The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

126 Chapter 4 The American Revolution

But the tide soon turned. In 1779 the Spanish
governor of Louisiana, José de Gálvez, administered a
stinging defeat to British troops in Florida, and in
1780 and 1781 he captured the British-held Gulf
ports of Pensacola and Mobile. More important, in
June 1780 Congress placed Horatio Gates in charge
of a southern army consisting of the irregular militia
units and a hard core of Continentals transferred from
Washington’s command. Gates encountered
Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina. Foolishly, he
entrusted a key sector of his line to untrained militia-
men, who panicked when the British charged with
fixed bayonets. Gates suffered heavy losses and had to
fall back. Congress then recalled him, sensibly permit-
ting Washington to replace him with General
Nathanael Greene, a first-rate officer.
A band of militiamen had trapped a contingent of
Tories at King’s Mountain and forced its surrender.
Greene, avoiding a major engagement with Cornwallis’s
superior numbers, divided his troops and staged a series
of raids on scattered points. In January 1781, at the

Battle of Cowpens in northwestern South Carolina,

General Daniel Morgan inflicted a costly defeat on

Colonel Banastre Tarleton, one of Cornwallis’s most

effective officers. Cornwallis pursued Morgan hotly, but

the American rejoined Greene, and at Guilford Court

House they again inflicted heavy losses on the British.

Then Cornwallis withdrew to Wilmington, North

Carolina, where he could rely on the fleet for support

and reinforcements. Greene’s Patriots quickly regained

control of the Carolina backcountry.

Victory at Yorktown

Seeing no future in the Carolinas and unwilling to

vegetate at Wilmington, Cornwallis marched north

into Virginia, where he joined forces with troops

under Benedict Arnold. (Disaffected by what he con-

sidered unjust criticism of his generalship, Arnold

had sold out to the British in 1780. He intended to

betray the bastion of West Point on the Hudson

River. The scheme was foiled when incriminating

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The Yorktown Campaign, April to September 1781Cornwallis assumed that his army at Yorktown could be
provisioned and, if necessary, evacuated by the mighty British navy. But when several French admirals converged
on the Chesapeake Bay in August and defeated the British fleet commanded by Admiral Graves, Cornwallis was
trapped. He surrendered in October.