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00:00Previously on The Revolution, the British shifted focus to the southern colonies with a month-long siege of Charleston.
00:07Charleston is the richest port in America at the time.
00:11By moving south, they were moving to an area where they hoped they could restore British authority.
00:17Even though their backs were to the wall when the British army moved south,
00:22they could not bear the risk of putting weapons in the arms of black men.
00:28To arm those people you have formerly held in captivity might be a suicidal thing to do.
00:33If the seizure of southern states doesn't work, it's not clear what will work.
00:37I don't think anyone is more surprised than the British that they haven't won yet.
00:41The question they're asking is why isn't this thing over yet?
00:59May 1780.
01:03The War of Independence now enters its fourth year, longer than anyone had imagined.
01:10Battle after battle has failed to bring either side closer to winning.
01:16In the north, where the revolution began, the war has ground to a deadlock.
01:25But in the south, the fighting has just begun.
01:33With their victory in Charleston, South Carolina, the British set grander sights toward establishing authority across all the southern colonies.
01:43The colonies here would be a handsome prize for King George.
01:49It is a land rich in lucrative crops like tobacco and rice.
01:54And by all accounts, full of colonists loyal to the crown.
01:59The British expect to find little resistance.
02:04Here, at last, they would find colonists loyal to the king and eager to embrace the British Empire.
02:11Especially for its protection and trade.
02:15By moving south, they were moving to an area where they hoped that they could finally restore British authority and
02:23put the loyalists in charge.
02:24The goal was always to try to isolate the rebellion.
02:28The assumption was that most colonists, given the chance, would be loyalists.
02:33For four years, the British have tried to find those colonists loyal to the crown.
02:38For four years, they have encountered an America deeply divided.
02:43But now, down south, they believe they have their strongest foothold.
02:51The south needs England.
02:53And England needs the south.
02:58They will drive their strategy toward the back country.
03:02Into this frontier, the British send one of their most effective and ambitious officers, Colonel Bannister Tarleton.
03:11He is destined to become a household name in the south.
03:14Only it will not be for bravery, but for brutality.
03:19Tarleton is known for his daring, for moving his cavalry quickly, the troops, quick hits.
03:28He's also known for just, for no restraint.
03:32He's a little bit of a dandy, which was appropriate for that era.
03:35But he fights like a Tasmanian devil.
03:41The British will not only raise and train a loyalist militia to keep peace in the south.
03:46They will hunt down rebels and destroy them.
03:50No one is better suited to that task than Tarleton.
03:56One hundred miles from the coast, he closes in on the remains of the Continental Army in retreat from their
04:02defeat at Charleston.
04:08With great speed and agility, Tarleton's British cavalry catches up to a regiment of 350 Continentals under the command of
04:16Colonel Abraham Buford.
04:18He pursues them to a town called Waxhaws.
04:26Tarleton sends Buford a deadly threat.
04:28You are now encompassed by a corps of 700 light troops on horseback.
04:33Half of that number are light infantry with cannon. The rest, cavalry.
04:37Bannister Tarleton, British officer.
04:40It's a bluff. Tarleton has no more than 200 men.
04:44But they are his best soldiers, well trained in the bayonet and sabre.
04:50Buford, sure that he has the greater numbers, doesn't back down.
04:54Sir, I reject your proposals.
04:57I shall defend myself until the last extremity.
05:01Colonel Abraham Buford.
05:03Fire!
05:10Buford's words will prove prophetic.
05:20The Americans are able to fire just a few volleys before they are overrun.
05:27But Tarleton doesn't stop there.
05:30As the rebels raise the white flag of surrender, he continues a ferocious attack.
05:35Cutting down enemy soldiers, even as they lay down their arms.
05:47It will soon be remembered as the Waxhaws massacre.
05:54Our captain attempted to defend his head with his left arm until the arm was hacked off.
05:59His head was then laid open to the eyes.
06:04Continental Soldier.
06:09Waxhaws is a painful loss for the Americans.
06:16But they will turn their defeat into another kind of victory.
06:19On the propaganda front.
