dition fail of its object.

Tarleton, after several days' hard marching, came upon the traces of
Morgan, who was posted on the north bank of the Pacolet, to guard the
passes of that river. He sent word to Cornwallis of his intention to
force a passage across the river, and compel Morgan either to fight or
retreat, and suggested that his lordship should proceed up the eastern
bank of Broad River, so as to be at hand to co-operate. His lordship,
in consequence, took up a position at Turkey Creek, on Broad River.

Morgan had been recruited by North Carolina and Georgia militia, so
that his force was nearly equal in number to that of Tarleton, but, in
point of cavalry and discipline, vastly inferior. Cornwallis, too, was
on his left, and might get in his rear; checking his impulse,
therefore, to dispute the passage of the Pacolet, he crossed that
stream and retreated towards the upper fords of Broad River. Tarleton
reached the Pacolet on the evening of the 15th, and pressed on in
pursuit. At ten o'clock at night he reached an encampment which Morgan
had abandoned a few hours previously, apparently in great haste, for
the camp fires were still smoking, and provisions had been left behind
half-cooked. Eager to come upon his enemy while in the confusion of a
hurried flight, Tarleton allowed his exhausted troops but a brief
repose, and, leaving his baggage under a guard, resumed his dogged
march about two o'clock in the night. A little before daylight of the
17th, he captured two videttes, from whom he learnt, to his surprise,
that Morgan, instead of a headlong retreat, had taken a night's
repose, and was actually preparing to give him battle.

Morgan, in fact, had been urged by his officers to retreat across
Broad River, which was near by, and make for the mountainous country;
but, closely pressed as he was, he feared to be overtaken while
fording the river, and while his troops were fatigued and in
confusion; beside, being now nearly equal in number to the enemy,
military pride would not suffer him to avoid a combat. The place where
he came to halt was known in the early grants by the name of Hannah's
Cowpens, being part of a grazing establishment of a man named Hannah.
It was in an open wood, favorable to the action of cavalry. There were
two eminences of unequal height, and separated from each other by an
interval about eighty yards wide. To the first eminence, which was the
highest, there was an easy ascent of about thre