Wednesday, August 18 – With the motor home in the service bay all day today, we headed to the Cowpens National Battlefield.
U.S. Memorial Monument.
Our first stop was for breakfast at Norma's, a local eatery. Then we drove about ten miles to the Revolutionary War battlefield. We began at the Visitor's Center to view movie about this famous battlefield and view the items in the museum. The movie was excellent and lasted 18 min. It took Morgan’s army only a little over this amount of time to defeat Tarleton’s British Legion.
Our 1.5 mile self-guided walking tour walk began by spotting a heard of wild turkeys. They allowed us to walk within twenty feet before they headed to the woods. Pretty neat!
Here's the story of the Cowpens. Daniel Morgan was trying to elude a British trap when he marched his army onto this field on the afternoon of January 16, 1781. That morning scouts brought news that the British General Tarleton had crossed the Pacolet River, six miles south, and was coming up fast. Morgan broke camp immediately and ordered his soldiers down the road. Their destination: the Cowpens, a frontier pasturing ground on the road to a ford across the Broad River six miles away.
On the morning of January 17, Morgan deployed his men in three main lines of defense. He knew that the militia had a tendency to run. Therefore he divided them into two groups and placed his sharpshooters on the top of a gentle rise and ordered them to fire twice and then retreat behind the second line. The second line of militia were positioned just behind the crest of the hill and were to fire twice and then retreat behind the Continentals who were about 150 yards behind them. Morgan knew he could count on the Continentals to take the hardest part of the fighting and that they would not run. He prepared them for the militia’s retreat. He placed his reserves, Washington’s cavalry, in a swale that hid them from the British view. He knew that Tarleton’s aggressive nature would lead him to drive straight into the Americans.
In the film we watched, they did a super job of showing how this was a brilliant move on Morgan’s part.
Marsha posing as a sharp shooter.
Paul showing how small the average militia man was…5’5”
The battlefield was pasture land. Lots of open space surrounded by trees.
Near the end of the battle, as the Americans swept forward, two Continental officers sought to capture the enemy's light 3-pounder “grasshopper” cannons. Captain Anderson of Maryland won the race when he used his spontoon to vault forward onto one of the grasshoppers. Captain Kirkwood of Delaware captured the other.
It's said that Yorktown, the final battle of the Revolutionary War, would never have been possible if it wasn't for the victory at Cowpens. The beginning of the end for the British.
Did You Know?
Of the 11 medals awarded to veterans of the American Revolution, three of them were awarded for the Battle of Cowpens: Daniel Morgan, John Eager Howard, and William Washington.
After touring the battlefield, we went over to the park area to walk Bella, our cat. We had left her in the car while doing the walking tour and she was a little over-heated. Marsha walked her all over the picnic area. Bella was in cat heaven. We then sat and read while Bella napped.
We had an interesting end to our tranquil day in the park. While sitting on a park bench we heard a tremendous crash right behind us. Jumping up and turning around, we saw a huge tree (probably 100' in length) falling toward us. It wasn't going to reach us, but was falling right at us. No way was Bella staying here, so she took off running dragging her rope behind. Paul took off after Bella leaving Marsha to save herself....LOL. All ended well, with Bella dropping one of her 9-lives from fear and Paul finding out he can still run pretty well after having a knee replaced, a hip replaced and recent spinal surgery! Marsha was the only casualty with a rope burn from Bella's leash.
The tree that almost got the “Weavers”.
We then drove over to The Robert Scruggs House, also in the park. This log cabin was built in 1828 on 200 acres of land near the Cowpens Battlefield. He and his wife raised eleven children in this tiny log cabin. Cabins such as this one provided homes for most of the people living in the South Carolina back county.
Front
Back
We then returned to the Freightliner Service Center to wait for our home to be moved from the shop back to the camping area. Around 4:30 the door to Bay #1 went up and Justin drove our MH back to site #14, our temporary home here at Freightliner. We still have another day of service here at Freightliner.....guess we'll have to find another battlefield to visit.....did I say Marsha loves battlefields!
On last thing…we happen to be on the road behind the Peachoid. We thought you might like to see what the back side looks like.
Thanks for stopping by. See y’all again real soon.