06:23The Battle of the Waxhaws is used by patriot propagandists to depict the British as monsters who will massacre their
06:31soldiers in a dishonorable fashion and ride roughshod over the countryside.
06:36Any occupying force trying to subdue a rebellion on the home soil of an insurgency is going to operate at
06:45a disadvantage when it comes to the propaganda war.
06:53Waxhaws will be remembered and used as a battle cry against the British.
07:00It sets the tone for the divisive war coming in the backcountry.
07:07Bannister Tarleton receives a reprimand from his superiors, but they do little else to rein him in.
07:16The man now known as Bloody Bann continues deeper into the backcountry, where the British are about to dig themselves
07:23an even bigger hole.
07:30In an effort to shore up loyalty and frighten would-be rebels, the British issue an ultimatum to southerners.
07:36All persons who shall neglect to return their allegiance to his majesty's government will be considered as enemies and rebels
07:44and treated accordingly.
07:51In most parts of the country, in most years of the revolution, people had been able to stay out of
08:00the way, at least partially.
08:02But now it was do or die.
08:08The severe proclamation is the work of Sir Henry Clinton, the overall commander of the British forces in America.
08:16Clinton should have known better.
08:23Back in 1776, the British issued nearly the same document in New Jersey, banking on strong loyalist sentiment.
08:34It backfired then, and it will backfire now.
08:39The verity here, if there is one, is if you're going to push someone off of the fence,
08:44you ought to be pretty certain which side of the fence they're going to fall on.
08:48Huzzah!
08:49To war!
08:51Now, everyone must choose, for or against, loyalist or patriot.
08:57Old rivalries and fresh wounds inform their choices.
09:01The British have created a tempest in a teapot.
09:12The loyalists who do come out to join the fight for the king, do so for their own agendas.
09:20And they will soon be met by an equal force, equal in number and violence, of patriots.
09:31A hornet's nest is stirred in the south, unleashing a fight that looks less like a revolution, and more like
09:39a civil war.
09:50The British army now moves deeper into the Carolina backcountry.
09:55Having declared, in a misguided proclamation, anyone not a friend, an enemy,
10:01they intend to back up their words with force.
10:07But resistance is deeper than they think.
10:14Late June, 1780.
10:17British Commander Sir Henry Clinton has lived in Charleston for a month now,
10:21and can sense trouble brewing in the wilderness.
10:25His response?
10:27Leave for New York, and turn the southern command over to another officer.
10:37London, England.
10:41The man who will replace Clinton is no stranger to the American war.
10:46General Charles Cornwallis will soon return to the colonies, but a changed man.
10:54He has been in England to bury his beloved wife.
10:59Now, with her passing, Cornwallis can think only of escaping his memories,
11:04going back to the one place he hopes will be a tonic for his grief.
11:10He is devastated.
11:15And, like many men, throws himself back into his work.
11:20In Cornwallis' case, it was the work of fighting the war.
11:25Whether he wins or loses in the colonies is no longer the point.
11:29I am now returning to America.
11:32Not with views of conquest and ambition.
11:34Nothing brilliant can be expected in that quarter.
11:37But I find England quite unsupportable to me.
11:41It has now no chance for me.
11:43I must shift the scene.
11:50But Cornwallis will find the war in America changed, too, from how it had been fought up north.
11:57The British forces on the ground are moving further and further into unknown territory.
12:03A wild country, made up of remote farms, simmering with rivalries.
12:11This is not the south of wealthy ports and rich rice farms.
12:16This is the south of fetid swamps and untamed frontiers.
12:21Here, loyalties are not so clear.
12:30Those who might be loyalists, like everyone in this backcountry frontier, harbor grudges the British don't understand.
12:38Decades of land disputes and old animosities carried to the new world by each successive wave of immigrants have poisoned
12:46the territory.
12:49All it takes is the presence of war to seriously stir things up.
12:55The south soon crawls with men like David Fanning.
13:00A struggling farmer, he had been robbed of everything he had two years back by a group claiming to be
13:06patriots.
13:09Now, with a powerful British mandate to ride under, he devotes himself to vengeance.
