Washington's Immortals

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  Cornwallis drew ever closer to Morgan. On January 24, 1781, the British general covered thirty miles. Four days later just ten miles separated him from his adversary. Morgan wrote to Greene, “Cornwallis will push on.” Now, only the Catawba River lay between the two armies. And Morgan was “filling up all the private fords . . . with every obstruction imaginable.” The Catawba could be forded at several locations. Unfortunately, Morgan didn’t have enough men to defend all the crossing points in strength. But fate and the weather intervened. Dark clouds rolled in, and a violent thunderstorm turned the Catawba into a swirling maelstrom, preventing Cornwallis’s crossing for several days.

  Hunkered down over 120 miles away, Greene’s army and the bulk of the Marylanders bivouacked in Cheraw, South Carolina, pelted by the foul weather. Maryland Captain William Beatty remembered that “a very Heavy rain fell Which rais’d the river Pee Dee and small Creeks so much that the troops Were Obliged to draw Corn in lieu of Meal.” Despite the privation and abysmal conditions, the officers maintained discipline, and “a Soldier Was shot for Desertion.”

  News traveled slowly, and nearly a week passed before word arrived of Morgan and John Eager Howard’s victory at Cowpens. Greene ordered a party. The men soon became inebriated on cherry bounce, a concoction of rum and cider. In the celebration, Otho Holland Williams, Beatty, and a large contingent of Marylanders swilled vast quantities of the elixir. Williams floridly captured the drunken moment in a letter to Morgan: “Drunk all your health, swore you were the finest fellows on earth, and love you, if possible more than ever.” They topped off the evening by firing a feu de joie.

  A man of action, Greene boldly decided to assess Morgan’s situation for himself; he rode with only a couple of cavalry and a guide more than a hundred miles through Tory-infested country, somehow avoiding British patrols. To this day, Greene’s exact route to Morgan remains a mystery. Mud-spattered and exhausted, Greene and his small group arrived at Morgan’s camp on January 30, 1781.

  Known as a decisive commander who rarely leaned heavily on consultations with his subordinates, Greene unexpectedly called a council of war.

  Chapter 35

  “Saw ’Em Hollerin’ and

  a Snortin’ and a Drownin’”

  Perched on a log next to the raging waters of the Catawba, General Nathanael Greene discussed the situation with his commanders: William Washington, Daniel Morgan, John Eager Howard, and General William Lee Davidson, who led the North Carolina militia. One of these commanders would not live out the next day.

  For about twenty minutes they considered how best to slow Cornwallis. They knew the waters of the mighty river separating the two armies wouldn’t stay high for long. And Greene related that “the enemy was determined to cross the river.” To buy time, they decided to use Davidson’s militia to hold the main crossing points. Greene’s mastery of local geography was a key factor in developing their strategy, and his audience was surprised “that tho’ Genl. Greene had never seen the Catawba before, he appeared to know more about it than those who were raised on it.”

  Shortly after the commanders sat down, the advance elements of the British army, about five hundred strong, suddenly appeared atop a hill on the opposite side of the river. Cornwallis and his staff passed in front of them and moved from one station to another, viewing the American leaders with their spyglasses. Greene and Cornwallis stared at each other across the swirling waters, the only thing protecting the Patriots.

  Greene had ordered Howard to march most of the Delaware and Maryland Continentals north to Salisbury. A few Marylanders stayed behind with the militia to bolster the ranks of the citizen-soldiers.

  With the time bought by the rain, Greene and Morgan arranged their slim forces to defend the crossings. Lacking the numbers to mount a vigorous defense on all the possible fords, the Americans played a guessing game, allocating their meager forces where they believed Cornwallis would cross. Two hundred fifty North Carolina militiamen held Cowan’s Ford, a key crossing point.

  One of the men defending the ford was fifteen-year-old schoolboy Robert Henry, who had survived a bayonet wound at Kings Mountain. “We went up the river to John Nighten’s, who treated us well by giving us potatoes to roast, and some whisky to drink. We became noisy and mischievous. Nighten said we should not have any more whisky,” remembered the schoolboy. Fortified with drink, Henry and his band fell asleep on the evening of January 31, 1781.

