Читать книгу "Downright Fighting" - Thomas J. Fleming - Страница 5

He was a giant of a man, 6 feet 2 inches, with a full face, blue eyes, dark hair, and a classic nose. As a youth in western Virginia, he had drifted into wagoneering along the roads of the frontier. His education was slight. Good-natured and gregarious, he was, like his companions of the road, rowdy and given to drink, gambling, and fighting. In time, he married, settled down, went into farming, and became a man of substance in his community.

He was already a hero of the Revolution when he took command of Greene’s light troops in late 1780. His rifle corps had fought with distinction at Quebec (1775) and Saratoga (1777). But after being passed over for promotion, unfairly he thought, he retired to his Virginia farm. When the South fell to British armies in 1780, he put aside his feelings and welcomed a new command.

Morgan was at home in the slashing, partisan warfare in the South. At Cowpens the mixed force of regulars and militia that he led so ably destroyed Tarleton’s dreaded Legion, depriving Cornwallis of a wing of swift-moving light troops essential to his army’s operation.

Woodcuts of the gold medal Congress awarded Morgan for his victory at Cowpens. The original medal is lost.

Morgan’s fine stone house, which he named “Saratoga,” still stands near Winchester, Virginia.