13:23Fanning also gathers more like him.
13:26Loyalist militia swarm over the backcountry with their campaign of terror.
13:30They are less interested in the outcome of the revolution than in the chance to pillage and grab land from
13:36their patriot neighbors.
13:39I heard the horses coming in such a furious manner, but I had no time for thought.
13:44They were up to the house, entered with drawn swords and pistols in their hands, crying out,
13:48where'd these rebel women.
13:50Then they began to plunder the house of everything they thought worth taking.
13:55Eliza Wilkinson.
14:02Patriots soon join the fray.
14:05Men like Thomas Sumpter, a former Continental soldier, take up their arms to battle the Loyalists.
14:13Stirred out of what he hoped would be retirement, Sumpter gets back into the fight for personal reasons, too.
14:20His house had been targeted by Loyalists.
14:23For him, as with men on both sides, the cause of independence takes a backseat to payback and plundering.
14:32In the South, it's American against American.
14:34There are entire battles fought. In fact, there are 103 different battles in South Carolina alone,
14:40where there's nary a Brit in sight.
14:43This is Tory militia against Patriot militia.
14:49Each side attempts to outdo the other in terror and brutality.
14:56Quipping, tar and feathering, and a particularly gruesome device called the spigot,
15:01becomes as commonplace as revenge.
15:05A Loyalist was placed with one foot upon a sharp pin and turned around.
15:10As cruel as this punishment might seem to those who never witnessed the unrelenting cruelties of the Loyalists,
15:16I viewed the punishment with no little satisfaction.
15:19Charles Gibson, Southern Patriot.
15:23When the blood started to flow, it was revenge and counter-revenge.
15:28One killing provoked a counter-killing.
15:31It really tapped into these pre-revolutionary resentments and conflicts.
15:39It's like a fire feeding itself.
15:44It is, in short, a civil war.
15:52The entire strategy was failing for Cornwallis and the British,
15:56producing not peace and order, but chaos and retribution.
16:03What happened to Cornwallis in the South is a long and bloody guerilla war that had, by that time,
16:12made it extremely dangerous for anyone to reveal he was a Loyalist.
16:19This was not the way warfare was supposed to be conducted,
16:22what people called the dogs of civil war.
16:25This was the way wars were fought in the southern backcountry.
16:30Cornwallis must rethink the very premises of his campaign.
16:35Forget the Loyalists and their private wars.
16:38Attack the rebels where it counts most, the Army.
16:44Cornwallis is a man utterly devoid of self-doubt.
16:47He really becomes convinced that he can lick the remainder of the southern department of the Continental Army.
16:53So he engages, once essentially, a headlong rush to complete the annihilation of this force.
17:00From his headquarters in New Jersey, General George Washington realizes he must respond.
17:08He prepares to fortify the Army in the South with new troops,
17:13and more importantly, with a new commander.
17:17But the man he wants to lead the Continental Army in the South is snubbed by Congress.
17:25Instead, the Continental Congress will send their man.
17:31They turn to General Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga, to head up the southern campaign.
17:40George Washington is furious.
17:43They have chosen one of his greatest rivals, and a general he considers inferior.
17:48But for now, Washington can do nothing to stop an unfolding disaster.
17:59In the Carolinas, civil order crumbles as patriots and loyalists battle each other.
18:07In July, Congress scrambles to form and equip a southern army.
18:13At its head, against the advice of George Washington, Congress sends General Horatio Gates.
18:22Gates was the hero of Saratoga three years earlier, when he defeated General John Burgoyne in the largest British surrender
18:29of the war.
18:34Yet there are whispers.
18:36Some say he stole credit for Saratoga from Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan.
18:43But he is not the great general he claims to be.
18:47Gates, ever proud, ignores the doubters and focuses on his grand ambitions.
18:54Horatio Gates wanted to be Commander-in-Chief of the American Army.
18:58And it goes much beyond that.
19:02Whoever was the victorious leader of the revolutionaries would emerge as the leader of a new nation.
19:09And there had to be a new ruler, some new kind of ruler, no one had decided what yet.
