Location
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Coordinates: 35.4280, -80.9596.
Type: Sight
Tour: Race to the Dan
County: Lincoln
Full
The coordinates take you to the Cowan’s Ford Dam viewing area. Sadly, the dam was probably built partially on the ford used by a British Army to cross the Catawba in 1781, wiping out a key part of the battlefield to the north. (Beattie’s Ford and the heights above it, mentioned on this page, were completely inundated.)
Context
After defeating and capturing much of a British/Loyalist army at the Battle of Cowpens (S.C.), Continental Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan is retreating north while the rest of the British give chase.
Situation
British/Tory
Lt. Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis’ army, after decamping from Ramsour’s Mill in today’s Lincolnton, attempted to cross the Catawba River at Beattie’s Ford north of here on Sunday, January 28, 1781. But the river was too high, so the army fell back five miles to the plantation of Jacob Forney. The evening of the 30th, a small detachment under Col. James Webster moved back to that ford with artillery and the army’s wagons. Cornwallis hoped this would trick the Patriots into believing his entire army would cross there, and shift their part-time “militia” soldiers in the area to defend it. The combination of more rain coming and not knowing if the rest of the Continental Army would appear made him feel he must try to cross despite bad conditions.
Continental/Patriot
Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene ordered his main force to move to Beattie’s Ford from its camp on the Pee Dee River in South Carolina, which becomes the Yadkin in N.C. He then apparently rode 110 miles with two aides and no guards to Morgan’s camp at Sherrill’s Ford, where Morgan’s force had crossed the Catawba.[1] Some of those troops were defending Beattie’s, the best crossing, further south. Smaller detachments were guarding three other fords, including around 25 at Cowan’s Ford six miles downstream, backed up by 350 militia nearby under Brig. Gen. William Davidson. Greene, Morgan, and Davidson had met, supposedly on a log at Beattie’s Ford, to confer on the placements.
Date
Thursday, February 1, 1781.