Washington's General (37 page)

Even the British were impressed: Tarleton would later write that every move Greene made “from the Catawba to Virginia, was judiciously designed and vigorously executed.”

Cornwallis, on the other side of the Dan and wary of the roving patriot partisans in his rear and on his flanks, waited several days and then ordered his men to march back to North Carolina. In a letter to London, he explained that his army was “ill-suited to enter ... so powerful a province as Virginia.” He was ill-suited because he was ill-supplied and hardly better off than his ragged enemy. He had been outgeneraled by the self-taught soldier from Rhode Island, but at least Greene was in Virginia now. North Carolina was cleared of the Continental army, though not the stubborn bands of patriot guerrillas. Cornwallis ordered his men to march sixty miles south to Hillsborough, North Carolina, where he issued a proclamation declaring victory and laying the groundwork for a restoration of Crown rule in the province.

The British didn't know it, but Nathanael Greene–resupplied and rested–had no intention of remaining safely over the Dan while his enemies
celebrated his retreat. On February 22, just a few days after Cornwallis began his march to Hillsborough, Greene recrossed the Dan and then returned to North Carolina. He knew that he and Cornwallis were destined to meet again, and very soon.

The southern campaign was fought not only in the backcountry forests and the lowland swamps but also in the minds of the region's civilians. Both Greene and Cornwallis understood the importance of public opinion and public perception. They both depended on the citizen soldiers of the militia, and the fervor with which men joined these bands often depended upon the tide of the war. Cornwallis explained to London just how fickle his support was, telling Lord George Germain, secretary of state for the American colonies, that the militia were reluctant to turn out “whilst a doubt remained on their minds of the superiority of our Arms.” To illustrate the point, the British commander found hundreds willing to join the loyalist militia corps when he triumphantly marched into Hillsborough to commemorate Greene's departure from the state. Greene, on the other hand, wished–needed–to give hope and heart to North Carolina's patriots while serving notice to its Tories that the Continental army in the South still was in the field, beaten but unvanquished. In late February, he told Washington that “most of the prisoners we take are inhabitants of America,” a situation he found mortifying.

Greene's force remained pathetically small, about sixteen hundred, when he returned to North Carolina. But he put out a call for state militia, and the men were responding. Meanwhile, Washington sent him the good news that regular Continentals from Pennsylvania would soon be marching to his assistance. (They never made it, for they were delayed in the North and then were needed in Virginia.)

Through late February and early March, the two armies shadowed each other. Cornwallis was fully aware that Greene had returned to the state, although he was never sure precisely where he might be. Greene was based between Troublesome Creek and Reedy Fork Creek to the north of Guilford Court House and the British. But, Henry Lee later
recalled, he changed “his position every day” and so “held Cornwallis in perfect ignorance of his position.” They were about twenty miles apart, and there was frequent skirmishing, particularly between Lee's and Tar-leton's mobile cavalry forces. At times in early March, the main camps were three miles from each other, though separated by rivers. The constant movement and incessant maneuvering wore down the ill-supplied British and tested Cornwallis's patience.

Still, the British force was strong and formidable, and Greene was not yet prepared to fight. But his very presence in North Carolina rallied the patriot cause and disheartened the loyalists who were so vital to the British southern strategy. “I have been obliged to practice ... by finesse which I dare not attempt by force,” he told Jefferson. He kept Washington informed of the life-or-death maneuvering under way in North Carolina, telling him that he was “within ten or twelve miles of the Enemy for several days,” but was unwilling to risk a battle just yet. Instead, he sent detachments under Lee, Williams, and Pickens to harass and annoy Cornwallis, assignments they carried out so well that the British withdrew several miles south to Bell's Mill on the Deep River for a respite.

Greene confided in nobody. As a member of Washington's many councils of war in the northern campaigns, he had seen plans argued to death and bad advice offered as wisdom. As he prepared for Cornwallis, Greene called no council of war. He kept to himself, rising early, moving among the troops, and attending not only to strategy but to logistics.

