Cowpens, SC

Cowpens is a Spartanburg County town chartered in 1880 and incorporated in 1900, named for cattle pens near the original town site. Its name became nationally familiar because the Battle of Cowpens was fought nearby on January 17, 1781, when Daniel Morgan's Patriot force defeated British troops led by Banastre Tarleton. The Cowpens National Battlefield is about nine miles north of town in Cherokee County, so the battlefield and the town share a name while sitting in different county lines. Cowpens lies in the Carolina Piedmont, about nine miles from Spartanburg, with Spartanburg County School District 3 and a branch of the county library serving the town. Cowpens is a South Carolina place where a cattle word, a Revolutionary War victory, and a modern town map all overlap.