19:17I think he might have been that ambitious and that foolish.
19:21But the challenges of the south still await him.
19:25Gates will soon take charge of an army in a dire state.
19:30He will inherit 1,400 soldiers still reeling from the defeats at Charleston and Waxhawes.
19:40I have, says Gates, an army without strength and a military chest without money.
19:49In the barren swamplands of South Carolina, Gates' army of professional soldiers slowly starves.
19:57They are as short on provisions as they are on the will to fight.
20:02Gates does little to alleviate their conditions.
20:06His soldiers, many of whom have been in the army since the outset, turn even more bitter.
20:12Being again disappointed, fatigued and almost famished, their patience began to forsake them.
20:18Their looks began to be vindictive.
20:22Mutiny was ready to manifest itself.
20:25Colonel Williams.
20:28But Gates will soon get relief.
20:31The Patriot militia who have been fighting their own wars in the backcountry,
20:35now turn out to fight alongside the army.
20:39What they lack in experience, they make up for in spirit.
20:43The militia are itching to take on the British.
20:46And General Gates thinks they can.
20:50The Continental soldiers, now in the minority, are less sure.
20:55They foresee trouble.
20:58We soldiers could not imagine how an army consisting of more than two-thirds militia,
21:02and which had never once been exercised in arms together, could perform in the face of an enemy.
21:08Colonel Williams.
21:12Gates will mount his campaign against Cornwallis, ready or not.
21:18Faith in his militia, and in himself, is at an all-time high.
21:25Gates has still been stung by assertions that he doesn't really deserve the credit for the victory at Saratoga.
21:32He sees an opportunity to silence his critics and show them once and for all that he, in fact, is
21:38the best and most experienced American battlefield commander,
21:42and that he can beat the British, whether on the defensive or on the offensive.
21:50Gates' chance comes sooner than he imagines.
21:54On August 16th, the two armies stumble upon each other at Camden, South Carolina.
22:01Each side hastily sets up for a battle.
22:055,000 British move into position, where they will meet Gates' 3,000 men.
22:131,000-1,000-1,000-1,000-1,000-1,000-1,000.
22:22General Gates sends his militia out front,
22:25where they get their first taste of the best trained army in the world.
22:32But his audacity has caused him to make a serious tactical error, one with dire consequences.
22:41Gates places the militia on the left of his line, a position for which they are ill-prepared.
22:48The British Army will always put its best units at the right of its line, which is the place of
22:55honor.
22:55From the British perspective, the British have their best regiments facing off against the weakest and most ill-prepared American
23:06regiments.
23:09The best of the British is led by none other than bloody Ban Tarleton, the Butcher of Waxhaws.
23:16He now leads a fierce bayonet charge into the militia.
23:25Can't you imagine them just standing there and watching this line of red coming at them, you know, hazzahing and
23:31presenting 18 inches of cold steel coming at them.
23:40Fear fuels confusion on the battlefield. They are fighting a losing battle.
23:46Almost immediately, the militia panic, break and run.
23:51Out of the blood!
23:55He who has never seen the effect of panic upon a multitude can have but an imperfect idea of such
24:00a thing.
24:01The best disciplined troops have been made cowards by it.
24:05Colonel Williams.
24:10But they do not flee alone.
24:14Fast overtaking them is General Horatio Gates himself.
24:18The general who came south to gain glory now takes off on his horse as fast as possible, as far
24:25as it will carry him.
24:28What began as a rather courageous venture now turns into a flight for his life and he rides us 200
24:37miles all the way back to Hillsboro without stopping and becomes the butt of every mean-spirited joke in the
24:44Continental Army for the next two years.
24:49I think he went into a complete panic.
24:52The situation was just too much for him.
24:57Alexander Hamilton praised him on his ride to safety.
25:02He said, it's quite remarkable for a man of his age to have ridden so far so fast.
25:13The Battle of Camden scars Gates' reputation forever.
25:19It similarly tarnishes the army, and in particular, the militia.
25:25Few now believe the Patriots can hold the south.
25:32Even though the future of the revolution depends on it.