One morning he passed by the tent of a colonel from Virginia who was sound asleep. Greene woke him up, exclaiming, “Good heavens, Colonel, how can you sleep with the enemy so near?” The sleepy but shrewd soldier replied, “Why, General, I knew that you were awake.” Greene would later say that he never received so high a compliment as the colonel's.

The tension took a toll on his health. On March 5, from his camp in Boyd's Mill on Reedy Fork Creek, he told Lee that he was suffering from a “violent inflamation” in his eyes. To relieve his distress, he submitted to the usual medical practice of the day: he was bled. Not surprisingly, he
told Lee, “The inflamation is still troublesome and my eyes weak and painful.” Those sore eyes, however, soon beheld a wondrous sight: reinforcements of more than two thousand militia and Continental regulars. With these new troops from Virginia and North Carolina, Greene had more than four thousand men, enough, he determined, to offer Cornwallis the battle he so eagerly sought. For once, Greene's forces were numerically stronger than Cornwallis's army of about two thousand. But how long would he hold that advantage? As Greene told Jefferson, “[Militiamen] soon get tired out with difficulties, and go and come in such irregular Bodies that I can make no calculations on the strength of my Army.” Apparently, Cornwallis had the same trouble keeping track of Greene's army. His spies had told him that the Americans now had up to ten thousand men.

The stakes in the coming fight were outlined in a candid letter Morgan sent Greene from his retirement in Virginia: “I expect Lord Cornwallis will push you till you are obliged to fight him, on which much will depend. You'll have from what I see, a great number of militia–if they fight, you'll beat Cornwallis, if not, he will beat you and perhaps cut your regulars to pieces, which will be losing all our hopes.” Morgan offered some blunt advice: when the time came for Greene to stand and fight, he should position some of his veterans behind lines manned by the militia. The veterans, he wrote, should be given “orders to shoot down the first man that runs.”

Just after dawn and breakfast on March 14, Greene and his men moved out of camp at Speedwell Iron Works and marched a dozen miles south to the battlefield of Greene's choosing: the tiny town of Guilford Court House, where he had gathered his men together in early Februrary for the last leg of the race to the Dan. Cornwallis and the British were a little more than ten miles to the southwest, encamped near a Quaker meetinghouse.

Greene had no doubt that Cornwallis would attack him the following day, probably early in the morning. He immediately put his order of battle into place. It was a replica of Daniel Morgan's at Cowpens.

In the center of the battlefield was the New Garden Road, which
Cornwallis's men would follow from their camp to meet the Americans. The road was narrow, but it led to a wide clearing where Greene would position the first of three defensive lines. Manning the first line, behind a rail fence and on both sides of the New Garden Road, would be a thousand members of the North Carolina militia, among Greene's least experienced troops. They would have a superb view as the British marched out of the woods, through a muddy, plowed field, and toward the rail fence. Greene, again following Morgan's precedent, would ask his front line to deliver two or three well-executed volleys and then retire to the second line. William Washington's cavalry protected the right flank, while Henry Lee was positioned on the left.

The Virginia militia were to be deployed in the second line, some three hundred to four hundred yards behind the North Carolina militia and protected by a screen of woods. Greene would form his third line about seven hundred yards behind the second and facing another wide, open field that bent to the left after the second line. On the third line would be his fourteen hundred Continental regulars, two regiments from Virginia and two from Maryland–the heart of his army. They would be drawn up on the brow of a gently rising hill, a superb defensive position. The British not only would be exposed to American fire but would have to stumble across a small stream to reach the position, which was near the courthouse from which the village got its name. To the rear was the Ready Fork Road, which would serve as Greene's line of retreat.

It was late winter in North Carolina, and nightfall brought a chill to camp. Both armies lit campfires and prepared themselves for the ordeal that would begin at daybreak, if not before. From his position on the courthouse hilltop, Greene no doubt reflected on what lay ahead. His fortune, he knew, rested with the performance of the North Carolina and Virginia militia. Would they run away at the first sight of the disciplined British? Would they drop their weapons at the approach of Tarleton's fearsome cavalry? And, if they did, would Cornwallis finally crush this nettlesome, troublesome American army?