  Henry and his fellow militiamen were still slumbering the next morning, February 1, when the British started crossing the ford. However, the noise of the horses plunging through the water alerted one of the militiamen, who then kicked the dozing sentry into the water and began yelling, “The British! The British!”

  One of the first to cross was the earl. “Lord Cornwallis, according to his usual manner, dashed first into the river, mounted on a very spirited horse, the brigade of guards followed, two three-pounders next, the Royal Welch Fusiliers after them,” recalled Sergeant Roger Lamb.

  The swift waters of the Catawba swept many of the Redcoats downriver. The militia’s muskets and rifles then went into action. One of the officers shouted, “Fire away, boys! Help is at hand!”

  Robert Henry later stated, “[I] fired and continued firing until I saw that one on horseback had passed my rock in the river.” He added, “I saw my lame schoolmaster loading his guns. I thought I could stand it as long as he could and commenced loading. [The schoolmaster] fired and then I fired, the head and shoulders of the British being just above the bank. They made no return fire.”

  What the militiamen’s bullets failed to achieve, the swollen river accomplished for them. The fire and the water together nearly took out the British high command. Major General Alexander Leslie’s horse threw its rider into the river, and Brigadier General Charles O’Hara’s stallion “rolled with him down the current nearly forty yards.”

  Courageously, many members of the militia fired from positions near the water’s edge. “There wasn’t many on ’em, but I’ll be darned if they didn’t slap the wad to his Majesty’s men suicidally! For a while; for I saw ’em [British] hollerin’ and a snortin’, and a drownin’ . . . until his lordship reached the off bank.”

  Cornwallis’s horse was hit several times, but it carried the British commander to the opposite shore, where the courageous stallion collapsed.

  Shouting commands, the earl urged his men forward as the Patriots’ defenses melted away. Robert Henry heard his schoolmaster spur him on:

  “It’s time to run, Bob!”

  In the melee, General Davidson attempted to rally his men.

  Struck in the chest by a ball, the militia leader died instantly as he approached the action near the water’s edge at Cowan’s Ford.

  The skirmish cost the British dearly, as Henry reported a large number of British casualties: “not less than one hundred.” He added, “The river stunk with dead carcasses” as many bodies lodged in a fish trap downstream, “several of whom appeared to have no wound, but had drowned. We pushed them into the water, they floated off, and each went to his home.”

  Some Marylanders, including Captain Gassaway Watkins, fought alongside the militia. Watkins went through his own epic ordeal in his flight for survival:

  In February, the day that General Davidson was killed, I left camp with orders from General Greene and was with the retreating militia, two miles from the battleground. At 12 o’clock that night, I stopped at a house on the road, cold, wet, and hungry, but got nothing to eat. There were at least a hundred persons in that house. My dress [uniform] was noticed by an old man of the country, who asked to speak with me in private. He told me there were enemies as well as friends in the house and offered his services to me. I started in a few moments after and told him that I wanted [his help]. He was faithful. We rode all night and got to the foard. About 10 o’clock the next morning, the trees came tumbling down, one after the other down the Ya
dkin. The old man said it was impossible to cross. I was satisfied there was nothing to stop the enemy and the wish of my general to bring his troops to a point near action, so I immediately pulled off my coat and boots, put the dispatches in the crown of my hat, tied it on my head, took leave of my friend, who with tears in his eyes wished me well, and with difficulty crossed the river. My guide and my friend expressed his joy by throwing up his hat, and I returned it with gratitude. About 7 o’clock I got to headquarters, received by Generals Greene and Morgan.

  Most of the militiamen and the Marylanders successfully made a fighting withdrawal from the fords and continued their long and arduous march toward Salisbury. “We marched all night in the rain and mud, and a most fatiguing march it was. We arrived . . . four miles short of Salisbury, at sunrise on the 2nd & halted to get dry and for the men who had fallen out of the ranks from fatigue, to come up,” wrote Delaware Sergeant Major William Seymour.

