<P> A small force of the Continental Army under the command of Brigadier General Daniel Morgan had marched to the west of the Catawba River, in order to forage for supplies and raise the morale of local Colonial sympathizers . The British had received incorrect reports that Morgan's army was planning to attack the important strategic fort of Ninety Six, held by American Loyalists to the British Crown and located in the west of the Carolinas . The British considered Morgan's army a threat to their left flank . General Charles Cornwallis dispatched cavalry / dragoons commander Lieutenant Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton to defeat Morgan's command . Upon learning Morgan's army was not at Ninety Six, Tarleton, bolstered by British reinforcements, set off in hot pursuit of the American detachment . </P> <P> Morgan resolved to make a stand near the Broad River . He selected a position on two low hills in open woodland, with the expectation that the aggressive Tarleton would make a headlong assault without pausing to devise a more intricate plan . He deployed his army in three main lines . Tarleton's army, after exhaustive marching, reached the field malnourished and heavily fatigued . Tarleton attacked immediately; however, the American defence - in - depth absorbed the impact of the British attack . The British lines lost their cohesion as they hurried after the retreating Americans . When Morgan's army went on the offensive, it wholly overwhelmed Tarleton's force . </P> <P> The battle was a turning point in the American reconquest of South Carolina from the British . Tarleton's brigade was wiped out as an effective fighting force, and, coupled with the British defeat at King's Mountain in the northwest corner of South Carolina, this action compelled Cornwallis to pursue the main southern American army into North Carolina . Cornwallis was eventually defeated at the Siege of Yorktown in Virginia in October 1781 . </P> <P> On October 14, 1780, Continental Army commander General George Washington chose Nathanael Greene, a Rhode Island Quaker officer, to be commander of the Southern Department of the rebel Continental forces . Greene's task was not an easy one . In 1780 the Carolinas had been the scene of a long string of disasters for the Continental Army, the worst being the capture of one American army under Gen. Benjamin Lincoln in May 1780, at the Siege of Charleston . The British took control of this city, the largest in the South and the capital of South Carolina, and occupied it . Later that year another Colonial army, commanded by Gen. Horatio Gates, was destroyed at the Battle of Camden . A victory of Colonial militia over their Loyalist counterparts at the Battle of Kings Mountain on the northwest frontier in October had bought time, but most of South Carolina was still occupied by the British . When Greene took command, the southern army numbered 2307 men (on paper, 1482 present), of whom only 949 were Continental regulars, mostly the famous highly trained "Maryland Line" regiment . </P>

What is the significance of the battle of cowpens
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