A Devil of a Whipping

“An important work that draws upon untapped evidence and employs new methods for interpreting traditional sources. . . . Babits gives us the definitive history of this significant battle.” —Journal of Military History

“A superb example of the 'new military history'. . . . Babits comes closer than any previous historian to reconstructing the eighteenth-century soldier’s experience of combat and has given us as close to a definitive account of the battle of Cowpens as we are ever likely to have.”—Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

“A superb new study. . . . Babits’s account moves with the sharpness and decisiveness of the action he describes. . . . No other Revolutionary battle has been subjected to this level of meticulous, intensive, multifaceted analysis. This book will stand as the model for any such future effort. One of Babits’s purposes was the hope that the Cowpens veterans would not be forgotten. The masterful work that he has produced goes far towards achieving that purpose.” —Journal of Southern History

“One of the best analyses that we have of an individual Revolutionary War engagement.”—Journal of American History

“An engaging narrative. . . . An important contribution to Revolutionary War military history, sure to be of interest to Revolutionary War students and historians of the South.”—Southern Historian

“No previous author has applied the power of social history to this battle; Babits’s work should serve as the model for future historians trying to relate the chronology of events to the position of units and individual soldiers on the terrain of the battlefield. His methodology gives the common soldier a voice in unraveling the complex details of the fight from the smoke and bad information obscuring key facts. . . . With the tools of social history, Lawrence Babits has demonstrated what military historians have long argued: war is above all else a human endeavor worthy of study to complete the record of mankind’s struggle to survive and to achieve.”—William & Mary Quarterly

“Babit’s book, which includes use of personal memoirs and available pension records, is a model of historical interpretation.”—On Point

“An exceptionally well-researched and richly detailed treatment of one of the most important battles of the American Revolution.”—Military History of the West

“Five Best: Books on the American Revolution.”—Wall Street Journal

“Simply one of the best — perhaps the very best — studies we have of a Revolutionary War battle. . . . Babits has mastered the literature of the battle as no other scholar has, and he has made far greater use of contemporary maps and pension statements than any other student of the contest. . . . This study is one of the best examples I have seen of the 'new military history,' which — like 'the new social history' of which it is a part — focuses on the use of the microscope rather than the telescope.”—Don Higginbotham, author of War and Society in Early America