Hitting the Books:You Say You Want a Revolution! Mystery Cache
Hitting the Books:You Say You Want a Revolution!
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
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Welcome to the Historic Cowpens Geotrail
Come explore the Town of Cowpens and receive your very own unactivated Patriot geocoin seen above!
The trail consists of 16 caches in and around the area where one of the major victories during the Revolutionary War was won against overwhelming odds.
Inside this geocache contains the code word that you will need to write in your passport.
Download your Cowpens Passport Grid here to begin:
This cache is also a part of the Spartanburg County Public Library "Hitting the Books" Geocoin Trail!
On October 17, 1885, Spartanburg's first “public” library opened.
Thanks to a gift from Mrs. Helen Fayssoux Kennedy, the Kennedy Library opened its doors on the lot where her husband's office once stood. It began with a grand total of 900 books and a $3 per year subscription fee. Her gift honored her husband, Dr. Lionel Chalmers Kennedy, a well-known and respected physician who had died five years earlier. Among the library's first holdings was Dr. Kennedy's 600-volume medical library and some 300 other books collected and donated by the citizens of Spartanburg.
Below, there is also a link to download the SCPL passport. At each Library, you can find a geocache nearby that contains a specific stamp. Collect and record these stamps on your passport and you can collect your very own unactivated SCPL Geocoin!
Download your "Hitting the Books" Passport Grid here to begin:
You will have to decode an Arnold Cipher to find this cache. The cache is not at the posted coordinates, but it is close. Enter the building to find the tools you will need.
The Arnold Cipher was a book cipher developed by Benedict Arnold, the infamous turncoat of the American Revolution. His cipher was used to communicate with his conspirator, John André. Arnold used a book as a key to the cipher, such as Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone or Nathan Bailey's Dictionary. He would send André a piece of paper on which was written a series of numbers (separated by periods); a page number of the agreed book, a line number on that page, and a word number in that line. Arnold added missing letters or suffixes where he could not find a match in one of the books. The difficulty in deciphering an Arnold cipher lies in knowing the book used as the key.
To aid you in your search, here are some clues:
1. You are looking for a book about the Battle of Cowpens.
2. The title was taken from a letter to William Snickers from Daniel Morgan on January 26th 1781.
3. The book was published by The University of North Carolina Press in 1998.
4. Lawrence Babits is the author.
5. You MUST have the hardback version ISBN 0-8078-2434-8.
The following string of numbers is an Arnold Cipher, fitting for this cache in Cowpens, as this was the site of an important American victory in the American Revolution. The Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781, took place in the latter part of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution. It became known as the turning point of the war in the South, part of a chain of events leading to Patriot victory at Yorktown. The Cowpens victory was one over a crack British regular army and brought together strong armies and leaders who made their mark on history. Into this conflict, General George Washington sent the very capable Nathaniel Greene to take command of the Southern army. Against military custom, Greene, just two weeks into his command, split his army, sending General Daniel Morgan southwest of the Catawba River to cut supply lines and hamper British operations in the backcountry, and, in doing so "spirit up the people". General Cornwallis, British commander in the South, countered Greene’s move by sending Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton to block Morgan’s actions. Tarleton was only twenty-six, but he was an able commander, both feared and hated – hated especially for his victory at the Waxhaws. There, Tarleton was said to have continued the fight against remnants of the Continental Army trying to surrender. His refusal, tradition says, of offering no quarter, led to the derisive term "Tarleton’s Quarter". These events set the stage for the Battle of Cowpens. On January 12, 1781, Tarleton's scouts located Morgan’s army at Grindal’s Shoals on the Pacolet River in South Carolina’s backcountry and thus began an aggressive pursuit. Tarleton, fretting about heavy rains and flooded rivers, gained ground as his army proceeded toward the flood-swollen Pacolet. As Tarleton grew closer, Morgan retreated north to Burr’s Mill on Thicketty Creek. On January 16, with Tarleton reported to have crossed the Pacolet and much closer than expected, Morgan and his army made a hasty retreat, so quickly as to leave their breakfast behind. Soon, he intersected with and traveled west on the Green River Road. Here, with the flood-swollen Broad River six miles to his back, Morgan decided to make a stand at the Cowpens, a well-known crossroads and frontier pasturing ground.
The battle was over in an hour.
It was a complete victory for the Patriot force.
British losses were staggering: 110 dead, over 200 wounded and 500 captured.
Morgan lost only 12 killed and 60 wounded. Morgan had given the British a "devil of a whipping".
7:24,8. 11:15,4. 157:29,3. 74:6,7. 214:40,4. 164:28,7. 36:15,2. modern 25:31,9(ure). 138:26,7. 47:7,8. 150:15,11.
Original Cache contents include a logbook and trade items and FTF prize. Only decrypt the hint if you are about to give up!
NOTE: AVAILABLE DURING BUSINESS HOURS ONLY!
Hours:
Sun: CLOSED
Mon & Tues: 10 AM - 8 PM
Wed, Thurs & Fri: 10 AM - 6 PM
Sat: 10 AM - 4 PM
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
ernq gur uvfgbel ntnva sbe n pyhr.