General Greene being anxious to confer with Morgan, personally, left his camp on the Pee Dee, under the command of General Huger and Colonel O.H.  Williams, and started with one aid, and two or three mounted militia, for the Catawba.  On the route, he was informed of Cornwallis’ pursuit.  General Morgan had previously crossed the Catawba at the Island Ford.  On the 31st of January, General Greene reached Sherrill’s Ford, a few miles below the Island Ford, where he had an interview with Morgan, and directed his future movements.

The British army readied Salisbury on that night, and on the next morning started in pursuit of Green and Morgan.  These officers did not await the dawn, but crossed the Yadkin river at the Trading Ford, six miles beyond Salisbury, while his Lordship was quietly slumbering, and dreaming, perhaps, of future conquest and glory!  When Cornwallis awoke on the morning of the third, he hastened to strike a fatal blow on the banks of the Yadkin, but the Americans were beyond his reach, and Providence had again placed an impassable barrier of water between them.  Copious rains in the mountains had swollen the Yadkin to a mighty river.  The horses of Morgan had forded the stream at midnight, and the infantry passed over in boats at dawn.  These vessels were fastened on the eastern shore of the Yadkin, and Cornwallis was obliged to wait for the waters to subside before he could attempt to cross.  Again he had the Americans almost within his grasp.  A corps of riflemen were yet on the Western side when O’Hara, with the vanguard of the British army, approached, but these escaped across the river, after a slight skirmish.  Nothing was lost but a few wagons belonging to Whig families, who, with their effects, were fleeing with the American army.

Lord Cornwallis, after an ineffectual cannonade over the river, returned to Salisbury, and, on the 7th, marched up the western bank of the Yadkin, and crossed at the Shallow Ford, near the village of Huntsville.

Dr. Read, the surgeon of the American army, has left this record of the cannonading scene: 

“At a little distance from the river was a small cabin, in which General Greene had taken up his quarters.  At this building the enemy directed their fire, and the balls rebounded from the rocks in the rear of it.  But little of the roof was visible to the enemy.  The General was preparing his orders for the army, and his dispatches to the Congress.  In a short time the balls began to strike the roof, and clapboards were flying in all directions.  But the General’s pen never stopped, only when a new visitor arrived, or some officer for orders; and then the answer was given with calmness and precision, and Greene resumed his pen.”

It is related as a truthful tradition that, after the British army reached Salisbury, Lord Cornwallis, Tarleton, and other royal officers, were hospitably entertained by Dr. Anthony Newman, although he was a true Whig.  There, in presence of Tarleton, and other spectators, Dr. Newman’s two little sons were engaged in playing the game of the “battle of the Cowpens,” with grains of corn; red grains representing the British officers, and white grains the Americans.