Battle of Cowpens

As a history buff, I enjoyed the book but not as much as Kenneth Roberts' trilogy on the Revolutionary War (Arundel, Rabble in Arms, and Oliver Wiswell), which are novels against the historical backdrop of that period. History told as part of a novel seems to me to be more exiting. But don't get me wrong; the Battle of Cowpens is insightful (as were, as well, the novels of the aforementioned trilogy). Kenneth Roberts (a Pulitzer Prize winner)did extensive research in writing his accounts of the Revolutionary War, and one can place unquestionable credence in what he wrote. In the Battle of Cowpens, one can see how clever Daniel Morgan was in using terrain to his advantage for the battle and confirm what an incompetent fool Horatio Gates was, a so-called hero who received false credit for winning the Battle of Saratoga (covered in Rabble at Arms). Morgan appeared in Arundel but was overshadowed by Benedict Arnold. In this book Morgan is shown to be just as heroic as Arnold and just as capable, skillful, and heroic.

When he died on July 21, 1957, Kenneth Roberts was working on an historical novel of the American Revolutionary War which featured the battle of Cowpens. The description of the battle which was published as the fourth volume of the *Kenneth Roberts Reader of the American Revolution* was his last piece of historical writing. It was published in an abridged version by *Collier's*, and reprinted in 1976 as a booklet by Herbert Faulkner West. West also included a five-page extract from a piece written by Roberts in 1936 and originally published in *Modern Book Collecting for the Impecunious Amateur*, describing Roberts' method of historical research and setting forth his belief that historical novelists, by the nature of their art, are often much more careful with their historical sources than professional historians.*The Battle of Cowpens* itself, an eighty-page essay, starts by describing the general context of the battle, with Clinton first occupying Charleston then leaving Cornwallis in charge of South Carolina, and Cornwallis disobeying Clinton's orders by deciding to strike at Virginia, resulting in the defeat of Horatio Gates at Camden, South Carolina. (Those who have read *Rabble in Arms* know Roberts' opinion of Gates, which he reiterates here.) The two protagonists of the Battle of Cowpens are then presented: Daniel Morgan, the leader of the American troops, whom Roberts compares to his hero of the Northern Army, Benedict Arnold; and Banastre Tarleton, "an incomparable cavalry leader", who later became a member of Parliament and died in 1833, aged seventy-eight (contrary to the fictional character of William Tavington in Gibson's *The Patriot*, who was loosely based on him.)The battle itself is described in detail, sometimes polemically or in a dramatized way, with extracts from Nathanael Greene's orders to Morgan, and from Morgan's and Tarleton's own accounts of Cowpens (the latter wrote a *History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America*, which Roberts used as a source.) Strategic and tactical maps are included at the end, together with a profile of the Cowpens, as relief played an important part in Morgan's battle plans.The booklet is just as gripping as an episode from the British TV series *In the Line of Fire*, with Roberts' evocative style doing the work of the computer graphics. It is definitely a good place to start for those who have seen Mel Gibson's *The Patriot* and wish to know what really happened at the battle that inspired its climactic action sequence.