The engagement begins with the flank elements of mounted infantry from Tarlton and American mounted infantry engaging each other. Cornwallis also has 3 light field guns at his disposal.
… I ordered Lieutenant Macleod to bring forward the guns .[two or three three-pounders, ‘grasshoppers’] and cannonade their center The attack was directed to be made in the following order:
On the right the regiment of Bose .[Hessians] and the 71st regiment .[Highlanders], led by Major-general Leslie and supported by the 1st battalion of guards; on the left, the 23rd .[Royal Welsh Fuzileers] and 33rd .[English foot] regiments, led by Lieutenant-colonel Webster, and supported by the grenadiers .[Guards company] and 2d battalion of guards, commanded by Brigadier-general O’Hara; the yagers .[Hessian light infantry company] and light infantry of the guards remained in the wood on the left of the guns, and the cavalry .[Tarleton’s legion] in the road, ready to act as circumstances might require. Our preparations being made, the action began at about half an hour past one in the afternoon; Major General Leslie, after being obliged, by the great extent of the enemy’s line, to bring up the 1st battalion of guards to the right of the regiment of Bose, soon defeated everything before him; Lieutenant Colonel Webster …was no less successful in his front .[left of the road]; when, on finding that the left of the 33rd was exposed to a heavy fire from the right wing of the enemy, he changed his front to the left, and, being supported by the yagers and light infantry of the guards, attacked and routed it, the grenadiers and 2d battalion of the guards moving forward to occupy the ground left vacant by the movement of Lieutenant-colonel Webster…
When Webster’s brigade on the left wheeled to face the terrible enfilade fire of Lynch’s Bedford riflemen, it was joined on its own left by the two reserve light infantry companies and, on its right, the Grenadier Guards and 2nd Guards battalion filled in the gap which had been opened to the immediate left, north, of the road. The advance of Leslie on the right, though he too had to commit the Regiment von Bose and his reserve battalion of guards against Campbell’s riflemen, was less troubled. Harry Lee, whose legion supported Campbell, recalled:
…When the enemy came within long shot, the American line, by order, began to fire. Undismayed, the British continued to advance , and having reached a proper distance, discharged their pieces and rent the air with shouts. To our infinite distress and mortification, the North Carolina militia took to flight, a few only of Eaton’s brigade excepted….All .[effort by officers to stop the flight] was vain; so thoroughly confounded were these unhappy men, that, throwing away arms, knapsacks, and even canteens, they rushed like a torrent headlong through the woods…
The characterization of Eaton’s resistance north of the road, as given by Lee, was taken from General Greene’s report rather than his own observation. By eyewitness accounts from that sector, the Carolinians did well enough, greeting the Welshmen with two or three well aimed rounds at reasonable range before they fled. But on the south, Butler’s brigade, by most credible accounts, broke and ran, as Lee says, without doing the Highlanders any harm. A lone exception was the company of a Captain Forbis, who refused to run away but joined with Campbell’s riflemen. These with the aid of Lee’s legion infantry brought sufficient fire on Leslie to force him to commit his reserve.
On the American right, north, Lawson’s brigade of Virginia militia put up a good, overall fight at the second line. Some companies ran away early. Others fired their requisite rounds before retreating. Still others refused to give ground to the charging British and fought from pockets of underbrush for a time after they had been bypassed. The flanking corps of Lynch and Washington, made another strong stand at the second line.
