by Andrew Pickens of the Long Canes. But Pickens had been defeated and forced to swear an oath that he would never fight the Crown again. I heard story after story about how Tarleton and his dragoons and legion swept all over the interior of South Carolina, from Fort Ninety Six to the foothills of the Spartan District, burning the houses of patriots, hanging rebels and those suspected of being rebels in their own front yards, raping womenfolk, stealing whatever livestock and provender they found.
    I was told that Cornwallis sent Maj. Patrick Ferguson into the Piedmontwith a loyalist militia to cow the population along the North Carolina border. But a group of mountain men, the Overmountain men, as they were called, from the Watauga and Holston Valleys, led by Col. John Sevier, assembled an army to confront Ferguson. They said that if they did not stop him he would invade the mountains and destroy their settlements, or urge their allies, the Cherokees, to attack them. The Cherokees were their neighbors in towns along the Tuckasegee River.
    People said Sevier and his men first gathered near Quaker Meadows up the Catawba River north of my churches. I was told they marched south to Gilbert Town and on to the pastures in the Spartan District of South Carolina known as the Cowpens. The Cowpens were open woods where cattle had been grazed for decades. It was known that people in the region pastured their livestock at the Cowpens and met there for hunting trips and even camp meetings.
    The story was bragged all over the Piedmont that Sevier and his men made contact with Ferguson’s forces in early October of 1780, and cornered the loyalists on Kings Mountain near the North Carolina line. Surrounding the mountain, the patriots planned to starve out the British. There was no water source on the steep mountain. It was told how the Overmountain men had long rifles that shot farther and more