Where Daniel Morgan and Banastre Tarleton fought to determine the course of this country almost 225 years ago, Pat Ruff and Oliver Buckles are fighting fescue grass and honeysuckle to preserve history.

Ruff, chief ranger at Cowpens National Battlefield, and Buckles, working under a contract with the National Park Service, have taken the first steps toward returning the landscape to its botanical condition during the pivotal Revolutionary War battle in 1781.

That work entails scouring official reports and personal diaries from participants in the battle for descriptions of the plants and topography, testing soil samples for hints of past vegetation and making plenty of educated guesses.

The project is the first attempt to make a major Revolutionary War battlefield in the South botanically accurate, Ruff said. Similar efforts have been done at Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg and Antietam.

At Gettysburg, the Park Service has built dozens of fence lines and planted 16,000 shrubs since 1999 to recreate a thicket pivotal in the battle. At Cowpens and Gettysburg, the goal is not just to make history come alive, but to make it come alive in a more authentic setting.

“It’s a fascinating story, and we have to find a way to make that story as accurate as possible,” Ruff said. “(Tourists and history buffs) can go to Disneyland and get that Disney kind of experience.

“But how many places can you go to in the quiet and the solitude and understand the history like this?”

‘BUT WHICH PEA VINE?’

The Battle of Cowpens, fought on Jan. 17, 1781, proved to be a decisive encounter in the American Revolution.

Morgan threw a one-two punch of volunteer militia followed by trained Continental troops at Tarleton’s British troops. The resounding American victory came just a few months after an equally demoralizing British defeat at Kings Mountain and spelled doom for Britain’s Southern Campaign.

Nine months later, British commander Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.

The Cowpens battlefield, in northwestern Cherokee County, has been a contemplative gathering spot for years. The first 1½ acres of the current park were purchased by the government in 1929. The purchase of 845 acres in the 1960s led to the opening of the current battlefield park in 1978.

Nearly 200,000 people flow through the park’s gates each year, walking a paved trail with signs that explain the Battle of Cowpens. They find the same ridges and creeks that Morgan and Tarleton maneuvered across 223 years ago. But where cavalry horses galloped through the forest and across the cow pasture unimpeded, visitors encountered vegetation so thick in areas that it was impossible to see through it.

As part of a nationwide fire-prevention project, the National Park Service two years ago hired a contractor to remove much of the flammable understory, the brush and small trees below the main canopy of the dominant trees. Improving the physical accuracy of the battlefield has been part of the park’s long-range plan. Removing the understory dove-tailed with that historical quest.

The Park Service decided to devote an extra $25,000 to get the ecological accuracy effort started this year. Buckles, who was directing the understory removal for the Palmetto Conservation Foundation, took on the secondary role of returning the battlefield to its 1781 appearance.

It’s been alternately fun and frustrating for Buckles, who worked for the U.S. Forestry Service for years. Now, he is melding forestry and historical research on the Revolutionary War era.

“You find a lot of references to the cattle getting fat on pea vine, but which pea vine?” Buckles said. “It would be nice if they had used the scientific names.

“They frequently refer to the sparse canopy of trees, but one of the things we’re wrestling with is what was that density.”

RECREATING A PIEDMONT PRAIRIE

Most of the battlefield was clear cut by farmers in the 1800s, and some areas have been timbered even more recently. A few of the towering oaks might be 100 years old, Buckles said, but there aren’t any “witness trees” that were on the property in 1781.

On the other hand, plenty of species on the property now almost certainly weren’t there during the Revolution. Loblolly pines weren’t common in the area back in the 1780s, but they are now, Buckles said. The magnolias planted around a battle monument belong on the coastal plain.

Non-native species — fescue grass, Japanese honeysuckle and privet bush — abound. Local gardeners can attest to the difficulty in getting rid of those plants. Buckles plans to pull, dig and, if necessary, spray herbicides to kill the pesky visitors.

Then, he wants to re-introduce plants common in the Piedmont prairie system that would have dominated the area in the 1700s — downy oat grass, split beard, plume grass.

One of the intriguing aspects of the project is that the battlefield wasn’t typical of the natural environment of its period. It had been cleared by grazing cattle or fire, or both. For true accuracy, researchers have to determine which local grasses dealt best with those types of disturbances.

York County naturalist James Barnwell and Winthrop University biology professor John Schmidt are studying five small plots on the property in an attempt to solve that mystery.

One important addition to the battlefield will be Arundinaria gigantea, or common cane. This thin-stalked plant, still found in wet areas near the battlefield, played a major role in the skirmish. British troops had to maneuver around large clumps of the plant called canebrakes. Buckles wants to replant canebrakes on what currently is a wide-open section of the site.

NO COWS OR BULLS, BUT ‘BABY STEPS’

Correcting the trees should be easier, though it will take much longer. Historical documents make specific references to tree lines in the battle strategy and in the areas where troops camped.

“The land was thickly covered with red oak and hickory, with little if any underbrush,” wrote Samuel Hammond, a Patriot militia leader from Virginia.

Other participants described an open savanna to the right of the main British line. Today, several trees break up that open area. For accuracy, they should be cut.

Researchers pinpointed where Morgan’s troops camped among mature trees. That area has few large trees now. More should be planted.

Battle histories report much of the wooded area was so open that cavalry riders could raise their hands without hitting overhead tree limbs. Lower limbs should be trimmed in some areas.

However, the National Park Service has balked at recreating one important historical aspect. To truly return the landscape to its 1781 status, the Park Service might need to reintroduce cattle. After all, when the call went out for militia members to “meet at the cow pens,” the reference was to a large cattle pasture. (The cattle had cleared out before the battle, but they helped create the environment.)

Buckles said it will be difficult to mimic the impact of cattle on the battlefield with mowing, but the National Park Service doesn’t need the headache of people mixing with cows and bulls.

Most of the $25,000 allotted to the project is going to research and preparation. The park can’t afford to plant large trees, so it’s going with seedlings.

“We’re trying to take baby steps that are meaningful baby steps,” Ruff said.

While park visitors already will notice the understory has been cleaned out of some areas, the full project is a long way from completion. It won’t be finished until those seedlings reach maturity.

“This is going to take 50 years,” Buckles said. “We’re doing this for our children and our children’s children.”

Reach Holleman at (803) 771-8366 or jholleman@thestate.com.