25:47The defeat at Camden and Waxhaws have decimated the Continental Southern Divisions.
25:55Of the 3,000 troops who marched at Camden, over half have been killed, captured, or wounded.
26:02The majority of the Patriot militia simply disappear back into the wilds.
26:08The south has all but fallen to the British.
26:13In New Jersey, George Washington soon receives news of the defeat at Camden.
26:21Washington feared the worst when Congress appointed Horatio Gates, and the worst has happened.
26:28Gates will face court-martial.
26:32But there is a more urgent concern.
26:35Who will now lead Washington's southern army?
26:39It's after Gates' debacle at Camden that Washington is finally allowed to send the man he wants.
26:49And, of course, he goes to Major General Nathaniel Green.
26:54I can venture to introduce this gentleman to you as a man of abilities, bravery, and coolness.
27:01George Washington.
27:05Nathaniel Green is Washington's most trusted subordinate.
27:10A New England Patriot and fallen Quaker, Green has proven time and time again to be one of the most
27:17brilliant commanders in the Continental Army.
27:22Truly one of America's great generals.
27:25And nobody knows who he is.
27:29Washington says, if I'm shot in battle, if I can no longer take command, the general I want to lead
27:36is Nathaniel Green.
27:40Among the many qualities that recommended Nathaniel Green to George Washington was his can-do attitude.
27:46All military commanders want subordinates that will never admit defeat, that always say they can find some way to accomplish
27:52the mission.
27:56Green will travel far from his native New England to take on this formidable command.
28:03Only to find an army ravaged and dispirited.
28:09I am removed from almost all my friends and connections and have to prosecute a war with almost insurmountable difficulties.
28:18I cannot contemplate my own situation without the greatest degree of anxiety.
28:23Nathaniel Green, Continental General.
28:27Only 800 are deemed fit for duty.
28:32The rest, Green reports, are literally naked, starving with cold and hunger.
28:43In letter after letter, Green beseeches the 13 colonies for supplies and troops.
28:49To no effect.
28:50He begins to fear mutiny.
28:56It is impracticable to preserve discipline when troops are in want of everything.
29:02Be assured that you raise men in vain unless you clothe, arm and equip them properly for the field.
29:08Nathaniel Green.
29:12Green and the Southern Army have all but been abandoned.
29:16He will attempt to supply his troops through local sources.
29:20But there is a threat more urgent than starvation.
29:25Cornwallis is on the march.
29:28Green needs a strategy and a miracle to keep his army from total destruction.
29:38The fortune Green needs soon arrives in the form of Colonel Daniel Morgan.
29:45One of the most courageous and unusual officers the Americans have.
29:54Morgan's past is cloaked in mystery and he never speaks of it.
30:00By age 17, he appears as part of the British Army during the French and Indian War.
30:06By then, he is already a rough and scrappy boy, hardened from a backwoods frontier life.
30:16By nature, he is a fighter and carries scars from every brawl and knockdown,
30:21including 500 lashes for punching his superior officer in his early days.
30:26From then on, Morgan becomes the stuff of patriot legend.
30:31He really is a roughneck frontiersman.
30:35Vulgar, hard-drinking, hard-fighting man.
30:39He really is the sort of stuff of fiction.
30:42But his rise through the ranks of the Continental Army is fact.
30:46A result of his enormous talent.
30:50Daniel Morgan would never have been made a general in the British Army.
30:55Morgan moves ahead because of ability.
30:56And he's a great example of the coming meritocracy.
31:02You don't have to be born into the gentry to be an officer.
31:05If you have the ability, if you have the stick-to-it-ness.
31:11By the time Morgan reaches the South, his hard-earned reputation
31:15and his role at major battles like Saratoga gains him the respect of patriots
31:20and the resentment of the enemy.
31:24No one is better suited to fighting in the rough southern lands than Morgan.
31:32With Morgan now at his side, Green will enact one of the boldest and most irregular moves of the war.
31:40Green will split his army.
31:45Nathanael Green adopts what might be considered an unconventional approach to this war.
31:49He's going to break his force.
