The Fight That Humiliated Britain and Created America

60 MINUTES. That’s all it took for a self-taught frontier general to annihilate Britain’s most feared, undefeated army in the South. If you think you know the story of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Cowpens will make you rethink everything. On January 17, 1781, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan stood in a frozen South Carolina cattle pasture with a river at his back and a broken army of farmers and militia. Hunting him was Banastre "Bloody" Tarleton—a ruthless, 26-year-old cavalry commander who openly despised American soldiers and had never lost a major battle. By every rule of 18th-century European warfare, the Americans should have been slaughtered. Instead, Morgan delivered a masterclass in battlefield psychology that is still taught at West Point today.