The Battle of Guilford Couthouse: Harbinger of the British Defeat at Yorktown

 

As the southern campaign progressed during the last phase of the American Revolution, British commanders labored under several false assumptions that would hinder their efforts in the Carolinas and ultimately cost them the war. The untenable position faced by Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown caused by lack of reinforcements and supplies began at the battle of Guilford Courthouse, a pyrrhic victory that cost him a quarter of his army. It became evident to military commanders as well as members of Parliament that although Guilford Courthouse represented “a complete victory over the rebels,” the cost of victory could not be sustained.

 

The British March through North Carolina

 

North Carolina witnessed some of the bloodiest and most savage fighting of the entire War for Independence. This possibility was not foreseen by British military planners who assumed that the state contained more loyalists than rebels. The assumption proved to be false. Those loyalists that might have joined Cornwallis swiftly reconsidered after the massacre of loyalists by Colonel Tarleton’s cavalry, mistaking them for rebels.

 

Additionally, North Carolina geography was not well suited for Cornwallis’ march north. The province was full of rivers like the Catawba, Dan, and Yadkin, restricting opportunities at greater maneuverability, especially as patriot forces began to oppose British units sent to garrison key North Carolina cities.

 

British troops had been told to expect supportive loyalist farmers that would provide food and drink as the army advanced. This proved to be another false assumption. Additionally, the Carolinas had offered stiff resistance and weakened the British forces. South of the North Carolina border, the battles of King’s Mountain and Hannah’s Cowpens devastated British and loyalist forces. Cornwallis, referring to Cowpens, stated that it was the “most serious calamity since Saratoga.”

 

Battle of Guilford Courthouse

 

At Guilford Courthouse, not far from the Virginia border, General Nathaniel Greene’s 4,500 men met the much smaller British army of 2,000. Arranged in three lines, the patriots had the advantage of terrain. Greene’s first and second line, representing local militia as well as Virginia militia, rapidly broke.

The third line, however, was made up of Continentals, regular, veteran troops. They held the high ground and almost succeeded in turning the British advance. Military historians speculate that if General Greene had ordered a charge, the weary British grenadiers and Guards units would have crumbled and the entire war would have been over.

 

Lord Cornwallis ordered the firing of grapeshot into the melee, killing as many of his own men as those of the enemy. The action succeeded and Greene ordered a withdrawal, leaving the British in control of the battlefield. Without food and enduring heavy rains, morale decreased. Further, Cornwallis had lost a quarter of his command and would limp into Virginia with only 1,435 men fit for combat duty.

 

Effects of Guilford Courthouse

 

British planners could not see the impending disaster. Although Benedict Arnold, who had recently changed allegiance to the British cause, was successfully harassing Virginia patriots and disparate military units, neither Virginia nor the Carolinas were solidly under British control. In fact, Cornwallis remarked in a letter to Lord Germain in London that rebel activity in the Carolinas was far more active and widespread than had been assumed.

 

Arriving in Yorktown, the British army was in no condition to fight. Disease was taking more lives and promised reinforcements failed to materialize. Cornwallis’ commander, the incompetent Sir Henry Clinton in New York, realized too late that British defeat at Yorktown would translate into the end of the war, the Americans having won their independence.

 

Revolutionary North Carolina had shown that the British southern campaign had been built on erroneous information. This cost them the war, particularly after the devastating defeat at Guilford Courthouse.

 

Sources:

 

David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1985)

Christopher Hibbert, Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes (New York: Avon Books, 1991)

Page Smith, A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution, Volume Two (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1976)

Primary Source Reference Book For the 1781 Guilford Courthouse Campaign, Captain Thomas Goss, Editor (Department of History, United States Military Academy West Point: May 4, 1998) [on-line PDF] 

Published September 9/2009 Suite 101 by M.Streich