Part 12 (1/2)

”Ah, Colonel,” said the lady, ”you ought to know better, for you can testify that he knows how to make his mark.”

At another time, Tarleton said with a sneer to the other sister, ”I should be happy to see Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton.”

”If you had looked behind you at the battle of Cowpens, Colonel Tarleton,” she replied, ”you would have enjoyed that pleasure.”

In the battle of Cowpens, the British lost two hundred and thirty, killed and wounded. The Americans had twelve killed and sixty-one wounded.

{121} Morgan did not rest for one moment after his victory. He knew that Lord Cornwallis, stung by the defeat of Tarleton, would do his best to crush him before he could rejoin Greene's army. By forced marches, he got to the fords of the Catawba first, and when his lords.h.i.+p reached the river, he learned that the patriots had crossed with all their prisoners and booty two days before, and were well on their way to join General Greene.

Soon after the battle of Cowpens, repeated attacks of his old enemy, sciatica, so disabled Morgan that he was forced to retire from the service and go back to his home, in Virginia.

During the summer of 1780, when the British invaded the Old Dominion, he again took the field. With Wayne and Lafayette, he took part in a series of movements which led to the capture of Cornwallis. The exposure of camp life again brought on a severe illness.

”I lay out the night after coming into camp,” Morgan wrote General Greene, ”and caught cold.”

{122} Crippled and suffering great pain, he went home with the belief that he had dealt his last blow for the cause he loved so well. He afterward received from Was.h.i.+ngton, Greene, Jefferson, Lafayette, and other leaders, letters that stir our blood after so many years.

From a simple teamster, Morgan had become a major general. After taking part in fifty battles, he lived to serve his country in peace as well as in war, and was returned to Congress the second time. His valor at the North is commemorated, as you already know, by the statue on the monument at Saratoga. In the little city of Spartanburg, in South Carolina, stands another figure of Daniel Morgan, the ”old wagoner of the Alleghanies,” the hero of Cowpens.

{123}

CHAPTER IX

THE FINAL VICTORY

About the middle of March, 1781, Lord Cornwallis defeated Greene in a stubborn battle at Guilford, North Carolina. Although victorious, the British general was in desperate straits. He had lost a fourth of his whole army, and was over two hundred miles from his base of supplies.

He could not afford to risk another battle.

There was now really only one thing for Cornwallis to do, and that was to make a bee line for Wilmington, the nearest point on the coast, and look for help from the fleet.

General Greene must have guessed that the British general would march northwards, to unite forces with Arnold, who was already in Virginia.

At all events, the sagacious American general made a bold move. He followed Cornwallis for about fifty miles from Guilford, and then, facing about, marched with all speed to Camden, a hundred and sixty miles away.

His lords.h.i.+p was not a little vexed. He was simply ignored by his wily foe, and left to do as he pleased. So he made his way into Virginia, and on May 20 arrived at Petersburg.

{124} Benedict Arnold, who was now fighting under the British flag, had been sent to Virginia to burn and to pillage. Was.h.i.+ngton dispatched Lafayette to check the traitor's dastardly work. When Lord Cornwallis reached Virginia, Arnold had been recalled, and the young Frenchman was at Richmond.

Cornwallis thought he might now regain his reputation by some grand stroke. The first thing to do was to crush the young Lafayette.

”The boy cannot escape me,” he said.

But Lafayette was so skillful at retreating and avoiding a decisive action that his lords.h.i.+p could get no chance to deal him a blow.

”I am not strong enough even to be beaten,” wrote the French general to the commander in chief.

Away to the west rode our friend Colonel Tarleton, still smarting from the sound thras.h.i.+ng he had received from old Dan Morgan at Cowpens. He was trying to break up the State a.s.sembly, and capture Thomas Jefferson, governor of Virginia.