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| Stoneman's 1st Brigade probably visited the Scruggs homeplace on the Cowpens Battlefield |
COWPENS, S.C.
The answer is ... all of the above.
Tuesday, January 17, marks the 236th anniversary of the Battle of Cowpens, a brief but fierce fight in 1781 that went a long way toward ensuring American independence. Cowpens became the namesake for two Navy warships: an aircraft carrier nicknamed "the Mighty Moo" that was the first U.S. ship to enter Tokyo Bay in 1945, and a cruiser that fired Tomahawk missiles at an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1993. (That attack came on the 212th anniversary of the original Battle of Cowpens, which I will assume is only a coincidence.)
As for the Civil War connection, we turn to Stoneman's 1st Brigade, which crossed the Cowpens battlefield April 29, 1865, in hot pursuit of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.
In his official report, Gen. William J. Palmer of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry wrote, "I had reached the vicinity of Cowpens battlefield, S.C., on April 29, when I received the order to endeavor to intercept Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet, and the Confederate specie." The orders came from Gen. George Stoneman, by now back in Knoxville, who believed that Davis absconded with up to $6 million in gold and silver specie when he abandoned his capital in Richmond April 2.
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Red lines on this 1906 map show how Gen.
Palmer's 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry headed
from Rutherfordton toward Kings Mountain
before doubling back and crossing the Broad
River at Island Ford. "Nashville" on this map
is actually Asheville. "Cowpens" marks the
location of the town rather than the
battlefield, which is 10 miles north of the
town and just south of the North Carolina
line. I added the blue arrow to show an
April 29-30 expedition by the 12th Ohio
in pursuit of Jefferson Davis.
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His cavalry made the crossing at Island Ford (near the current U.S. 221 bridge north of Chesnee, S.C.) and headed toward Spartanburg on a road that took them across the Cowpens battlefield.
As the Yankees scouted for information about Davis, it seems likely that they inquired at the cabin of Robert Scruggs, whose farm encompassed part of the old battlefield. (Sixteen years earlier, in 1849, historian Benson John Lossing had interviewed Scruggs to document details of the Battle of Cowpens for his Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. Lossing later wrote the Pictorial History of the Civil War, including a clever bridge-burning episode from Stoneman's Raid that he called "one of the most gallant little exploits of the war.")
As the Yankees scouted for information about Davis, it seems likely that they inquired at the cabin of Robert Scruggs, whose farm encompassed part of the old battlefield. (Sixteen years earlier, in 1849, historian Benson John Lossing had interviewed Scruggs to document details of the Battle of Cowpens for his Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. Lossing later wrote the Pictorial History of the Civil War, including a clever bridge-burning episode from Stoneman's Raid that he called "one of the most gallant little exploits of the war.")
