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A History | The Winning of Independence 1777-1783 | Greene's Southern Campaign
Greene's Southern Campaign
It was the frontier militia assembling "when they were about to
be attacked in their own homes" who struck the blow that actually
marked the turning point in the south. Late in 1780, with Clinton's
reluctant consent, Cornwallis set out on the invasion of North Carolina.
He sent Maj. Patrick Ferguson, who had successfully organized the Tories
in the upcountry of South Carolina, to move north simultaneously with
his "American Volunteers," spread the Tory gospel in the North
Carolina back country, and join the main army at Charlotte with a
maximum number of recruits. Ferguson's advance northward alarmed the
"ova-mountain men" in western North Carolina, southwest
Virginia, and what is now east Tennessee. A picked force of mounted
militia riflemen gathered on the Catawba River in western North
Carolina, set out to find Ferguson, and brought him to bay at King's
Mountain near the border of the two Carolinas on October 7. In a battle
of patriot against Tory (Ferguson was the only British soldier present),
the patriots' triumph was complete. Ferguson himself was killed and few
of his command escaped death or capture. Some got the same
"quarter" Tarleton had given Buford's men at the Waxhaws.
King's Mountain was as fatal to Cornwallis' plans as Bennington had
been to those of Burgoyne. The North Carolina Tories, cowed by the fate
of their compatriots, gave him lime support. The British commander on
October In 1780, began a wretched retreat in the rain back to Winnsboro,
South Carolina, with militia harassing his progress. Clinton was forced
to divert an expedition of 2,500 men sent to establish a base in
Virginia to reinforce Cornwallis.
The frontier militia had turned the tide, but having done so, they
returned to their homes. To keep it moving against the British was the
task of the new commander, General Greene. When Greene arrived at
Charlotte, North Carolina, early in December 1780, he found a command
that consisted of 1,500 men fit for duty, only 949 of them
Continentals. The army lacked clothing and provisions and had little
systematic means of procuring them. Greene decided that he must not
engage Cornwallis' army in battle until he had built up his strength,
that he must instead pursue delaying tactics to wear down his stronger
opponent. The first thing he did was to take the unorthodox step of
dividing his army in the face of a superior force, moving part under his
personal command to Cheraw Hill, and sending the rest undo Brig. Gen.
Daniel Morgan west across the Catawba over 100 miles away. It was an
intentional violation of the principle of mass. Greene wrote:
I am well satisfied with the movement .... It makes the most of my
inferior force, for it compels my adversary to divide his, and holds him
in doubt as to his own line of conduct. He cannot leave Morgan behind
him to come at me, or his posts at Ninety-Six and Augusta would be
exposed. And he cannot chase Morgan far, or prosecute his views upon
Virginia, while I am here with the whole country open before me. I am as
near to Charleston as he is, and as near Hillsborough as I was at
Charlotte; so that I am in no danger of being cut off from my
reinforcements.
Left unsaid was the fact that divided forces could live off the land
much easier than one large force and constitute two rallying points for
local militia instead of one Greene was, in effect, sacrificing mass to
enhance maneuver.
Cornwallis, an aggressive commander, had determined to gamble
everything on a renewed invasion of North Carolina. Ignoring Clinton's
warnings, he depleted his Charleston base by bringing almost all his
supplies forward. In the face of Greene's dispositions, Cornwallis
divided his army into not two but three parts. He sent a holding force
to Camden to contain Green, directed Tarleton with a fast-moving
contingent of 1,100 infantry and cavalry to find and crush Morgan, and
with the remainder of his army moved cautiously up into North Carolina
to cut off any of Morgan's force that escaped Tarleton.
Tarleton caught up with Morgan on January 17, 1781, west of King's
Mountain at a place called the Cowpens, an open, sparsely forested area
six miles from the Broad River. Morgan chose this site
to make his stand less by design than necessity, for he had intended to
get across the Broad. Nevertheless, on ground seemingly better suited to
the action of Regulars, he achieved a little tactical masterpiece,
making the most effective use of his heterogeneous force, numerically
equal to that of Tarleton but composed of three-fourths militia.
Selecting a hill as the center of his position, he placed his
Continental infantry on it, deliberately leaving his flanks open. Well
out in front of the main line he posted militia riflemen in two lines,
instructing the first line to fire two volleys and then fall back on the
second, the combined line to fire until the British pressed them, then
to fall back to the rear of the Continentals and re-form as a reserve.
Behind the hill he placed Lt. Col. William Washington's cavalry
detachment, ready to charge the attacking enemy at the critical moment.
Every man in the ranks was informed of the plan of battle and the part
he was expected to play in it.
On finding Morgan, Tarleton ordered an immediate attack. His men
moved forward in regular formation, were momentarily checked by the
militia rifles, but, taking the retreat of the first two lines to be the
beginning of a rout, rushed headlong into the steady fire of the
Continentals on the hill. When the British were well advanced, the
American cavalry struck them on the right flank and the militia, having
re-formed, charged out from behind the hill to hit the British left.
Caught in a clever double envelopment, the British surrendered after
suffering heavy losses. Tarleton managed to escape with only a small
force of cavalry he had held in reserve. It was on a small scale, and
with certain significant differences, a repetition of the classic double
envelopment of the Romans by a Carthaginian army under Hannibal at
Cannae in 216 B.C., an event of which Morgan, no reader of books,
probably had not the foggiest notion.
Having struck his fatal blow against Tarleton, Morgan still had to
move fast to escape Cornwallis. Covering 100 miles and crossing two
rivers in five days, he rejoined Greene early in February. Cornwallis by
now was too heavily committed to the campaign in North Carolina to
withdraw. Hoping to match the swift movement of the Americans, he
destroyed all his superfluous supplies, baggage, and wagons and set
forth in pursuit of Greene's army. The American general retreated,
through North Carolina, up into southern Virginia, then back into North
Carolina again, keeping just far enough in front of his adversary to
avoid battle with Cornwallis' superior force. Finally on March 15, 1781,
at Guilford Court House in North Carolina, on ground he had himself
chosen, Greene halted and gave battle. By this time he had collected
1,500 Continentals and 3,000 militia to the 1,900 Regulars the British
could muster. The British held the field after a hard-fought battle, but
suffered casualties of about one-fourth of the force engaged. It was,
like Bunker Hill, a Pyrrhic victory. His ranks depleted and his supplies
exhausted, Cornwallis withdrew to Wilmington on the coast, and then
decided to move northward to join the British forces General Clinton had
sent to Virginia.
Greene, his army in better condition than six months earlier, pushed
quickly into South Carolina to reduce the British posts in the interior.
He fought two battlesat Hobkirk's Hill on April 25, and at Eutaw
Springs on September 8--losing both but with approximately the same
results as at Guilford Court House. One by one the British interior
posts fell to Greene's army, or to militia and partisans. By October
1781 the British had been forced to withdraw to their port strongholds
along the coastCharleston and Savannah. Greene had lost battles, but
won a campaign. In so doing, he paved the way for the greater victory to
follow at Yorktown.
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