The Battle Of Guilford Courthouse by John R. Maass

Author:John R. Maass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

New York City and harbor in the 1780s, where Clinton made his headquarters. Library of Congress.

Several weeks later, Cornwallis would write a long letter to Germain in London with an account of this difficult campaign. Tarleton’s defeat at Cowpens was a bitter pill to swallow, but “this event did not deter me from prosecuting the original plan” of invading North Carolina, he told the secretary. Indeed, Cornwallis’s army moved with “great exertions.” He had been joined by Leslie’s reinforcements at Winnsborough in January, he told Germain, and tried to catch Morgan and liberate the redcoat prisoners of Cowpens. Rain-swollen creeks, excessive baggage, and Morgan’s “celerity,” however, prevented the British from overtaking him.205

Cornwallis reported to London with some pride that his army had turned into a light corps at Ramsour’s Mill by burning baggage and all but the most necessary wagons, a decision his soldiers met with “chearfull acquiescence.” He noted too that he forced the rebels back from the fords of the Catawba and pressed the enemy all the way to the Yadkin River “through one of the most rebellious tracts in America.” But he was too late, he confessed to Germain, as the rebels had all the boats and the river continued to rise.206

At this point, the British general explained to Germain, he recognized that he had had to catch Greene’s army as soon as possible, as the North Carolina militia was not yet collected and Virginia had yet to support the rebel troops. Cornwallis concluded that Greene

would do everything in his power to avoid an action on the south side of the Dan; and, it being my interest to force him to fight, I made great expedition and got between him and the upper fords [of the Dan], and being assured that the lower fords are seldom practicable in winter and that he could not collect many flats [boats] at any of the ferrys, I was in great hopes that he would not escape me without receiving a blow.

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