♪ Voice: South Carolina.

When I left the Northern Army, I expected to find in this Southern Department a thousand difficulties to which I was a stranger, but the embarrassments far exceed my utmost apprehension.

I have but a shadow of an army.

Nathanael Greene.

I think Nathanael Greene is the unsung hero of the American Revolution.

Without Nathanael Greene in the South grinding it out battle after battle in the war-torn South, the Revolution could have easily been lost.

♪ Narrator: After the disaster at Camden, George Washington had sent Nathanael Greene to replace the disgraced Horatio Gates as commander of what was left of the southern army.

"I think I am giving you a General," Washington told a South Carolina congressman, "but what can a General do without men, without arms, without clothing, without provisions?"

♪ Greene's forces were outnumbered by more than two to one.

Nonetheless, he decided to divide his small army.

"It makes the most of my inferior force," he explained, "for it compels my adversary to divide his."

♪ Greene himself and most of his men marched into South Carolina to a camp near Cheraw on the Pee Dee River.

Meanwhile, Daniel Morgan led what Greene called his "Flying Army" west "to annoy the enemy in that quarter" and "spirit up the people."

♪ [Horse whinnies] In response, Cornwallis sent Banastre Tarleton after Daniel Morgan.

Morgan had hoped to get his men safely back across the broad river before facing his pursuer, but Tarleton was soon within 5 miles.

♪ Morgan chose to make a stand at the Cowpens, a rolling meadow 500 yards long and almost as wide on which herdsmen grazed their cattle on the way to market.

He expected Tarleton to lead a headlong charge into his ranks and planned to take advantage of his rash opponent.

Daniel Morgan was a master tactician.

His planning for the Battle of Cowpens is really brilliant in the way that he draws Tarleton into a trap.

Narrator: Morgan knew that his less-reliable militia, faced with an onrushing enemy, would likely break and run, so he would try to turn that weakness into a strength.

For the next day's battle, he would arrange his men in 3 lines 150 yards apart.

Militiamen would man the first two.

Morgan ordered them to fire just two volleys each into the oncoming enemy and then retreat behind the third line, manned by seasoned Continentals.

He hoped the enemy, convinced the militia were running away again, would charge and suddenly find themselves under deadly fire from his most experienced fighters hidden behind a rise.

♪ Morgan spent the night before the battle building the militia's confidence.

Voice: He went among the volunteers, told them to keep in good spirits and the day would be ours.

"Just hold up your head, boys.

Two fires," he would say, "and you're free, "and then when you return to your homes, "how the old folks will bless you and the girls kiss you for your gallant conduct."

Major Thomas Young.

♪ Lengel: Morgan's recognition of them and their recognition of Morgan as this crusty backwoodsman who's just like them gives them a confidence and an ability to think clearly and to follow orders in a way that they would not have done this for anybody else.

[Rooster crows] Voice: About sunrise on the 17th of January 1781, the enemy came in full view.

The sight--to me, at least-- seemed somewhat imposing.

They halted for a short time and then advanced rapidly, as if certain of victory.

Private James Collins.

[Shouting and gunfire] Narrator: The first line of militia managed to pick off a few regulars and then, following orders, fell back.

♪ When the enemy came within 50 yards of the second line, the militia fired two volleys into them, a "heavy & galling fire," Morgan remembered, that felled 2/3 of Tarleton's infantry officers, but, just as Tarleton had assumed it would, the second line appeared to fall apart, too.

The British stepped up their pace, eager to catch the fleeing militia.

Surely, Tarleton thought, the battle was nearly won.

His men raced up a slope and at its crest suddenly found themselves face to face with the third line and under what a Continental officer remembered as a "very destructive fire which they little expected."

[Cannon fires] This time, it was the Patriots who charged with bayonets, emitting a blood-curdling war cry they had adapted from Native warriors, a yell that would reverberate on Southern battlefields for decades.

[Men whooping] Voice: Morgan rode up in front and, waving his sword, cried out, "Give them one more fire, and the day is ours."

[Sword clangs] We then advance briskly.

They began to throw down their arms and surrender themselves.

Private James Collins.

Narrator: Meanwhile, American cavalry attacked the enemy's rear, "shouting and charging," one Patriot said, "like madmen."

The British line broke.

It was all over in 35 minutes.

The British lost 300 men killed or wounded.

525 more were taken prisoners.

Tarleton managed to get away, but Daniel Morgan was exultant.

"I have Given him," he said, "a devil of a whipping."

♪