Cowpens National Battlefield

The Battle of Cowpens lasted sixty-five minutes on January 17, 1781, and ended with eighty-six percent of the British force dead, wounded, or captured in one of the Revolution's most complete victories. Visitors still see uniformed figures crossing the open pastureland in tactical formations at dusk, and a group of schoolchildren all smelled gunpowder simultaneously while passing through a wooded section of the battlefield.

Sixty-five minutes. That's how long the Battle of Cowpens lasted on the morning of January 17, 1781. By eight o'clock, British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton had lost eighty-six percent of his force: 110 killed, over 200 wounded, 529 captured. The Americans lost 25 dead and 124 wounded. Military historians call it a total rout, an American Cannae, the ancient battle famous for its double envelopment. The field where it happened remains open pastureland, largely unchanged since the cattle farmers who gave it the name "cow pens" grazed their herds here.

Brigadier General Daniel Morgan chose this ground knowing his opponent. Tarleton, nicknamed "Bloody Ban" by Patriots, had refused to honor a white flag at the Battle of Waxhaws and slaughtered surrendering Americans. He was reckless, aggressive, and predictable. Morgan counted on it. He arranged his roughly 1,065 men in three lines: sharpshooters up front, militia in the middle, Continental regulars in the back. He told the militia to fire two volleys and then fall back. When Tarleton's exhausted regulars (they'd had less than four hours of sleep and had run out of food in the two days before the battle) saw the militia retreating, they charged forward in pursuit, exactly as Morgan wanted. They hit the Continental line and stalled. Colonel William Washington's cavalry swept around the right flank. Colonel Andrew Pickens led the reformed militia around the left. The British were surrounded.

Visitors and park rangers have described sightings on this field for years. Figures in Continental and British uniforms appear at dusk, sometimes alone, sometimes in small groups moving across the open pasture in formation. They dissolve when anyone tries to approach. Phantom sounds carry across the field on quiet evenings: musket fire, drumbeats, shouted commands with no source. Some visitors describe the movements of the figures as eerily tactical, following the documented positions of Morgan's three lines as if the battle is replaying on a loop.

A group of elementary school students on a field trip through the battlefield all became nauseated at the same moment while passing through a wooded area. Every student smelled gunpowder. The symptoms stopped the instant they crossed the tree line. Near a farm bordering the property, a witness saw a figure in what appeared to be Revolutionary War clothing standing motionless by a tree at dusk. It stood there long enough to be studied, then vanished.

The 1.3-mile walking trail follows the American battle lines across the pasture, and certain stretches produce sharp, sudden temperature drops. The field has the kind of quiet that makes sounds carry, but the sounds people describe don't come from anywhere visible. Photographs taken on the trail have occasionally captured dark figures not visible to the photographer at the time.

The NPS has identified 128 American officers and soldiers by name who were killed or wounded at Cowpens. Their fight turned the tide of the southern campaign and led directly to Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown ten months later. The battlefield looks the way it looked that January morning, which might be part of the problem. The ground remembers the shape of the fight, and every so often, the fight shows up again.