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About 1,200 British and American Loyalist soldiers of Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton’s British Legion clashed with Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan’s “Flying Army” of 1,700 Continentals and militiamen in the pivotal battle of the Cowpens on 17 January 1781. To this point in the war, no American commander had employed Continentals and southern militiamen successfully in conventional battle. Morgan gave his militia a simple task, fire two shots and regroup under the cover of Continental dragoons. The militia fire staggered the advancing British Legion, leaving it vulnerable to Morgan’s Continental infantry. At the peak of the battle, American dragoons and militia enveloped the enemy infantry, producing a decisive American tactical victory. Morgan’s victory upset the strategic plans of British commander, Lt. Gen. Earl Charles Cornwallis, and allowed Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, the Continental commander in the south, to seize the strategic initiative.
