The Old Wagoner's Math

Morgan spent the night of January 16 moving among the campfires. He was 44 years old, had been fighting since the French and Indian War, and understood something about militia that most general officers either did not know or refused to accept: they would not stand and fight like regulars, and asking them to was not courage, it was poor planning.

What he asked his militia at Cowpens was something else. Fire two volleys. Hit someone with each shot. Then retire through the gaps in the Continental line to the rear, reform, and be ready to fight again. He told them he did not expect them to hold. He told them exactly what he did expect: two good volleys, then an orderly withdrawal to a designated position.

The brilliance of this was not merely tactical. It was psychological. He was telling the militia something they could do — something within their capability and their experience — rather than asking them to do something that was not. He was building confidence rather than demanding heroism.

The plan required three things to work: the militia had to fire accurately and then actually retire rather than run; the Continentals behind them had to hold when the British came through; and the cavalry had to arrive at the right moment on the British flank. All three had to happen in sequence, in a battle that would last less than fifteen minutes.

They all happened. Morgan was suffering from severe sciatica throughout. He directed the battle from horseback, in considerable pain. Contemporary accounts describe him as calm. He had designed a plan that worked with the army he had rather than the army he might have wished for. That is the thing military historians come back to, again and again, when they discuss Cowpens: not the outcome, which was extraordinary, but the design, which was almost perfect.