The Battle of Cowpens and A Devil of a Whipping.

Banastre Tarleton launched a frontal attack on Daniel Morgan’s polyglot force at Cowpens in 1781 and his force was largely destroyed. This post is about the 1781 battle and also a review of the book about it by Lawrence Babit.

All internet images have been removed from this post, sorry.

Banastre Tarleton was the dashing and infamous leader of his British Legion, a force of Loyalist cavalry and infantry. They were charged with cutting down surrendering troops at Waxhaws. After the battle of Camden some of his troopers raped local women. This caused a fuss as it turned out these women were betrothed to other Loyalist officers. This says something about the discipline among his dragoons. Among the Rebels, Tarleton’s Quarter was shorthand for not taking prisoners.

 

Some have wondered why Tarleton made such a rash frontal attack. He had a string of successes based on just that. Hard, killing marches at Rebel troops followed by immediate attack either caught them by surprise, or forced them into precipitate, demoralizing withdrawals, leading to short, brutal, one-sided fights.

 

As a young officer, he and a small scouting party captured Rebel General Charles Lee. This assured Tarleton’s rise to prominence. Later, in the southern theater at the head of his Legion and others, Tarleton’s aggressive style  won a succession of victories. Monck’s Corner, Waxhaws, Lenud’s Ferry and Fishing Creek all saw Rebels badly defeated. At the battle of Camden Tarleton’s dragoons rode down fugitive militia and then fell on the rear of De Kalb’s Continentals.  At Blackstock, his frontal attack was given a bloody nose. A lucky shot by his retreating troops badly wounded the rebel partisan leader Thomas Sumter. The Rebel militia scattered and Tarleton was able to claim a specious victory. You might think that would have given him pause for thought, that the enemy was beginning to see how he operated.

 

In January 1781 he made one of his punishing marches to catch Morgan’s force of mixed Continental veterans and militia. Morgan was that rare seasoned commander who knew how to motivate his militiamen. He had his troops rest and eat breakfast while the British slogged towards them and prepared a plan to meet a frontal attack, taking time to explain his plan to his troops. Rested and reassured that Morgan knew what he was doing, the troops were ready. The plan worked perfectly. A defense in depth, militia to the fore was followed by an ad hoc double envelopment. Even errors worked in Morgan’s favor. Most of the British infantry were captured, along with their two light guns. Some of the British cavalry were defeated by William Washington’s dragoons. Most of Tarleton’s dragoons turned and ran after they saw the infantry surrender. British losses were over 800, including some 500+ prisoners. Continental losses were reported for many years as 12 dead and 60 wounded, though Babit’s research has changed that number. At least double that number is now accepted. Why the discrepancy?

 

The small initial number is what Morgan reported. Those were likely the losses suffered by his Continental troops. After the battle, knowing that Cornwallis and the rest of the British Army would be looking for revenge, the Continentals made off with speed to join the rest of their army while the militia scattered back to their farms. They didn’t hang around to count noses or file reports. Babit delved through pension applications, which included the stories of militia soldiers who had fought at Cowpens. Many told of seeing friends killed or wounded at the battle, people who hadn’t been counted by Morgan. The number of these showed that Morgan hadn’t counted the militia losses, no doubt because he was busy getting as much distance between him and Cornwallis as possible. In any case, doubling Morgan’s losses to ~150 still pales beside the 800+ British losses.

 

After nearly wiping out Tarleton and then evading Cornwallis, he headed home to nurse his ailing body, beset with sciatica. He was out of the war, leaving on a high note.

 

The meticulous research in Babit's A Devil of a Whipping also indicates that both sides had more troops than has been assumed previously, with a bit more militia present. Again, no surprise since Morgan was busy bolstering the morale of the militia instead of counting them.

 

I do take some of the reconstruction of the battle in the book with a grain of salt. The author seems to be a reenactor. He can fire 6 aimed rounds in a minute if he starts with a loaded smoothbore musket. My brief experience with a black powder muzzle-loading rifle leaves me in awe of that. I suspect the number of troops in Morgan’s army who could match that feat would be a slim minority. Powder and lead cost money, and money was scarce in the colonies. That scarcity was part of what drove the rebellion in the first place. Years of blockade by the Royal Navy had made things worse.  In any case, expecting more than two rounds a minute from most of the troops at the battle would be a slim chance.

