Major General Nathanael Greene's Southern Campaign

Today we have a really cool program going on. If you came out to the last History Talk in February, we talked about Washington's firing. And today we're kind of talking about Washington's right-hand man, Nathaniel Green. And to do our presentation is Taylor Osborn. So without further ado, I'm turning the floor over to him. Thanks so much. Well, good afternoon everyone. I'm Andrew here in the Southern Department of the Continental Army. And I'm here today to talk to you a little bit about my time here in the Carolinas. But before I start with that, I'll give you a little bit of my background. I was born in Pottawammit, Rhode Island in 1742 to a prominent Quaker family. We owned two forges that built giant ship anchors for ships coming in and out of the Boston Harbor, because we were just right across from Boston. And one of those was located, of course, in Pottawammit and another in Coventry, Rhode Island. When turmoil began in Boston, I was actually neutral. But a key event happened that pushed me to the Patriot side. When they shut down Boston Harbor after the Boston Tea Party, the ships coming in and out, British naval forces would stop and commandeer, saying that they were carrying contraband into Boston or into Rhode Island. So one of the ships my family owned was caught by the HMS Gespe, which was an infamous ship in the area. The captain was known to take ships for no reason. So when he took my ship, I, of course, had sued him pretty much, ordered a lawsuit. But before that lawsuit happened, a group of the Sons of Liberties from Rhode Island got together, because as the Gespe was chasing after another ship, it ran aground in their agassic bay. These Patriots rowed out not far off the coast into shallow water, and they climbed onto the Gespe. They shot the ship's commander, wounding him, and then set the Gespe on fire. The subpoena for the ship's commander actually was given to him while he was laying in bed, recovering from his wounds. So that event led me to the Patriot side. I helped form a regiment called the Kennish Guards, which were a militia unit in Rhode Island. Ironically, our uniforms were redcoats. We drilled, and when the war began, they actually promoted me to brigadier general of the Rhode Island forces, and I marched my troops outside of Boston. This was right after Lexington and Concord. We were a little bit late. We got there a few days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, but we actually got there in time to still see the British ships bombarding Charlestown, Massachusetts. After that, the Continental Congress formed the Continental Army, and General Washington was appointed commander-in-chief. So as soon as he shows up at Cambridge, I make sure to introduce myself to him. His Excellency General Washington, with whom I made a lot of friends, and throughout the war served throughout many different battles. So we get to the year 1780, and things aren't going well here in the South. Things in the North are not going well. We are at a stalemate. I had just finished up being quartermaster of the Army at Valley Forge, and now was taking over West Point. After the traitor Benedict Arnold fled, I was actually over the tribunal that tried and had sentenced Major John Andre, adjutant general to the British Army, to death. So after that, I was made commander of West Point, but also during that time, Charlestown, South Carolina fell. The British took it and its 5,000 Continental soldiers after about a 45-day siege in May of 1780. A few months later, the British defeat the Continental Army under Major General Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga, at the Battle of Camden. At Camden, however, Gates got pretty much disbanded, any notions of him being honorable. When the battle opened up and his militia began to break, he ran as well. Now, he claims he was trying to rally his forces. I'm not sure how you do that three miles ahead of them. So General Washington, of course, was furious and removed Gates from command. Gates's second-in-command, Baron Johan de Koeb, who was a French officer, was mortally wounded during the battle and died a few days later. So the South was in disarray. There was a few Continental regiments left. There was about a company of the Delawares left, still a large number of the Marylanders left, and then some local militias. They had no command. I sent letters to a few friends saying that I was interested in it, and then we get news of a very key victory here in the South, the Battle of Kings Mountain. A young, arrogant Scottish officer, Patrick Ferguson, had threatened the backcountry settlers, who we now know as the Overmountain Men, told them that he would burn down their homes and lay waste to their country with fire and sword. So they rose up, went after Ferguson, and attacked him at Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780. They defeated him. Ferguson was actually killed during the battle. So we have one key victory that actually forced Cornwallis out of North Carolina temporarily. A week to the day, I get a letter on my desk at West Point. Washington says, I want you to take over this command in the South. For me, that was a this-is-great-and-oh-crap moment because so far, every commander in the South had ruined their careers. Major General Benjamin Lincoln was the officer who surrendered Charlestown. Gates, of course, disgraced himself at Camden. So it was a theater that not a lot of officers wanted to go in. But I set off. I took a fairly well-known officer with me, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand, the Baron von Steuben. I took him with me down south to train our troops. He is the officer who trained the Continental Army in Battle Forge. We spent a night at Mount Vernon. For some reason, von Steuben was not very impressed with the mansion. Even though it wasn't complete yet, I guess he was just used to the large castles in Europe. We stayed there. Miss Washington was actually packing to go to her quarters with General Washington. And we continued down into Richmond, Virginia. The governor of Virginia at the time was Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. When it comes to writing, he's good. When it comes to military affairs, he knows absolutely nothing. When dealing with Jefferson, I tried to get him to send troops down south. His idea was, I