South Carolina - Day 14 - Cowpens, Spartanburg, back to Croft

Croft State Park, Spartanburg

Wednesday, 24 May 2023

I intended to stay in the campground today, but when I discovered we seriously needed kitty litter and couldn't wait until tomorrow, I decided today would be the day we visited Spartanburg and a nearby national battlefield.

today's route

It took us less than an hour to get to the Cowpens National Battlefield.  I'm not actually much interested in battlefields but I went to this one because I couldn't believe the name.  Cowpens?  Pronounced like the 2 words "cow" and "pens."

And it turns out the reason for the name is that this area - a large grassy though wooded area - was used by local farmers as an unfenced cow pasture.  And this is the area that Col. Daniel Morgan specifically chose as the ground to face the British.  Here's the background, based on the brochure by the National Park Service.

By 1778, the Revolutionary War had become stalemated (remarkably enough, considering the odds).  The British decided to stop attacking the northern colonies and start on the southern ones.  By 1780, they had captured both Savannah, GA, and Charleston, SC, and intended to sweep through the Carolinas and on into Virginia.  (Does this suggest southerners weren't very good fighters?)

But in the fall of 1780, the "overmountain men" came across the Blue Ridge Mountains and whomped the British at King's Mountain, SC, helping boost the morale of the Americans.  At this time, Gen. Daniel Morgan had so harassed the British in South Carolina that Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton took his forces after them.  These men were, in many ways, the opposite of each other, though both had distinguished themselves militarily.

In January 1781, scouts warned Morgan that Tarleton's men were on their way, so Morgan marched his men to this area, the cowpens.

Before dawn, he formed his men into 3 lines, hidden behind low hills as they watched Tarleton's men advance.

The visitor center explained the battle in 2 ways - one was in banners hung (unfortunately) up by the high ceiling, and the other was a painting.  I'll start with the banners, that are descriptive if you can read them.  References to "Washington's cavalry," by the way, aren't to George but to Lt. Col. William Washington.

In less than half an hour, with British losses far outnumbering the American losses, Tarleton and a few remaining men retreated, though Washington and his men chased them for some miles.

Gen. Cornwallis had entrusted some of the best of all the British troops to Tarleton's command because of the importance of defeating Morgan.  You may have noted that in several places, Tarleton's men were described as being cold, hungry and tired after marching all night.  Historians believe that Tarleton attacked the Americans despite the condition of his men because all his previous battles had been against inexperienced troops, when he had won easily.  They think he was overconfident as well as intent on beating Morgan and believed that on this day he could grab an easy victory over Morgan.  Here's the way a painting depicts the battle:

See below for an explanation of each element of this depiction.

This painting explains more clearly than the banners the significance of Morgan's battle plan.  He ended up catching Tarleton in what they call a "double envelopment."  In other words, Tarleton was nearly surrounded.

It worked like this: Morgan's orders were for the first line of soldiers to fire a couple of rounds, then retreat behind the next line; that second line would fire a couple of rounds and then also retreat behind the third line.  The British misunderstood what they were seeing, believed the Americans were routed and started chasing them.  

Suddenly the militia did an about-face and started attacking the British, aided by the cavalry who moved in from the side.  Another group of militia had reformed behind the British hidden by a hill and suddenly charged at them from the rear.  The British were shocked, hungry, tired and demoralized.  The Americans ended up with more than 700 prisoners out of the original force of highly trained British troops.

The British loss at Cowpens, following so soon on the British loss at King's Mountain, led 2 months later to the battle at Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina.  There, Gen. Nathaniel Greene met Gen. Cornwallis in a battle that technically Cornwallis won, but with losses so much heavier than Greene's that it caused the British to retreat.  In fact, it led Cornwallis to decisions that resulted, seven months later, in his surrender to George Washington at Yorktown (though Cornwallis refused to attend the surrender ceremony himself, claiming he was sick), and ultimately the end of the war.

And that's what this place was all about.

Outside the visitor center is a memorial, dedicated in 1932 (which seems a little odd to me, coming more than 150 years after the battle).

There are inscriptions on all four sides.

I walked Dext around the area a couple of times - big green field and bright warm sun, so it was a pleasant area.

After restocking our kitty litter supply at a Chesnee grocery store, we headed back to Spartanburg and a historic neighborhood there - Hampton Heights.

I'd read that the oldest home in the neighborhood dates from 1885, though most houses there were built in the early 1900s.  Like many of these areas, it became neglected during the mid-century, when tastes moved to other housing styles like the ranch style.  But in recent years the area has become more attractive, so the owners are making the houses more attractive, and now it's a very pleasant area.  

I parked on the street across from a park, but it turned out to be only a lot-size wide, not big enough for Dext to get a real walk.  So we walked around the neighborhood for a bit and I found these:

This is a sample of one of the larger houses there.
I love that porch.

There were so many trees there that I couldn't get a decent shot at most of them.  Very pretty and peaceful area.

At that park I found this unusual lost pet notice:

I hope they were able to find the cats, though December was quite a while back.

On the radio driving back to the campground I heard several items of interest: Stevie Nicks is 75 years old (it seems like only yesterday . . .).  It's been a year since the Uvalde shooting (it feels like a lifetime ago . . .).  And a young woman said she thought birth control should be illegal (sometimes I despair . . .).

And then we were back at our pleasant, though quite hilly campground, and we parked sideways in our campsite as we'd done yesterday.