  The army was in bad shape. Seymour related, “[We were] in a most dismal condition for the want of clothing, especially shoes, being obliged to march, the chief part of them barefoot.” As they marched, some left a trail of bloody footprints.

  Incessant, frigid rain was turning the roads into a quagmire of muck and filth. Soaked to the bone, the soldiers found every step miserable. Delaware Lieutenant Thomas Anderson, attached to the Marylanders, recalled “every step being up to our Knees in Mud . . . it raining On us all the way.”

  In these deplorable conditions, the army skirmished and marched nineteen hours a day in miserable sleet and rain. Greene described the death march: “More than one-half of our number are in a manner naked, so much so, that we can put them in the least amount of duty. Indeed there is a great number that have not a rag of cloths except a piece of blanket (in the Indian form) around their waists.”

  The weather and the march were literally killing Morgan, who became gravely ill with debilitating sciatica. One doctor on the march found him lying on a bed of leaves under a blanket, “rheumatic from head to toe.” Besides the fevers and other ailments Morgan was “violently attacked with the piles [hemorrhoids].” Morgan could hardly mount a horse, yet he continued to lead his men, checking positions and urging them forward.

  Greene and Morgan soon evacuated Salisbury and headed north for the possible safety of another river, the Yadkin. With less than six hours of sleep, the Marylanders were covering up to thirty miles a day in an attempt to outrun Cornwallis, who was stubbornly pursuing them.

  Ever the logistician, Greene wisely ordered boats—craft of all makes and sizes—assembled at the Yadkin to be pressed into service and made ready to facilitate the army’s crossing. Plowing through the muck and sludge, the still largely barefoot Marylanders made it to the river, which was swollen with rain.

  Both Greene and Cornwallis looked to the river with hope. For the British general, it seemed the perfect opportunity to pin down the Americans and destroy them. But the Patriot commander knew that the raging waters of the Yadkin represented his salvation. Performing another minor miracle, Greene’s quartermaster general, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Carrington, had the boats waiting when the Flying Army arrived.

  Quickly, Greene, Morgan, and Howard steered the men onto the ad hoc flotilla. Most cast off just in time; the vanguard of Cornwallis’s army hit the Flying Army’s rear guard as some of the last men were clambering aboard their craft.

  Once again the Flying Army had escaped Cornwallis’s grasp. Having gathered all the boats available for miles up and down the river, Greene and the Marylanders were as safe on the far side of the Yadkin as if Cornwallis were a hundred miles away. Smugly, Greene, Morgan, and Howard set up camp near the river, to the consternation of Cornwallis, who could see his adversary only dozens of yards away. Greene designated a small log cabin close to the riverbank as his headquarters. Because it was one of the few visible targets, the British artillery began to target it, and several balls landed nearby. One allegedly sheared some of the wooden shingles off the roof. Unflappable, Greene refused to allow the British bombardment to interrupt his work. One observer noted, “His pen never rested, but when a new visitor arrived . . . the answer was given with calmness and precision, and the pen immediately resumed.”

  With his quarry nearly in his grasp, the earl ordered his army to look for a ford farther upstream. Greene noticed the movement of the British troops and astutely wrote, “[F]rom Cornwallises pushing disposition, and the contempt he has for our Army, we may precipitate him into some capital misfortune.”

  Chapter 36

  The Race to the Dan

  After crossing the Yadkin, the Marylanders, pummeled by sleet and rain, struggled through forty-seven miles of mud and muck. The Flying Army eventually reached Guilford Courthouse and reunited with William Beatty, Jack Steward, Otho Holland Williams, and the rest of their brothers in Nathanael Greene’s main army. A blustery day, February 7, 1781, marked the first time both wings of the southern army had been united since Christmas.

