Page 160 - American Stories, A History of the United States

the Final campaign
Strategists calculated that Britain’s last chance of winning the war lay in the southern 5.1
colonies, a region largely untouched in the early fighting. Intelligence reports indicated
that Georgia and South Carolina contained many Loyalists who would take up arms for
the crown if only they received support from the regular army. The southern strategy 5.2
British leaders devised in 1779 turned the war into a bitter guerrilla conflict. During the
last months of battle, British officers worried that their search for an easy victory had
inadvertently opened a Pandora’s box of uncontrollable partisan furies. 5.3
The southern campaign opened in spring 1780. Savannah, Georgia, had already
fallen in 1779. General Sir Henry Clinton, who had replaced Howe after Saratoga, now
reckoned that if the British could take Charles Town, they could control the entire 5.4
South. A fleet carrying nearly 8000 redcoats reached South Carolina in February. Com-
placent Americans had allowed the city’s fortifications to decay. In a desperate effort to
save the city, General Benjamin Lincoln’s forces dug trenches and reinforced walls, but
to no avail. Clinton and his second in command, Lord Cornwallis, encircled the city,
and on May 12, Lincoln surrendered an American army of almost 6000 men.
Despite this victory, partisan warfare weakened the British army. Tory raiders
showed little interest in serving as regular soldiers. They preferred night riding, indis-
criminate plundering, or murdering neighbors against whom they harbored ancient
grudges. The British had unleashed a horde of bandits across South Carolina. Men who
supported independence or who had fallen victim to Loyalist guerrillas bided their time.
Their chance came on October 7 near Kings Mountain, North Carolina. In the most
vicious fighting of the Revolution, the backwoodsmen annihilated a force of British
regulars and Tory raiders that had strayed too far from base. One witness reported
that when a British officer tried to surrender, at least seven Americans shot him down.
Cornwallis, confused by the enemy’s guerilla tactics and poorly supplied, squan-
dered his strength chasing American forces across the Carolinas. He abandoned
whatever military strategy had compelled him to leave Charles Town. In early 1781,
Cornwallis informed Clinton, “Events alone can decide the future Steps.” Events,
however, did not run in the British favor. Congress sent General Nathanael Greene to
the South with a new army. This young Rhode Islander was the most capable general

BaTTlE oF yoRkTown French assistance on land and sea helped the Americans to defeat the british in the
American Revolution. in this French print of the battle at Yorktown, French ships block the entrance of chesapeake
bay, preventing british vessels from resupplying their troops on land. Yorktown, which was unknown to the French
artist who made this print, is depicted as a european walled city.
127