Revolutionary War: Southern Theater

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Revolutionary War: Southern Theater

The Central Campaign. While Gen. John Burgoyne’s plan was being made and coming to grief, Gen. William Howe was trying to bring George Washington to battle in New Jersey and was being frustrated in the attempt. In July 1777 he sailed from New York and landed at the head of Chesapeake Bay. At the time he should have been moving up the Hudson River to relieve Burgoyne, he was brushing Washington aside at Brandywine and moving into Philadelphia. In the winter of 1777–1778 the American army endured freezing cold and starvation rations at Valley Forge while Howe was warm and well fed only thirty miles away. But the army that marched out of Valley Forge in the spring was tougher, more disciplined and more skilled due to the training efforts of the German officer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben. On 18 June, the day after France declared war on Britain, Sir Henry Clinton, Howe’s replacement as British commander in chief, began the move from Philadelphia back to New York. At Monmouth Courthouse, the Americans attacked the British column’s rear guard, and fought the enemy to a standstill. After Clinton returned to New York City, he was blockaded there by Washington for the rest of the war. In effect, Clinton had ended the attempt to control the Middle colonies.

A New British Strategy. From New York, Clinton attempted to wage a more vigorous war, using the power and

agility of the British navy. His first stroke was the capture of Savannah, Georgia, on 29 December 1778, by an amphibious attack of thirty-five hundred regulars from New York and one thousand local Tories under Col. Sir Archibald Campbell. This inflamed the Tories of the Southern region and soon their militiamen were attacking throughout Georgia and the Carolinas. By September, a four thouand-man French amphibious force under Adm. Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Henri-Hector d’Estaing was cooperating with militia and Continentals from Charleston in trying to retake Savannah. When this siege failed, Gen. Charles Cornwallis proposed to Sir Henry Clinton that if Charleston, South Carolina, were captured all of the Carolinas could easily be pacified. Clinton sailed from New York with eight thousand troops and with local Tory

support began a siege of Charleston in early 1780. The garrison surrendered on 12 May and Clinton embarked for New York, leaving Cornwallis to his task. Within three months Cornwallis overran South Carolina. His most effective weapon was Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, a tactically gifted and ruthless cavalryman. But Tarleton’s zeal was a two-edged sword. After his men bayoneted some Americans trying to surrender at the Waxhaws settlement along the North Carolina-South Carolina border, Patriot guerrillas were energized by vivid and sometimes fanciful tales of the atrocity. Nonetheless, Cornwallis piled success on success. When Gen. Horatio Gates marched into South Carolina, Cornwallis met him at Camden on 16 August 1780. With his best troops advancing on American militiamen weakened by dysentery, Cornwallis destroyed the American force and sent General Gates fleeing in panic. This was the lowest ebb of Patriot fortunes in the Carolinas.

The Road to Cowpens. The way now stood open for Cornwallis to invade North Carolina. Brushing aside hastily assembled militia units, he advanced toward Charlotte, with a force of Tory militia under Maj. Patrick Ferguson marching on a parallel line to the west. Ferguson was foolish enough to announce his intention to destroy the Watauga frontier settlements and hang its leaders for their support of the South Carolina Patriots. This threat, along with the bloodthirsty reputation that was attached to Tarleton, brought the frontiersmen out in a fury. Meeting Ferguson at King’s Mountain on 7 October, they slaughtered him and his force. Cornwallis had to retreat to South Carolina, while Tarleton spent the autumn trying to deal with guerrilla forces led by Francis Marion. Soon Continental troops and militia under the new commander of the Southern Department, Gen. Nathanael Greene, arrived to deal with the situation. Greene took half his force and menaced Charleston, sending the other half under Gen. Daniel Morgan to loop through the western Carolinas. Cornwallis then divided his forces into three: Gen. Alexander Leslie would cope with Greene; Tarleton would stalk Morgan; and Cornwallis would follow behind Tarleton.

Double Envelopment. In the Second Punic War against Rome, the Carthaginian general Hannibal performed a remarkable feat at Cannae in 216 B.C., destroying an entire Roman army by passing both its flanks and surrounding it in the course of battle. Daniel Morgan accomplished the same feat at the Battle of Cowpens in northwestern South Carolina. As Tarleton’s eleven hundred troops attacked up a hill, a line of American riflemen fired two volleys and then retreated to join a second line of militia. Again, two volleys were fired before they all retired around the left of a picked force of Continentals and militiamen just below the crest of the hill. As the Continentals grappled with Tarleton’s soldiers, cavalry swept down the hill on the British right flank, and the reformed militiamen swarmed to attack both flanks. Surrounded and facing a spirited bayonet charge by the Continentals, the British surrendered. Tarleton’s courage and leadership could not save the day. He tendered his resignation to Cornwallis, who graciously declined to accept it. Tarleton was not so gracious writing his account of the battle years later: he blamed his defeat on Cornwallis for not coming forward quickly enough to rescue him.