The numbers Pickens brought with him were disappointing. But he and his men knew the back country intimately. They were the eyes and ears Morgan’s little army desperately needed. Morgan immediately asked Pickens to advance to a position about midway between Fair Forest Creek and the Tyger River and send his horsemen ranging out from that point in all directions to guard against a surprise attack by Banastre Tarleton. The Wizard Owl and his men mounted their horses and rode away to begin their reconnaissance. General Morgan soon knew enough about the enemy force coming after him to make him fear for his army’s survival. 4 Daniel Morgan might call Banastre Tarleton “Benny” for the entertainment of young militiamen like Joseph McJunkin. But Morgan had been fighting the British for five years. He was as close to being a professional soldier as any American of his time. He knew Banastre Tarleton was no joke. In fact, the casual style of his decision to reunite his cavalry and infantry at the Thompson plantation on Thicketty Creek disguised a decision to retreat. The march to Thicketty Creek put an additional 10 miles between him and the aggressive British cavalryman. Behind the mask of easy confidence Morgan wore for his men, there was a very worried general. As soon as he crossed the Broad River and camped at Grindal Shoals on the north bank of the Pacolet on December 25, 1780, Morgan began sending messengers to the men of western Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, urging them to turn out and support him. The response had been disheartening. Pickens, as we have seen, was unable to muster more than a fraction of his old regiment. From Georgia came only a small detachment of about 100 men under the command of Lt. Col. James Jackson and Maj. John Cunningham. Because their leader Elijah Clarke was out of action from his wound at Long Canes, the Georgians were inclined to stay home. Sumter, though almost recovered from his wound, sulked on the east side of the Broad River. He felt Greene had sent Morgan into his sphere of command without properly consulting him. Arms and Tactics The armies fought the way they did—on open ground in long lines of musket-wielding infantry standing two and three ranks deep—because that was the most rational way to use the weapons they had. The main weapon of this combat was the muzzle-loading, smooth-bore, flint-lock musket, equipped with a 16-inch bayonet. It hurled a one-ounce lead ball of .70 to .80 calibre fairly accurately up to 75 yards, but distance scarcely mattered. The object was to break up the enemy’s formations with volleys and then rout them with cold steel. The British were masters of these linear tactics, and Washington and his commanders spent the war trying to instill the same discipline in their Continentals so that they could stand up to redcoats on equal terms in battle.