 

But that’s just a minor quibble. If you are at all interested in Morgan’s finest moment (rivaling his heroics at Saratoga), do read this book. Well researched, well written, well worth the time.

 

PS, for those of you who read most of my stuff, please ignore this repeat info. Old guys repeat themselves. I first became acquainted with Tarleton from the 1959-1960 Disney TV series The Swamp Fox. In that series, Tarleton was a middle-aged man. The guerilla leader Francis Marion was a young fellow who would steal into occupied Charleston to scale the balcony and romance Tarleton’s comely daughter a la Romeo and Juliet, before sneaking out to raid British rear areas. Marion was played by Leslie Nielson, who would later become the hilarious buffoon in Airplane and The Naked Gun. I goaded my mother into buying me a young reader’s biography of Marion. This revealed that Tarleton was in his 20s and single, while Marion was in his 40s. It was my introduction to Hollywood’s approach to historical accuracy.   

Thoughts About the Horse and Musket Period

The period from ~1700 to ~1848 is known to wargamers as the Horse and Musket period. Some use a single set of rules for this period, since infantry use muskets with bayonets, cavalry uses sabers and lance, and black powder artillery looks pretty similar. Tactics, drill, weapons and even logistics slowly evolved during the period.  The advent of widely used rifled small arms and artillery, railroads and steamships spelled the end of this period. 

 All internet images have been removed from this post, sorry.

The period begins with the invention of socket bayonets, which gave the musketeer a cold steel defense when unloaded. The use of pikes faded, though the Swedes continued to equip up to a third of their infantry with pikes at the start of the period. Their aggressive Gå På doctrine, close range fire followed by a cold steel charge made them the terror of the Baltic region. The Russians finally stopped them at Poltava with masses of artillery and infantry. But the Swedes are outliers in this period.

 

Most troops used musket fire and artillery to wear down the enemy before closing with cold steel. Cavalry tended to use pistols at close range before resorting to sabers. Cartridge boxes carried perhaps 26 to 29 rounds. Extra cartridges had to be carried in soldiers’ pockets. I recall old rules where musket fire was based on 2 or 3 rounds per minute. At 3 rounds per minute, an 8 or 9 minute fire fight would see ammo exhausted. There seems to have been a bit less firing than the maximum rate of fire indicates. This holds true today. If infantry just blazed away as fast as possible, they would likely run low in a little over 5 minutes. At the 1777 Battle of Hubbardton, one Continental unit reported firing about 20 rounds per soldier during a hotly contested two hour fight. This indicates sharp encounters separated by lulls in the action.

 

Flintlock weapons might misfire as often as one shot in seven. Drawing a live round from a muzzle-loader is tense work even when no one is shooting at you. I can testify. Towards the end of the period percussion cap locks would see a slight increase in rate of fire and a decrease in misfires. A prolonged firefight would see barrels fouled by black powder residue. This would continue past the period into the American Civil War and beyond until smokeless powder dominated the battlefield.

 

Rate of infantry fire was slowed by wooden ramrods at the start of this period. Load too fast and they break. Prussian infantry used steel ramrods, less likely to break. Constant practice allowed them to fire up to 5 rounds a minute. A minute or two of this would often convince the other side to back off. As the war went on and attrition told, new recruits usually could not keep up with this rate of fire. Again, the cartridge boxes would empty even sooner. We see a gradual increase in infantry firepower due to metal ramrods and improved musket drill. According to Dominic Lieven, the British historian descended from a Napoleonic Russian General, Russian infantry firepower suffered from the inferior paper their cartridges were made with. Minor details can have major results.

 

During the War of the Spanish Succession, infantry formed 3 to 4 ranks deep depending on national doctrine. Infantry companies were administrative organizations, not tactical units. Infantry battalions were divided into 4 equal divisions on an as-needed basis, regardless of the number of companies. These divisions were how the battalion maneuvered from column of march into line.