The coming of dawn would provide the answers.

Henry Lee's cavalry and a unit of Virginia riflemen were Greene's eyes and ears through the busy, tense night. At about four o'clock in the morning, Greene learned that the British indeed were on the march. Without the benefit of breakfast, the British had begun their twelve-mile trudge through the predawn chill toward Guilford Court House. Cornwallis was eager to strike, and his supplies were low, so his soldiers would march and fight on an empty stomach.

Greene moved his men into position, riding among them to offer small words of encouragement and mopping his brow at the sun burned away the morning chill. To his scared, inexperienced North Carolina militia, he gave no hint of his doubts. “Three rounds, my boys,” he reminded them, “and then you may fall back.”

The first shots were fired a little after seven o'clock, when Tarleton's cavalry, arriving in advance of the British infantry, skirmished with a portion of Lee's cavalry a few miles south of the American position. But Cornwallis and his infantry didn't arrive until well after noon, later than Greene might have expected. Though hungry and slightly demoralized–Cornwallis had lost about four hundred men in recent weeks to desertion–they were an intimidating sight. They formed precise, disciplined lines as they moved into position on both sides of the New Garden Road. General Alexander Leslie commanded the British right with the 71st Regiment of Highlanders and a regiment of Hessians; Lieutenant Colonel James Webster was on the left with the 33rd and 23rd regiments. Tarleton's dragoons were deployed on the road itself. Their swords and their dreaded bayonets picked up the late-winter sun; their flags and drums made the spectacle altogether magnificent.

American artillery opened fire, inspiring the same from the British. After twenty minutes of ineffective display, the British moved forward. Greene could not see the action, for the woods of the second line and the angle of his position blocked his view. He relied on his ears.

The North Carolina militia fired too early, when the British were more than a hundred yards away. The men in the center of the American
line then fled, well before they could do any significant damage. Those on the flanks, however, stayed at their position as the British came within forty yards. Both sides paused, as if to contemplate, for a moment, the hell they were about to unleash on each other. And then the British charged. The militia fired again and then fled, although, like those who ran before them, they did not join the Virginians behind them. Most simply left the battlefield entirely.

The main British force moved forward, toward the woods that screened the Virginians, while smaller units moved against the American covering parties under Washington and Lee. The Virginia men stood their ground as their right flank came under heavy attack from Webster's men. After half an hour of fierce fighting, the Virginians began to give way, but not entirely. Cornwallis himself rode forward to take command of the action.

The Virginians delayed the British and threw off Cornwallis's carefully coordinated plan for the assault on the final American position. Without pausing to re-form his line, the British general pressed Webster's men forward, toward the hill, toward the infernal Greene.

Webster's men, who had beaten back the right flank of the second American line, now moved against Greene's hilltop defenses without support. Awaiting Webster near the center of the American line were some of Greene's best soldiers, the men of the 1st Maryland Regiment. They unleashed a powerful, murderous volley, stunning troops who believed they could turn the battle into a quick rout. Greene rode up and down the American line, exposing himself as he shouted encouragement to his men. Webster's zeal presented Greene with a bold opportunity: with the rest of the British force still trying to untangle themselves from the second line and the woods, he could send his third line forward in a surprise counterattack.

He had no clear view of the fighting still under way in the second line, no real intelligence about Cornwallis's position. To risk the army was to risk the Revolution–how many times had he said as much during the northern campaigns? And so he let the opportunity pass.

Webster retreated to re-form, and the remainder of the British army
soon appeared in the clearing that faced the last American line. Cornwallis moved his reserves under General Charles O'Hara toward the inexperienced 5th Maryland Regiment on the American left. Many Marylanders turned and fled without firing a shot at O'Hara's men. The British were moving forward, threatening to outflank the American position, when William Washington's cavalry swooped down from their right. The result, Tarleton later wrote, was great slaughter. The 1st Maryland, which had devastated Webster, now turned to attack O'Hara's men.