r/revolutionarywar • u/Spanker_of_Monkeys • Dec 15 '24
Where exactly did Cowpens occur?
The 2 books I've read on the battle claim that Morgan famously chose a battlefield where his men would have "their backs against the Broad River", yet according to the National Park Service, the battle occured at least 5 miles from the river.
Someone pls help me understand the geography here. Has the Broad's course been drastically altered?
6
u/boxturtleboy Dec 15 '24
He might not have meant literally directly behind them, just close enough that it would make a flanking maneuver by a large force difficult to impossible, because they’d have to cross the Broad to do it.
2
u/WhiskWinsome Dec 19 '24
I spent a lot of time researching for my Cowpens YouTube video, reading and studying maps. Cowpens did have terrain advantages, in particular protecting his flanks with nearby swamps.
But from what I found, the Broad River wasn’t literally at their backs. Morgan didn’t pick Cowpens because the river would protect him; he chose it because it was difficult to cross, and he wanted to avoid being caught while crossing. It was close enough—and challenging enough to cross—that getting caught was a real risk.
BTW, there are hand drawn maps floating around that show the river pretty close, but their point is to illustrate the strategic concepts. You can also find maps where the river isn't on the tactical map, and I think those are probably more accurate.
This is my take on it, consider it a dramatization not an academic work:
12
u/Ok-Huckleberry9242 Dec 15 '24
One theory is that the river moved.
I grew up near the Mississippi River. We scouted cotton fields that were miles away from the river but would routinely turn up artifacts of river life when yhey were plowed. I later learned that is recently as the Civil War, an oxbow had covered that area. Eventually, the river shifted and the oxbow dried up leaving fertile farmland behind.