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Cowpens was founded near the site of a battle fought during the Revolutionary War on
January 17th, 1781. Continental Army troops and colonial
militia under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan decisively defeated a
crack British force - known as the Black Legion - under LT Colonel Banastre Tarleton.
The battle draws its name from its site,
pastureland and cow pens, reportedly known then as Hannah's
Cow-pens, used by frontier farmers in northwestern South Carolina.
Military historians regard Cowpens as one of the most brilliant
tactical operations ever fought on American soil.
The British losses were staggering: 110 dead,
over 200 wounded and 500 captured.
The
original battle site is now the Cowpens National Battlefield. The
one and one-quarter acre park was established by Congress on March
4, 1929 under the control of the War Department.
The National Park Service assumed control on
August 10, 1933. In 1981 the site was increased to 842 acres in
size and the NPS spent approximately $5 million to develop and
restore the park.
The settlement of this area was slow until some 80 years later. By the early 1860s, a loose community had begun to form. But it wasn’t until tracks and a depot for the Piedmont Airline Railroad were built in 1869 due south of the battle site that the town truly developed. The depot was named Cowpens in honor of the momentous battle.
The focal point of
the new town was a three-level, 30-room hotel built by John Terrell
Wilkins to capitalize on the railroad traffic. Trains unloaded
passengers four times daily, and the hotel’s parlor and large porch
became a popular spot for courting.
The railroad was not the community’s only draw. Prospector John Vinson came to the area seeking gold. He didn’t find it, but stayed on to become the town’s first postmaster. Nearby Love Springs was purported to have healing powers and later was surrounded by marble slabs and used as a spa and a site for social gatherings.
A group of residents organized Cowpens Manufacturing Company in 1889. It started out with 75 employees and in its heyday of the first decade of the 20th century, it had some 200 employees with 400 living in the mill village. The mill ceased textile operations in 1955, though the building was used for other concerns after that. A 1999 fire destroyed the plant.
Today, Cowpens firmly honors the past with its annual Mighty Moo Festival and a memorial erected in 2003 to its military veterans.
Daniel Morgan is in the photo to the top left, while his adversary, Banastre Tarleton is located in the photo to the right. The remaining photo to the left is the monument located at the Cowpens National Battlefield.
The
first USS Cowpens was a WWII aircraft carrier (CVL-25), converted
from a light cruiser to an aircraft carrier under the pressure of
war.
The
"Mighty Moo" was launched on January 17, 1943, exactly 162 years
after the Battle of Cowpens. It served in the Fast Carrier Task
Force in the Pacific from 1943-45.
During the 22 ½ months that the USS Cowpens served in the war in the
South Pacific, she flew 10,634 flights, participated in 2,452 action
sorties, destroyed 108 enemy planes in the air, destroyed 198 enemy
planes on the ground, dropped 657 tons of bombs, fired 3063 rockets,
and sank 39 ships.
George Dean Martin, owner of a drugstore in Cowpens, wrote to
President Franklin D Roosevelt suggesting that an aircraft carrier
be named for the nearby famous Revolutionary War battle, Cowpens.
In those days, carriers were named for battles, so the ship was
named USS Cowpens.
The USS Cowpens was decommissioned on Jan 13, 1947.
It was awarded twelve Battle Stars and a Navy Unit Commendation for
service during World War II.
The new USS Cowpens, known as the CG-63 is an Ticonderoga Class Guided Missile Cruiser. Commissioned March 9th, 1991, She has a crew of 400 and, Her homeport is Yokosuka, Japan.
During operations following Desert Storm, the Cowpens fired 10 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles on Iraq on January 17th, 1993.
She also played an early and pivotal role in the second Gulf War known as Iraqi Freedom.
The USS Cowpens CVL-25 is located in the photo to the left, while the current USS Cowpens CG-63 is located in the photo to the right.
