Schematic plan · American Revolution

Battle of Cowpens

17 January 1781
South Carolina
Victory for USA

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

Great Britain (Br Army, 1,100 men under Tarleton) attacked USA (Am Army, 1,025 men under Morgan) in South Carolina. The CAA Database of Battles records 1 hours of fighting on a front of 0.2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Great Britain 929 (84%), USA 72 (7%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Great Britain

Tarleton

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	173
Great Britain centre	Infantry	230
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	173
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	144
Great Britain cavalry of the left	Cavalry	175
Great Britain cavalry of the right	Cavalry	175
Great Britain artillery (2 guns)	Artillery	30
Tarleton	Commander	—
In this plan		1,100

USA

Morgan

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	216
USA centre	Infantry	288
USA right wing	Infantry	216
USA reserve	Infantry	180
USA cavalry of the left	Cavalry	63
USA cavalry of the right	Cavalry	63
Morgan	Commander	—
In this plan		1,026

What the sources report

	Great Britain	USA
Strength, this plan	1,100	1,025
Losses, this plan	929	72

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 92, “Cowpens”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 1 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 0.2 km (attacker), 0.2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	1,100	929	350	2	Frontal attack; Repulse; Annihilated
USAdefender	1,025	72	125	0	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Breakthrough; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 92 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Cowpens · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.