  At Guilford, Greene called another council of war. Painting a grim picture, he laid out the facts: Few militia reinforcements had arrived. About five days after Greene’s men had crossed the Yadkin, the waters had receded enough for Cornwallis to cross, and he was now in close pursuit. Greene summed up the stakes: “If I should risk a General Action in our present situation, we stand ten chances to one of getting defeated, & if defeated all of the Southern states must fall.” He pressed Morgan, Howard, Williams, Steward, and his other senior officers for their opinions on the army’s next course of action. The consensus: “avoid a general action at all Events.”

  The time wasn’t right for a fight with Cornwallis; the Americans simply didn’t have the numbers. Frantically, they requested additional reinforcements, writing to Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson, “Great god what is the reason we can’t have more men?”

  Greene’s lieutenants agreed that they must press on to the Dan River, where they might acquire additional reinforcements from Jeffer­son and Continentals led by Baron Friedrich von Steuben. As he had done at the Yadkin, Greene prepared to have boats ready and waiting. He had several crossings to choose from: the fords of the upper Dan and two lower crossings, one at Dix Ferry and the other at Irwin’s Ferry about six miles south. He chose the lower fords and ordered his quarter­master general, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Carrington, to round up anything that could float and carry men.

  Before he left, Greene spent hours surveying the ground around Guilford.

  In preparation for the march north to the Dan, Greene once again divided his army. With men and munitions in short supply, deception would have to take the place of muskets. Seven hundred veterans of the light troops, with the Marylanders and William Washington’s and Henry Lee’s cavalry at their core, would serve as a screening force or a decoy to lure Cornwallis away from the ferry point Greene planned to use for the rest of the army. Unfortunately, the light corps was without the services of Daniel Morgan, who was spent from the long marches. Racked by pain and fever, he had retired to his home in Winchester, Virginia. Greene lamented, “Great generals are scarce. There are few Morgans to be found.”

  Command of the light troops fell on the shoulders of one of Greene’s great field commanders, Marylander Otho Holland Williams. If everything went as intended in the complicated plan, Williams would lure Cornwallis upriver away from the rest of the army, which could then safely cross to the other side. Hopefully, Williams could then double back and cross the Dan after the main portion of the army had made it across. But there was a strong possibility that Cornwallis’s larger army would trap Williams’s smaller corps with the Dan at its back and crush it.

  Their ranks depleted by Cowpens and the arduous march to Guilford, the light troops, principally made up of Marylanders and Delaware troops under John Eager Howard’s command, received badly needed reinforcements. Williams ordered the 1st and 2nd Maryland Battalions to furnish twenty-five and thirty men respe
ctively to bring each company back up to sixty men and backfill the heavy losses Kirkwood’s Delaware Regiment had sustained.

  Given the task of deceiving Cornwallis, the light infantry endured yet another difficult trek. Since leaving their base camp in December, many of the light troops had fought and tramped the equivalent of the distance from Washington, D.C., to New York City in sleet, snow, rain, and frost, sleeping completely exposed to the elements. For those who somehow survived, the Maryland and Delaware Continentals had remarkably traversed nearly five thousand miles on foot over a two-year period. Sergeant Major Seymour recorded in his journal one ball-busting leg of the journey:

  We marched from here on the ninth . . . taking the road toward the Dan River, which we reached on the fourteenth, after a march of 250 miles from the time we left our encampment at Pacolet River. By this time it must be expected the army, especially the light troops, were very much fatigued both from traveling and want of sleep, for you must understand that we marched for the most part both day and night, the main army of the British being close in our rear so that we had not scarce time to cook our victuals, our whole attention being on our light troops.

  Williams’s men remained constantly on the move—often within a whisker of destruction. Eliminating bridges and skirmishing on nearly a daily basis, Williams sent Light Horse Harry Lee and William Washington to harass and slow down the vanguard of Cornwallis’s army. The light troops marched onward, and Cornwallis pursued them, taking the bait. Williams reported to Greene on February 14, “Accident informed me the Enemy were within six to Eight miles of my Quarters. I detached Col. Lee with a Troop of Dragoons & put the rest of the light troops in Motion to cross the Haw River at a Bridge.”