A Devil of a Whipping

by Lawrence E Babits

  How weapons were employed comes from contemporary manuals. The 1764 Manual Exercise is a starting point for understanding British battlefield movements. Grant’s New Highland Military Discipline shows differences between English and Scottish approaches. For the Americans, Riling’s republication of the Von Steuben Regulations is essential, but the best analysis of Von Steuben, by far, is Peterkin’s Exercise of Arms. Many authors have written on the battle. The most useful are contemporaries Henry Lee, William Johnson, and John Marshall. Secondary authors include Kenneth Roberts, M. F. Treacy, and Thomas J. Fleming.

  The battle can be subdivided into episodes including prebattle skirmishing, skirmish line, militia line, main line, flank fighting, cavalry actions, and pursuit. Each episode contributed to the battle’s outcome but not everyone saw these events in the same way, much less wrote about them. Accordingly, discussion of sources has relied on different accounts for each event.

  For the prebattle skirmishing, Tarleton’s Campaigns provides a framework, but some skirmishing is detailed in Everheart’s pension application and James Simons’s supporting letter. The three accounts provide a matrix for pension documents and later, though still contemporary, accounts from local historians.

  The best sources on the skirmish line are Hammond, Hanger, Mcjunkin, and Morgan, including some later writings based on statements Hammond and Mcjunkin made after the battle. William Johnson is fairly useful in providing details about the skirmish line. His known associates include William Washington, and Johnson himself probably visited the battlefield. However, his quotations should be questioned.

  To understand the militia-line organization and its short fight, the best sources are Christopher Brandon, James Collins, Robert Long, and Roderick MacKenzie. Details are in Howard’s various writings and in the Seymour and Anderson journals. While Johnson provides details, his version of the militia withdrawal misled historians, even though it was not supported by contemporaries or participants. Saye’s “Memoir of Mcjunkin” should be treated with caution in many places. It is based on earlier writings by Mcjunkin and can be compared with his pension for accuracy.

  Main-line fighting was best detailed by Howard in several accounts, including a letter to John Marshall that addresses specific questions about his actions. Other sources are Anderson, Seymour, and Benjamin Martin of Combs’s Virginians. Tarle-ton, Hanger, MacKenzie, Kelty, and Stewart provide British viewpoints.

  The flank fighting is a melange of cryptic commentary. The pension records mention saber wounds that must be explained. Chesney provided a setting for a dragoon-North Carolina encounter by reporting a contest between McDowell, the dragoons, and 71st.

  Cavalry actions are best described by Young and Simons. When their accounts are combined with Tarleton, a different sequence of mounted activity emerges than that in traditional versions. Lee is a secondary source with considerable detail. He had many opportunities to discuss the engagement with Washington during their later campaigns in 1781.

  Pursuit is covered by Young; Tarleton and Otterson provide support. Details are found in Seymour, Howard, and pension documents. Johnson misled historians by saying Tarleton’s baggage was plundered by Tories. Local historians provided information about Tarleton’s retreat in terms of the early nineteenth century.

  Sites can be identified in Milk’s Atlas and then tentatively marked on modern county road maps. Cartographic overviews which proved useful were the 1775 Mouzon Map and the 1773 Cook Map. (Tarleton’s use of “Thickelle” Creek suggests he was using the Mouzon map.) Faden’s map illustrating Tarleton’s Campaigns was helpful. Some background material was obtained by working with Collet’s 1770 map. Of particular utility were modern topographic and county road maps of the operations area. These detailed maps show the modern road network, streams, and ridges in detail. Comparing them to eighteenth-century maps, Mills’s, and written material helped pinpoint prebattle movements as well as the pursuit. The best battlefield maps are the Hammond, Pigree, and Clove maps, as well as a two-foot contour survey of the park.

  There are many minor details from varied sources which make the battle come alive, especially in the pension files. Too numerous to mention in detail, they are cited in the text. Three pension accounts serve as examples. Tramell provides key elements of the militia line’s right flank and command structure, as well as a revealing comment by Morgan. Wells comments on the movements of the Delaware Company and mentions he was wearing coat, vest, and shirt when wounded. Martin details Virginia militia units and places his company in the Green River Road while naming the Maryland officers next to him.

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