"Three fires, and you are free!" Three shots from his inexperienced militia--followed by their hasty retreat--was exactly what Daniel Morgan needed to win the day at the fateful Battle of Cowpens.(HISTORY--STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM)

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It usually pastures cattle on their way to market. But on a frigid January morning in 1781, this "open woods" near the Carolinas' border fields a ragtag band of Patriots. These friends of freedom are about to defy some of the world's most professional soldiers. Defeat seems almost certain for them. In fact, some of them had ignominiously fled the field five months before. But not this time. Thanks to ingenuity, pluck, and the blessing of Providence, they will win one of the most heartening battles of the American Revolution. Some are veterans; many are inexperienced militia. Led by a brilliant but untrained commander, they will thrash skilled Redcoats fighting under a previously unbeaten officer. No wonder the improbably named Cowpens encourages modern patriots.

War had raged up and down the Atlantic seaboard for almost six weary years by now. At first, the British government concentrated on quashing the rebellion in New England--specifically Boston. But Patriots there won a surprising victory, one so overwhelming that the Redcoats boarded ship and sailed away in March 1776.

Meanwhile, King George III and his cabinet eyed the South with plans for a beachhead at Charles Town, South Carolina. From there, troops would spread through the countryside to secure it for the Crown. But the Patriots won another surprising victory that June when they bombarded incoming British transports so furiously soldiers could not disembark.

Repulsed from Boston and Charles Town, His Majesty's forces converged on the mid-Atlantic colonies instead. The Patriots' successes skidded into reverse as the British Army once again proved itself the world's most efficient enforcer. The British lost an occasional battle during the next couple of campaigns, but the Patriots paid dearly for their victories as they shivered and starved at Valley Forge and Morristown.

Tide Turns Against Independence

The war was slowly, ponderously grinding away, boring to death those it hadn't yet killed, when the British decided to try the South again. George Germain, the king's secretary of state for the American department, explained why: "Should the success we may reasonably hope for attend these enterprises, it might not be too much to expect that all America ... south of the Susquehanna would return to their allegiance and ... the northern provinces might be left to their own feelings and distress to bring them back to their duty." This time, the beachhead succeeded, and troops landed in Savannah, Georgia on December 29, 1778.