The critical stroke of the war was near.In the South, after General Greene superseded Gates in the command, the tide of war began to turn.Cornwallis now had to fight a better general than Gates.Greene arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina, in December.
He found an army badly equipped, wretchedly clothed, and confronted by a greatly superior force.He had, however, some excellent officers, and he did not scorn, as Gates, with the stiff military traditions of a regular soldier, had scorned, the aid of guerrilla leaders like Marion and Sumter.Serving with Greene was General Daniel Morgan, the enterprising and resourceful Virginia rifleman, who had fought valorously at Quebec, at Saratoga, and later in Virginia.Steuben was busy in Virginia holding the British in check and keeping open the line of communication with the North.The mobility and diversity of the American forces puzzled Cornwallis.When he marched from Camden into North Carolina he hoped to draw Greene into a battle and to crush him as he had crushed Gates.He sent Tarleton with a smaller force to strike a deadly blow at Morgan who was threatening the British garrisons at the points in the interior farther south.There was no more capable leader than Tarleton; he had won many victories; but now came his day of defeat.On January 17, 1781, he met Morgan at the Cowpens, about thirty miles west from King's Mountain.Morgan, not quite sure of the discipline of his men, stood with his back to a broad river so that retreat was impossible.Tarleton had marched nearly all night over bad roads; but, confident in the superiority of his weary and hungry veterans, he advanced to the attack at daybreak.
The result was a complete disaster.Tarleton himself barely got away with two hundred and seventy men and left behind nearly nine hundred casualties and prisoners.
Cornwallis had lost one-third of his effective army.There was nothing for him to do but to take his loss and still to press on northward in the hope that the more southerly inland posts could take care of themselves.In the early spring of 1781, when heavy rains were making the roads difficult and the rivers almost impassable, Greene was luring Cornwallis northward and Cornwallis was chasing Greene.At Hillsborough, in the northwest corner of North Carolina, Cornwallis issued a proclamation saying that the colony was once more under the authority of the King and inviting the Loyalists, bullied and oppressed during nearly six years, to come out openly on the royal side.On the 15th of March Greene took a stand and offered battle at Guilford Court House.In the early afternoon, after a march of twelve miles without food, Cornwallis, with less than two thousand men, attacked Greene's force of about four thousand.By evening the British held the field and had captured Greene's guns.But they had lost heavily and they were two hundred miles from their base.Their friends were timid, and in fact few, and their numerous enemies were filled with passionate resolution.
Cornwallis now wrote to urge Clinton to come to his aid.Abandon New York, he said; bring the whole British force into Virginia and end the war by one smashing stroke; that would be better than sticking to salt pork in New York and sending only enough men to Virginia to steal tobacco.Cornwallis could not remain where he was, far from the sea.Go back to Camden he would not after a victory, and thus seem to admit a defeat.So he decided to risk all and go forward.By hard marching he led his army down the Cape Fear River to Wilmington on the sea, and there he arrived on the 9th of April.Greene, however, simply would not do what Cornwallis wished--stay in the north to be beaten by a second smashing blow.He did what Cornwallis would not do; he marched back into the South and disturbed the British dream that now the country was held securely.It mattered little that, after this, the British won minor victories.Lord Rawdon, still holding Camden, defeated Greene on the 25th of April at Hobkirk's Hill.
None the less did Rawdon find his position untenable and he, too, was forced to march to the sea, which he reached at a point near Charleston.Augusta, the capital of Georgia, fell to the Americans on the 5th of June and the operations of the summer went decisively in their favor.The last battle in the field of the farther South was fought on the 8th of September at Eutaw Springs, about fifty miles northwest of Charleston.The British held their position and thus could claim a victory.But it was fruitless.They had been forced steadily to withdraw.All the boasted fabric of royal government in the South had come down with a crash and the Tories who had supported it were having evil days.
While these events were happening farther south, Cornwallis himself, without waiting for word from Clinton in New York, had adopted his own policy and marched from Wilmington northward into Virginia.Benedict Arnold was now in Virginia doing what mischief he could to his former friends.In January he burned the little town of Richmond, destined in the years to come to be a great center in another civil war.Some twenty miles south from Richmond lay in a strong position Petersburg, later also to be drenched with blood shed in civil strife.Arnold was already at Petersburg when Cornwallis arrived on the 20th of May.He was now in high spirits.He did not yet realize the extent of the failure farther south.Virginia he believed to be half loyalist at heart.
The negroes would, he thought, turn against their masters when they knew that the British were strong enough to defend them.
Above all he had a finely disciplined army of five thousand men.
Cornwallis was the more confident when he knew by whom he was opposed.In April Washington had placed La Fayette in charge of the defense of Virginia, and not only was La Fayette young and untried in such a command but he had at first only three thousand badly-trained men to confront the formidable British general.