31:51He's going to divide it into something in flying columns.
31:54Very mobile columns.
31:55He knows the British Army doesn't know the territory.
31:59And he knows that since they want to draw him into a decisive battle,
32:03he can lead them through the backwoods, through the marshes,
32:08into what are ultimately indecisive conflicts that's going to spread the British Army thin.
32:16Green and Morgan take off on separate paths.
32:20Green to the southeast, Morgan to the southwest.
32:25As if on cue, Cornwallis too splits his army,
32:29sending the infamous Tarleton after Morgan, while he himself pursues Green.
32:36The four flying armies, the prey and the predators,
32:40move through some of the roughest terrain on the eastern seaboard.
32:44Each following their own will to win.
32:49Cornwallis, Green, Tarleton, and Morgan.
32:55Four ambitious and gifted leaders, now engaged in a headlong chase.
33:09On the fringes of their armies, they skirmish.
33:16Confirming over and over again the proximity of each other's troops.
33:23Yet Green and Morgan, with their lighter armies, move faster, avoiding a major battle.
33:29Instead, they draw the British deeper into the backcountry,
33:33further from supply lines and reinforcements.
33:37General Cornwallis, the British commander, grows more frustrated with each mile of rough terrain.
33:43The farther Green goes, the more intent Cornwallis becomes on catching him.
33:50He is going to chase Nathaniel Green all around the Carolinas, trying to gain that decisive battle.
33:56Green, knowing better than to engage Cornwallis on Cornwallis' terms,
34:01is not going to let Cornwallis catch up to him.
34:05As close as Cornwallis gets, Green is always able to stay one small step ahead of him.
34:13Be a little careful, and tread softly.
34:17For depend on it, you have a modern Hannibal to deal with in the person of Cornwallis.
34:26Daniel Morgan has his own nemesis to contend with.
34:30Bannister Tarleton and his ferocious regiment.
34:34Morgan knows he can't outrun them for long.
34:41Up north, far from the swamps of the south, the war for independence looks very staid.
34:49No armies engage, nor are battles fought.
34:53Here, the British and Continentals are at an impasse.
34:59In New York City, Sir Henry Clinton, the overall commander of the British in America,
35:04whiles away his time in luxury.
35:11There was a lot of going to dinner. He put on a lot of weight.
35:14There was a lot of inspecting the troops.
35:18All the things that a parade ground general, as they were called, would do, short of fighting.
35:28The war down south is far off.
35:31Clinton receives fewer and fewer dispatches from Cornwallis,
35:35but that doesn't concern him.
35:37At least not enough to leave New York City.
35:4650 miles away, in Hartford, Connecticut, another man with eyes on New York takes a meeting that he hopes will
35:53change the war.
35:57General George Washington hasn't seen a battle in a long while, nearly three years, but now his prospects may be
36:04changing.
36:08The French are in town, and Washington and his counterparts, the Marquis de Lafayette and Comte de Rochambeau, raise their
36:17glasses to a united front against the British.
36:20They toast with French wine, but it is France's navy that is on everyone's mind.
36:29Seven French warships sit in a Rhode Island harbor.
36:34Washington believes they are enough to launch an attack on New York and wrestle it back from the British.
36:40Rochambeau is more circumspect.
36:45A veteran of European wars, Rochambeau shows patience, where Washington displays zeal.
36:51The French general prefers to wait for more reinforcements, much to the frustration of the Americans.
37:04Though these French ships sit idly in Newport, Rhode Island, the French have already tipped the balance of power in
37:11the war, but in less obvious ways.
37:15From an American perspective, the French navy has not been that significant to this point in the war.
37:22The American perspective is a little bit biased and not very complete.
37:27In colonies and oceans all over the world, the French are taking on the British, forcing them to fight a
37:34world war from the Caribbean to Cairo to Calcutta.
37:39The French navy has helped extend the British army and British navy over a far wider expanse, indeed around the
37:49globe.
37:49When in the absence of the French navy, the British were free to concentrate on North America.
37:54But the Americans don't quite see it this way.
