Cowan'S Ford

Cowan's Ford stands as one of the clashes that unfolded within Cornwallis's broader push through the southern theater between 1780 and 1782, a campaign waged amid the wider struggle of the American Revolutionary War. The fighting erupted on February 1, 1781, along the Catawba River at Cowan's Ford, situated in the northwestern reaches of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. There, roughly 2,400 British troops confronted some 800 Whig militia, the latter seeking to hinder the British as they pushed across the waterway. During the engagement, American general William Lee Davidson lost his life.

Background

When the British triumphed at Camden, command of the Continental Army's Southern Department passed from Horatio Gates to General Nathanael Greene. Facing a British force under Cornwallis that outmatched him in both size and equipment, Greene chose a strategy of attrition, drawing his enemies into numerous small-scale clashes rather than risking one decisive confrontation. Describing his troops during this campaign, Greene remarked that they would fight, suffer defeat, regroup, and return to combat once more.

The engagement at Cowpens only hardened Cornwallis's resolve to annihilate Greene's army entirely. He commanded his troops to destroy their own provisions and set off after Greene in what became known as the "Race to the Dan," named for the river running through the southern reaches of Virginia and the northern portion of North Carolina.

In the weeks leading up to this pursuit, Cornwallis had shifted his army leftward, arriving near the swollen Catawba River by late January. His men established camp for three days at Ramsour's Mill, close to what is now Lincolnton, where they were reinforced by the surviving remnants of Banastre Tarleton's command.

On January 28, 1781, General Daniel Morgan sent word to Greene from his position at Sherrills Ford, informing him that scouts had spotted British troops advancing toward the Catawba. Morgan explained he was working to muster militia forces and slow Cornwallis's crossing of the river. Acting on this plan, he dispatched General William Lee Davidson along with 500 militiamen, half of them lacking flints for their weapons, to defend Beatties Ford.

Cornwallis then turned his army eastward toward the river, making for Jacob Forney's property, where his men set up camp for another three days after concluding that the ford at Beatties was too dangerous to cross given the violent current sweeping through the Catawba.

Battle

Despite a punishing downpour, Cornwallis set his troops in motion on January 31, worried that waiting any longer would cost him the opportunity to crush Greene's forces entirely. Writing roughly six weeks after the fight, Cornwallis explained that he had assigned Lieutenant Colonel Webster and a detachment to stage a convincing show at Beatties Ford, using cannon fire and other tactics to suggest an attempted crossing there, while he himself moved his main force downstream toward Cowan's Ford.

Meanwhile, Greene reached the area and instructed General Davidson, who had stationed men along several crossing points on the river's eastern bank, to delay the British advance across the Catawba. Once this was arranged, Greene and Morgan departed for Salisbury, North Carolina, taking the majority of their troops with them.

Davidson sent a mixed company of cavalry and foot soldiers four miles south to guard Cowan's Ford, with the horsemen tasked specifically with preventing a stealthy nighttime crossing. As evening fell, Davidson himself moved to join this detachment. Concerned that Tarleton's cavalry could ford the river unseen in darkness and outflank his position just as British infantry began their crossing, he chose to camp half a mile back from the water, posting sentries at the ford's edge to keep watch.

Just before sunrise, having endured a grueling march that cost them several artillery pieces, Cornwallis's men arrived at Cowan's Ford. The crossing point actually consisted of two separate paths through the water: one, meant for horses, ran at a diagonal and was therefore longer despite being shallower, while the other, used for wagons, cut straight across but plunged much deeper. Without much pause, the troops opted for the direct route through the swollen current, and before long their mounts were submerged, struggling against the violent flow.

Davidson's men wasted no time engaging the enemy, picking off numerous soldiers as they floundered through the water toward the opposite shore. Once enough British troops gained the bank and organized into a firing line, they unleashed a volley aimed at the militia, who were now pulling back. Davidson, having arrived only shortly before, was thrown from his horse when a rifle shot pierced his heart. According to local legend, the fatal round came from a Tory guide familiar with the area.

His body was not recovered until late that night, found soaked by rain and stripped of belongings. A wallet containing his papers, likely taken by a British soldier, surfaced decades later in London's Public Records Office in 1951, and was eventually returned to American soil in 2001. Davidson now rests at Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina.