This cache is located at the Trailhead Parking Lot for the Interpretive Trail through Cowpens National Battlefield. The Battlefield area can also be reached by car through the entrance about a mile down Highway 11 from the cache(near the intersection of Hwy 11 and 110).
Visitor Center parking and the museum is available from 9am to 5pm. The center has an 18 minute film, a museum with authentic Revolutionary War weapons, and VERY helpful & friendly Rangers.
The Battlefield Trail is a 1.25-mile self-guided trail that begins and ends at the Visitor Center.
The 3 mile driveable Loop Road is open from 9am to 4:30pm.
The Trailhead Parking lot and trail is open from Dawn to Dusk.
This cache is available from sunrise to sunset. Do NOT search after dark.
Pets are not allowed in buildings, and must be on a leash(no longer than 6 feet long) at all times.
Permission for this has been granted by the National Park Service by the Head Ranger for Cowpens National Battlefield and after submission of an NPS application for Special Use Permit.
You must park in a designated spot at the Trailhead Parking Lot. The cache is just across the road.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Brief Account: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
On the morning of January 17, 1781, a combined force of Patriot Continentals and militia commanded by Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeated a British army under Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton during the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina. This Patriot victory during the American Revolution was one of several British defeats in the southern colonies that eventually led to the October 1781 British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia. Commemorative efforts at the battleground began in 1856 when the Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, SC, erected a monument.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Synopsis of THE BATTLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ON THIS FIELD on January 17, 1781, Daniel Morgan led his army of tough Continentals and backwoods militia to a brilliant victory over Banastre Tarleton's large force of British Regulars. When he marched his army onto this field the previous afternoon, Morgan was trying to elude a British trap. That morning, as his men cooked breakfast in camp on Thicketty Creek, scouts brought news that Tarleton had crossed the Pacloet River, 12 miles south, and was coming fast. They broke camp immediately and moved down the road. Their destination: the Cow Pens, a frontier pasturing ground on the road to a ford across the Broad River 6 miles to the NW. Morgan's position was precarious: if he crossed the river, most of his militia would probably desert him. If Tarleton caught the Americans on the road or the river, they could all be cut down.
MORGAN CHOSE TO STAND AND FIGHT.
He chose to fight in an open wooded area on ground that sloped gently southeast, the direction from which the British would approach.
THE BATTLE was over in less than an hour.
British losses: 110 killed, 229 wounded, and 600 men captured or missing.
Morgan's losses: 24 killed, and 104 wounded.
As Morgan later told a friend, he had given Tarleton and the British a "devil of a whipping".
For the Patriots, it was an overwhelming victory.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE ULTIMATE OUTCOME. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The outcome of the American Revolution was ultimately determined by British failure during the second southern campaign, failure due in large part to the Battle of Cowpens. Together with Kings Mountain, Guilford Courthouse, and Ninety Six, Cowpens was an important link in the chain of events that crippled British operations in the South and led to the surrender of Cornwallis. Coming in the wake of major Patriot defeats at Charleston and Camden, Cowpens boosted sagging Patriot morale. But the Batlle of Cowpens was perhaps the greatest Patriot victory of the war. The combined force of Continentals and militia overwhelmingly defeated a British army on its own terms of eighteenth-century warfare.
As historian John Buchanan observed, Cowpens was "the tactical masterpiece of the war."
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Cowpens National Battlefield is an 841.56-acre historical site located along Highway 11 (The Cherokee Foothills Scenic Parkway) in Cherokee County, South Carolina.
GETTING THERE:
Visitors traveling Highway 11 (SC CHerokee Foothills Scenic Parkway) will find the battlefield near Hwy 11's junction with Hwy 110.
FROM I-85: take Exit 83. Go 7.5 miles North towards Chesnee up Hwy 110, which intersects with Hwy 11. Turn Right and follow the signs.
The Battlefield is just down the road on the right.
The TRAILHEAD Parking Lot is about a mile further down Hwy 11.
The National Park Service (NPS) maintains a visitor center and museum, a picnic area, an interpretive loop road, an interpretive walking trail, two monuments, a historic road trace, a historic house, and historic chimney ruins (see above information).
Did You Know?
Of the 11 medals awarded to veterans of the American Revolution, three of them were awarded for the Battle of Cowpens: Daniel Morgan, John Eager Howard, and William Washington.
More information:
Cowpens National Battlefield Visitor Center: 964-461-2828
Or visit www.nps.gov/cowp
FTF HONORS GO TO...Martins5!!!