 

The Prussians used strict discipline to constantly drill their troops until they could form line faster than opposing infantry. Marshal de Broglie figured he couldn’t get his French to match this. His solution was to break his infantry line into 4 divisions, like those of the infantry battalion. By having all four deploy at the same time they could be safely in line by the time the Prussians finished their deploying from a single column. This was the genesis of permanent divisions, which in time led to the formation of permanent corps. Before this, divisions above the battalion level and corps had tended to be ad hoc and basically interchangeable.

 

The Revolutionary and then Napoleonic French developed faster drill methods making formation changes yet faster. At the end of the period chasseur and zouave drill became even faster, as rifled weapons began to make close-order formations more vulnerable to fire. Drill evolved during the period, making trained infantry more flexible.

 

As firepower increased, infantry formations became shallower. Most nations went to three ranks. Britain and the nascent U.S. went to two ranks. Note that Wellington, after seeing the trouble caused by French cavalry in the open terrain at Quatre Bras, went to 4 ranks deep at Waterloo. Rules giving  a firing bonus for two-rank formation need to be adjusted for that famous battle.

 

At the start of the period, some armies had light infantry (notably the Austrian Grenzers) who fought in loose order, often used in broken terrain and specializing in raids and such. By the French Revolution the practice of screening formed troops with skirmishers became widespread. These troops harassed the enemy, functioning as early warning and advanced guards.

 

So far, we have seen a change in infantry firepower, drill and organization. As the industrial revolution spread, weapons and supplies changed from artisanal goods to factory produced. While some artisanal products may have been finer, factories produced more, enabling armies to grow in size. The evolution of advanced capitalist economies made financing larger armies possible. Increased population from improved agriculture provided the basic raw material, live bodies.

 

And now for the evolution of artillery. Artillery was extremely heavy in 1700. The horse teams needed to move these behemoths were privately owned. The owners were eager to get themselves and their valuable horses out of harm’s way when the lead started flying. The Austrians were the first to use military personnel to draw the guns. They would not start the battle by running away. Metallurgy improved, making weapons lighter and gradually more accurate. Consider the following weights of artillery pieces.

 

M1707 Prussian 3-pounder	826 lbs.
M1707 Prussian 12-pounder	3,471 lbs.
1st Empire (Gribeauval system) 8-pounder	2,137 lbs.
1st Empire (Gribeauval system) 12-pounder	4,364 lbs.
M1857 U.S 12-pounder Napoleon gun-howitzer	1,227 lbs.

 

As the period ended, the M1857 gun had the hitting power of the earlier 12-pounder guns and yet weighed substantially less than the French medium gun, less than a third of the French 12-pounder. Lighter guns were more mobile and lessened the burden of gun crews operating the guns. Before the days of hydraulic recoil mechanisms, guns rolled back with each shot (one of the correct things in that recent Napoleon film). The crews had to wrestle these heavy guns back into place after each shot. About the time they ran out of ammo, the crews would be physically exhausted. Again, rules based on maximum rate of fire deserve a wary eye. John Gibbon, the Civil War Union artillery expert, considered that a gun crew should fire one well-aimed shot every two minutes. If they were being directly attacked, the rate might well go up. Or they should limber up and escape.

 

We have dealt with how infantry slowly increased firepower and flexibility, and was covered by skirmishers at the end of the period. There was a slight bit about increased supplies, and now lighter, more mobile artillery. We come to the cavalry. I don’t have nearly as much to report here. There wasn’t much change in horseflesh or troopers. The increase of infantry and artillery firepower was not matched by horseback shooting. Better cavalry now tried to close with cold steel before their foes could get more shots in. irregular cavalry instead opted for raids rather than battlefield heroics.

 

Battles of this period look similar save for uniform fashions. But the pace and interaction of the different arms evolved during the time, tending towards more firepower, flexibility, mobility and increased organization at higher levels, like division and corps.

 

A digression: when American Civil War officers talked about Napoleonic tactics, they weren’t talking about Napoleon I. They were talking about then current French tactics of Napoleon III’s army. Chasseur tactics and zouave drill were all the rage. The French army was the leading army in Europe, having bested the Austrians in 1859 and suppressed the locals in North Africa. The kepi was based on their uniforms, as were the various zouave units. The Napoleon gun-howitzer was named for Napoleon III. None of them knew that the emperor and his army were headed for a big fall.

