army, and the Congress sent Greene to supersede him.  Making his head-quarters in North Carolina, this experienced commander divided his force and sent General Morgan, with about one thousand men, into South Carolina to harass Cornwallis in the rear.  The latter at once sent Tarleton with eleven hundred troopers, among them his famous Legion, to cut off Morgan or drive him back upon Greene.  In the latter part of December the Americans were in the region of the upper Broad River, in Spartanburg district, South Carolina, Morgan having but one hundred and thirty mounted men—­they could hardly be called cavalry—­among whom was Washington’s troop.

It was about nine o’clock on the night of the 16th of January, 1781, that the little army was encamped between the Pacolet and Broad rivers, near a piece of thin woodland known as Hannah’s Cowpens.  The weather was very cold, for the elevation of that part of the country produces a temperature equal in severity to that of a much higher latitude, but neither tents nor shanties protected the sleeping soldiers from the frosty air.  Here and there a rough shelter of pine boughs heaped together to windward of the smouldering camp-fires told of a squad who had not been too weary to work for a little show of comfort; but in most cases the men were stretched out on the bare ground, their feet toward the embers and their arms wrapped up with them in their tattered blankets, which scarcely served to keep out the cold.  The regular troops, who had seen some service, might have been easily distinguished from the less experienced militia by their superior sleeping arrangements.  Two and sometimes three men would be found wrapped in one blanket, “spoon-fashion,” with another blanket stretched above them on four stakes to serve as a tent-fly, and their fires were usually large and well covered with green branches to prevent their burning out too rapidly.  One and all, however, slept as soundly as if reposing on beds of down, while the same quiet stars smiled on them and on the anxious wives and mothers who lay waking and praying in many a distant home.  In and out among the weird and shifting shadows of the outer lines the dim figures of the sentinels stalked with their old “Queen Anne” muskets at the “right-shoulder shift,” or tramped back and forth along their beats at the double quick to keep their blood in circulation.  At a little distance from the infantry camp the horses of Washington’s dragoons and M’Call’s mounted Georgians were picketed in groups of ten, the saddles piled together, and a sentinel paced between every two groups, while the men were stretched around their fires, sleeping on their arms like the infantry, for it was known that Tarleton had crossed the Pacolet that day, and an attack was expected at any time.  A party of officers were asleep near one of the fires, with nothing, however, to distinguish them from the men but the red or buff facings of their heavy cloaks.  One of these lay with his face to the stars, sleeping