“It was 7:45 A.M. Morgan had chosen the spot where the Continentals and the Virginians would halt and turn on the British. The officers rode up and down the line and gave the order. As it was executed Morgan galloped along their front. His great voice boomed in the din. “Face about, boys! Give them one good fire, and the victory is ours!” The British regulars continued to rush on in great disorder, quickly closing the gap. Howard wrote, “In a minute we had a perfect line.” “The enemy were now very near us.” How near has been estimated by participants at ten to thirty yards, close enough in any case that when Howard gave the order to fire a sheet of flame burst from the American line that the British “little expected” and their surge came to a sudden, shocking halt. They were thrown into confusion. Above the tumult rose John Eager Howard’s command: “Charge bayonets!”
The Maryland and Delaware Lines ran at the British with glistening steel extended. “We were in amongst them with the bayonets,” wrote Lieutenant Anderson. Hysteria consumed the British ranks. The unthinkable occurred. British regulars dropped their muskets and either fell to the ground and begged for mercy or, as Daniel Morgan described it, took to their “heels for security—helter skelter.” Up and down the American line an ominous cry arose: “Tarleton’s Quarters . . . Tarleton’s Quarters!” But Morgan was not Tarleton. He was a man of honor and his officers were made of the same stuff. The men were quickly brought under control: “Not a man was killed wounded or even insulted after he surrendered,” reported Morgan to Greene. Howard observed the British artillerymen still firing the grasshoppers and ordered them taken, which was done in short order, but the gunners, true to their rigid code of honor, refused to surrender their guns until death or serious wounds stopped further resistance. Howard personally saved a gunner who held the match from being bayoneted.
Monday, October 7, 2019
But Morgan was not Tarleton. He was a man of honor and his officers were made of the same stuff.
From The Road to Guilford Courthouse by John Buchanan. Page 324.
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