[T]hroughout the American Revolution, Patriots exhibited a singular ability to create their own capable military forces ex nihilo. And they ingeniously supplied and equipped local militias in addition to their eventual establishment of a Europeanized and professional army.... [T}he spirited “army” that began the war at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill in 1775 bore little resemblance to the multifaceted and lethal military that defeated the British at Cowpens and at Yorktown in 1781 to end the war.
I've walked the battlefield at Cowpens, which isn't all that far from here.
It was in fact a combination of untrained militia similar to the Lexington and Concord forces and hardened militia from Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, and Virginia that was key to the victory there. The Continental commander, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, deployed these forces in an innovative manner, similar to the Zulu "bull's horn formation" that was developed some years later and deployed against (also) the British in Africa.
Specifically, Morgan deployed the unblooded irregulars in two lines at the very front of his formation, and the hardened militia in two mutually-reinforcing lines closer to his command position. He did this between two rivers, which created a funnel that couldn't be avoided. As he anticipated, the first two lines quickly broke and withdrew in the appearance of a rout. Because they couldn't flee in any direction except towards his stiffer lines, they fled towards his hardened units. This drew the British cavalry into a charge against what they thought was a rout that separated them from the rest of their forces.
When they hit the hardened infantry, they were defeated in detail -- indeed, slaughtered so thoroughly that the unit couldn't be reconstituted, the few survivors having to be broken up and sent to other units. The Continental forces then charged with bayonets, capturing two cannons, forcing the surrender of a Highlander unit, and causing what remained of the British cavalry to flee and the rest to withdraw in the best order they could manage.
This followed the victory of the "Overmountain Men" at King's Mountain (the town of which is in North Carolina, also relatively nearby, but the battle a few miles south in South Carolina) and led to the ultimate victory at Yorktown, as this whole wing of the British Army in the South was crippled and had to withdraw to Cornwallis' forces. Quoting Wikipedia:
Along with the Loyalist defeat at Kings Mountain, Cowpens was a serious blow to Cornwallis, who might have defeated much of the remaining American troops in South Carolina had Tarleton won at Cowpens. Instead, the battle set in motion a series of events leading to the end of the war. Cornwallis abandoned his pacification efforts in South Carolina, stripped his army of its excess baggage, and pursued Greene's force into North Carolina. Skirmishes occurred at the Catawba River (including the Battle of Cowan's Ford on February 1, 1781) and other fords. Yet, after a long chase Cornwallis met Greene at the Battle of Guilford Court House, winning a victory but so weakening his army that he withdrew to Wilmington to rest and refit. Later, when Cornwallis went into Virginia, Washington and his French ally Rochambeau, seized this opportunity to trap and defeat him at the siege of Yorktown, which caused the British to seek peace terms with the Americans that would acknowledge the United States' independence.
In the opinion of John Marshall, "Seldom has a battle, in which greater numbers were not engaged, been so important in its consequences as that of Cowpens." It gave Greene his chance to conduct a campaign of "dazzling shiftiness" that led Cornwallis by "an unbroken chain of consequences to the catastrophe at Yorktown which finally separated America from the British crown".
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