The Breeze Magazine of the Lowcountry, JULY 2018

“Old Dan” Morgan was a grizzled vet with many war wounds—like having gotten his teeth knocked out by an Indian
bullet, and his back striped for laying a British lieutenant flat cold with one punch. (Legend claims 500 lashes, enough
to kill an elephant, but Morgan liked to say they miscounted and only gave him 499.) His reputation as a bar brawler no
doubt endeared him to the rowdy backwoodsmen he proved very successful at commanding. In the Battle of Cowpens,
he had them feign a fearful retreat in order to draw the British headlong into an orderly line of Continental soldiers who
promptly tore them up. Nearly one thousand Brits were killed or captured, and word of this victory spread far and wide
to inflame Patriot spirit.
Gen. Marion offering dinner to a Brittish Officer
By contrast, the Siege of Ninety Six did not prove so successful. General Nathaniel Greene and his Continental Army
failed to take the well-stocked earthworks of Star Fort, but a few months later the British abandoned post. This seems
to characterize the doings of General Greene: he always lost, yet in the end he won. Where most professional military
officers showed a certain disdain for ragtag militiamen, Greene synchronized his movements with theirs to undermine
and weaken the enemy. Famous South Carolina historian Walter Edgar wrote, “Greene never won a tactical battle in
South Carolina, but he achieved his goals of destroying the British army and winning the war. Mao Tse-tung could not
have designed a more perfect campaign.”
The last battle of the American Revolution took place at John’s Island, but by then the war was basically over. There
were few fireworks at its anticlimax. Lewis P. Jones, another South Carolina historian, has written, “The scene was
more like the quiet passing of an elderly person during the night.” It might be fair to say that we didn’t exactly beat the
British, we just caused them to want to stop fighting. But let historians debate the many factors amongst themselves.
What’s clear here in the Palmetto State is that we have quite the legacy of being dashing rebels!
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