37:57Washington sees only that he must delay his goal of taking New York.
38:02The battles for now remain in the south.
38:09January 16th, South Carolina.
38:17Daniel Morgan can no longer avoid confronting Tarleton's forces.
38:24Now, he must prepare to fight.
38:31On the eve of their battle, Morgan visits with his troops.
38:36Out of 600 men, more than half are militia.
38:40The same untrained forces that were last seen fleeing the field at Camden.
38:47Morgan's challenge?
38:48Make them engage.
38:53As he faces the most grueling battle of his life, Morgan rallies these citizen soldiers.
39:04Just hold up your head, boys.
39:06When you return to your homes, how the old folks will bless you for your gallant conduct.
39:12Daniel Morgan.
39:14Morgan has great rapport with his troops.
39:17He loves to joke with them, to talk with them.
39:20I think they really just find him one of the great officers they've ever served under.
39:25He tells them things like, we'll have you home soon, boys, to kiss your girlfriends.
39:33January 17th.
39:35On a mild winter morning, the battle takes shape on a field known as cow pens.
39:41Here, Morgan puts into play his own new strategy, one of the most inventive of the war, and most timely.
39:50Up to that point in the war, nobody had figured out how to use militia in a formal battle.
39:57Because they weren't trained to meet British regulars in a formal engagement.
40:02Morgan, he figures it out.
40:11Like others before him, Morgan puts his militia out front, the first line to meet Tarleton's charging British soldiers.
40:20Only this time, he tells them to fire just two shots, a quick volley, and then fall back.
40:29Against the onslaught of the British charge, they do just that.
40:34When the British see this, they think that they have earned a replay of candy.
40:40That they have essentially caused a rout of the militia forces, who are breaking from the field.
40:46They will pursue a headlong rush and find themselves facing the very well-directed volley fires of Morgan's regulars.
40:57The result is predictable for Tarleton's legion.
41:02Bannister Tarleton, the aggressive and ambitious young officer, drives right into Morgan's trap.
41:09The Continentals reply with alarming force.
41:23British infantry scatter and retreat.
41:27Tarleton will try to push them on again, but within an hour, the battle is lost.
41:36Tarleton has chased Morgan all across the south to end here, defeated by the rough and tumble American at Cowpans.
41:47Talk about a conflict of styles.
41:50You have this very arrogant, dashing, cruel British officer, young guy, and Daniel Morgan.
41:58And they're both playing for keeps, you know.
42:00How can you not love that victory when Daniel Morgan just beats the tar out of Tarleton?
42:11Most of the entire British detachment at Cowpans is killed, captured, or wounded.
42:18This time, it is bloody Bannister Tarleton who is seen fleeing the field.
42:25He will escape, soon to rejoin Cornwallis' army, thirsting for revenge.
42:35It was Morgan's win.
42:37Morgan had outplanned, outstrategized, and outled his counterpart.
42:43He had transformed his militia army at their moment of greatest need.
42:50But it will be the backcountry brawler's last battle.
42:54Morgan, all along, suffered quietly from painful back ailments and rheumatism.
43:04You could say, why is he retiring now?
43:06He's just won this big, monumental victory.
43:10And the real question is, how was he able to fight at all?
43:13During the Battle of Cowpans, it's very painful for him.
43:17And his commanding officer, Nathaniel Green, says,
43:21you've earned the right to go home.
43:25Morgan, who had spent a lifetime of fighting,
43:28will now watch the war from a small farm in Virginia,
43:32from the sidelines.
43:39For Nathaniel Green, the chase is still on.
43:43Cornwallis is closing in,
43:44and with Charlton again by his side,
43:47they will come at Green with everything they've got.
43:51The war in the South will go on, as bloody and vicious as ever.
43:55But the stakes are rising.
43:59From the South, to the North, to across the Atlantic Ocean,
44:03everyone is asking the same question.
44:07How will this war end?
44:09And when?
44:11For everyone, time is running out on the American Revolution.
44:20For everyone.
44:20In particular...
44:46To the first one, we're probably recalling
44:46Because of the lain, yeah.
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