Further: I was going to post some photos but Google Blogger suddenly is giving me grief about posting photos. Sigh. Maybe the heat got to them.

Käthe Kollwitz and Two Photos of Flanders Fields

I accompanied my wife today on a trip to the Museum of Modern Art to see several shows, one on the work of Käthe Kollwitz, the artist-activist (1867-1945).  

She went from fine art to black and white work (easiest to reproduce in quantity) that supported her socialist views. Like many other socialists, she was inflamed by nationalism and supported the Army at the start of the Great War, soon dispelled when her 18-year-old son Peter was killed at the front in October 1914. Poorly trained young troops of Reserve corps were thrown into attacks at the first battle of Ypres. The photos below are likely of that battle. The first photo is a true rarity, showing both defenders and attackers in the same shot. Looking at the attackers in the distance, you can see that one of them is mounted, an officer, no doubt. In the foreground the British Expeditionary Force riflemen wait for the word to open fire. Note the dense formation of the attackers. 

The second photo shows what I believe to be the aftermath of that same attack. Note the dead horse and officer, along with a number of dead infantrymen. If I’m right, the photographer had moved to his right after the attack was repulsed to get closer to the center of the action. It is likely that Käthe’s son was killed during such an action. The lack of shell holes indicates there was not a preliminary bombardment worthy of the name.

 

Käthe Kollwitz narrowly avoided being sent to a concentration camp during WWII, in part due to her international reputation. She died shortly before the war was over, having fled bombed-out Berlin for Saxony. She outlived her husband Karl who died of disease in 1940 and her grandson Peter who was killed in combat in 1942.

Sometimes I struggle with the background colors. This is one of those times. Sigh. 

Camden solo test with Valour & Fortitude, no mods

After coming up with (untested) AWI period modifications for V&F, I decided to run a solo test game with RAW (rules as written), no mods. I intend to run a face-to-face game this coming Saturday adding in a few of my mods. Camden is my go-to test game for the American Revolution. Horatio Gates’ historical deployment should lead to a British victory, barring foolish mistakes. I once binned a set I was designing when the militia easily routed the British early in the game. 

 

I have most of the correct units for this, except not quite enough militia. Some Rhode Island Continentals are mixed with some Loyalist militia, and British Light Dragoons stand in for Tarleton’s horse. They’re closer than my mounted militia in rifle smocks. The 1^st Maryland Brigade (a battalion-sized unit) is rated as state troops since they were newly raised. The Continental Light Infantry is down-rated to state troops and Armand’s horse are down-rated to militia since both had been roughly handled in the preceding nighttime clash with Tarleton that saw Porterfield, the Light Infantry CO, killed.

 

V&F are true fast play rules. Many make that claim, few deliver. Valour tests are unit morale tests. Fail one, the unit is gone. Fortitude tests are brigade level morale tests, fail and bad things happen. But none of the latter were triggered in this game, in part because all the actual brigades (i.e., De Kalb’s division) are fairly small. V&F has card play, with cards giving special events of varying importance. I didn’t use them as I find it one detail too far when playing solo. It’s enough to take photos and note how much time elapsed. I think you should be able to follow the action entirely from the photos below. As always, click on any for a larger image. 

I first had Tarleton's Dragoons beat the NC Militia and force them back. Checking the rules, I saw the Militia should rout. The headstrong Dragoons then had to charge into the American camp, 

I’m not going to use all of my suggested mods in the next game, just a few. I noted that militia really can’t maneuver well at all, a good thing. Firing, melee and Valour modifiers are all adding or subtracting dice, with 4+ being a success. Activation and Fortitude modifiers are to the number needed on the single die rolled. I got a little confused before the game on this. Organizing a force using the points system, the only artillery I would get is light. If you aren’t planning to sit off and bombard, having artillery that can fire canister and move in the same turn is priceless. Perhaps there should be a limitation on how much movement they have. Perhaps there is and I haven’t noticed it. Wouldn’t be the first time.

 

Being a solo game, it was broken up by lunch and several visits to the building laundry room. Playing 9 turns in ~142  minutes is quite good. The last-man-standing thing is partially a product of my scenario. It needs a couple tweaks. But the game rocked along just fine.