He led a number of brave men to destruction, and then used every effort in his power to damn their fame with posterity

From The Road to Guilford Courthouse by John Buchanan. Page 326.

Cornwallis did not yet know it but he had lost his light troops. On the field at Cowpens Tarleton left eighty-six percent of his force dead, wounded, or captured: 110 killed in action, including ten officers; 712 prisoners, of whom 200 were wounded. Tarleton also left on the field the two grasshoppers, two regimental standards, thirty-five wagons, 100 horses, 800 muskets, a traveling forge, the officers’ black servants, and “all their music,” Morgan reported to Greene.

Tarleton either never understood or was unwilling to admit that in Daniel Morgan he met a master tactician who outgeneraled him. He never blamed himself. In his postwar memoirs he claimed that “the disposition was planned with coolness, and executed without embarrassment. The defeat of the British must be ascribed either to the bravery or good conduct of the Americans; to the loose manner of forming which had always been practiced by the King’s troops in America; or to some unforseen event, which may throw terror into the most disciplined soldiers, or counteract the best-concerted designs.” He decided for the record that the British manner of forming their lines in America was mainly responsible for his defeat. When infantry who are formed “very open and only two deep meet opposition they can have no stability. But when they experience an unexpected shock, confusion will ensue, and flight, without immediate support, must be the inevitable consequence.” He also referred to the “total misbehaviour” of the troops.

But on the ground at Cowpens lay a wounded officer of Fraser’s Highlanders who never forgave Tarleton for that day, and regarded his remark on the “total misbehaviour” of the troops as insulting. In his book, Strictures on Lt. Col Tarleton’s History (1788), published the year after Tarleton’s history of the southern campaign, Lieutenant Roderick McKenzie flayed the man he detested: “I leave to Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton all the satisfaction which he can enjoy, from relating that he led a number of brave men to destruction, and then used every effort in his power to damn their fame with posterity.”