treatment of his men—and grew so annoying
to his captors that he was arrested and placed
in confinement. He finally gained his parole in
November 1779 and, the following fall, was
formally exchanged for Gen. Benjamin Lin-
coln, captured at Charleston.
Phillips next reported to Gen. Henry Clin-
tonin New York. In March 1781, Clinton di-
rected him to command a 2,000-man expedi-
tion, land in Rhode Island, and prevent French
troops under General Rochambeau from
reaching Virginia. He thus became the first
Royal Artillery officer to head up a major
force in the field. Later that month, Phillips
was ordered to Virginia, where he was to join
up with none other than his former adversary,
Benedict Arnold, now fighting for the British.
He was accordingly conveyed to Portsmouth,
marched overland, and captured Williamsburg
on April 20, 1781. Once united with Arnold,
Phillips commanded 3,500 soldiers in the mid-
dle of a rich and thinly populated state. He
then trudged southward, intending to link up
with the main British army under Gen.
Charles Cornwallis. En route through Vir-
ginia, Phillips and Arnold burned the Chicka-
hominy shipyard before attacking and defeat-
ing Baron von Steuben at Blandford on April
25, 1781. Moving on to Petersburg, the roving
British captured and burned large quantities
of military supplies. The British then scored
their biggest success of the raid by attacking
Osborne’s Wharf, on the James River, two
days later. There, in a fine display of gunnery,
Phillips’s cannons engaged a small fleet of
warships belonging to the Virginia state navy,
gathered there in anticipation of attacking
Portsmouth. Trapped by gunfire, the vessels
were all subsequently scuttled to avoid cap-
ture. The marauders then continued south,
burning Chesterfield Court House and tobacco
warehouses at Manchester. When word was
received of Cornwallis’s approach, Phillips
next decided to march on to Petersburg and
await him there while Arnold moved upriver.
Thus far, the raid had been a masterly display
of planning and movement on behalf of these
former adversaries. However, Phillips sud-
denly contracted typhoid fever and tried run-
ning operations from his ambulance bed. He
died shortly after reaching Petersburg on May
13, 1781, and was buried there. Regardless of
his haughty disposition, Phillips was easily the
most accomplished artillerist of the American
Revolution. His talents would be sorely
missed at the forthcoming siege of Yorktown.See also
Arnold, BenedictBibliography
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the Revolutionary War.Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
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Man Can Go: Major General William Phillips,
British Royal Artillery, 1731–1781.Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1999; Elting, John R. The Battles of
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Brendan. Saratoga, 1777.Oxford: Osprey, 2000.PHILLIPS, WILLIAM