need to keep my militia here in Virginia to protect us. That was about it. He would actually send any troops with us. I left Baron von Steuben to train what troops we could get and headed down south. First, I arrived in Hillsborough, North Carolina. And that's where I was told that the governor, Ardner Nash, and General Gates was. I show up, and neither were anywhere to be found. I ask one of the local officials where they were. They said Nash and Gates had moved to Charlotte, since the British had evacuated that town once Kings Mountain happened. So I arrive in Charlotte and find the ruins of the Continental Army. They were in want of everything. Barely had any uniforms. Very discouraged after Captain. I arrive with orders to court-martial General Gates for his basically deserting at the Battle of Camden. But I arrived and actually found out that Gates had just lost his son. So I didn't court-martial him and send him back up north. Washington automatically fired him from field of command. He never commanded troops during the war again. So I took command after a little ceremony on December 3rd, 1780. And then set out my plan. Now my plan was to split our army. Now you might think that's kind of a weird thing to do with having smaller forces than the British and being defeated so many times. But I wanted what I would call a flying army. Fast-moving troops that would cause hit-and-run attacks on the British. I sent one army in one direction in South Carolina under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, the old wagoneer. He had service in the French and Indian War. Was one of the officers who actually helped win the Battle of Saratoga, which brought the French into the war. Also sent a young Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard of the Maryland line with him. So they went in one direction in South Carolina. Through Charlotte toward the area of the Cowpens and heading that way. I and the rest of the army moved toward Windsboro, which is where Lord Cornwallis, my adversary here in the South, was. So my thinking was if Cornwallis is the officer that he is said to have been, he would split his army as well. And he did. He sent a young British cavalry officer known as the Butcher, Lieutenant Colonel Bannister Tarleton. He sent him after Morgan and Cornwallis came after me. Now Tarleton chased Morgan for a good time. And then Morgan found a little plot of land in South Carolina called the Cowpens. And there he decided I'm going to make a stand here and try to defeat the Butcher. Now Tarleton was known for his brutality at the Waxhaw Massacre in 1780. He slaughtered Virginia Continentals who were trying to surrender. That gave him the nickname The Butcher or Bloody Bam. So at Cowpens, Morgan had more militia troops than anything. Now the militia were the untrained locals. He had a couple regiments of Continentals from Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. But the way the Cowpens was laid out, it was rolling hills. So he decided to set his troops up in three lines. And the night before he went around to all the militia camps and told the militiamen fire two shots and you're done. Retreat. Aim for the epaulette men, the officers, the musicians. Once you fire your two shots, move away into a reserve spot. And if we need you throughout the rest of the battle, we'll call you to fight. So how he set it up was there was two lines of militia. And no lines could see each other. The way the land was laid out, they couldn't see each other. And the British couldn't see each line. Then his third line was that of the Continentals under John E. Howard. The British arrived early in the morning, and Tarleton goes on the field and sees a line of militia. So how do you think Tarleton's feeling when he just sees militia? Pretty good, right? The militia fire their two shots, cause some heavy casualties, and they run away. So Tarleton's thinking, well, I'm winning this battle. They're already running. This is just an advanced party protecting the main army retreating. Then he comes on to a second line. So he thinks, oh, here's some more troops guarding the main wagon track. They fire their two shots, cause casualties, and run away again. So Tarleton's feeling pretty confident that he's winning this battle. Then he gets to the third line. He's found the Continentals. So he's like, this is where I'm really going to fight. The Continentals and the British open fire on each other. They're exchanging bobbings, and Tarleton decides to have his left flank of Highlanders flank the Continentals. Now Howard orders his flank to wheel and engage the incoming Highlanders. But due to the loudness of the battle, there was confusion. So they took that as a command to about face and start marching off the field. Then the entire line of Continentals does the same. In the report, Morgan said he wrote up to Howard and said, are we defeated? And Morgan said, do these men march as if they are defeated? Taking advantage of this, he notices the British have broke ranks. They're running after the Continentals. Tarleton's like, we're going to smash them here and now. Let's just go all out at it. So Morgan has his troops load as they're marching away. He stops them at a certain point, has them do an about face, and they fire what Lieutenant Colonel William Washington called a murderous fire at the British. It halts the British line, and they begin to surrender. Tarleton, seeing this, decides to flee, engages with William Washington, who is third cousin to General Washington. He engages with William Washington, has to shoot Washington's horse out from under him so he can escape, and Tarleton returns to Cornwallis. We take a large number of prisoners, and it's another key victory here in the South, just a few months after Kings Mountain. Now, you can imagine Cornwallis' reaction when he got the word from Tarleton. One of the prisoners that Cornwallis had when he returned to camp told us that Cornwallis was standing on his sword and kept leaning so hard when Tarleton was telling him about the defeat at Calpins that Cornwallis' sword snapped in two. It was that angry. So he decides he's going after Morgan and putting an end to the rebellion in the South, whatever it costs. He burns his wagon trains, personally throws his own gear into the fire, a lot of their food stores, and begins a long march. Now Morgan arrives and rejoins with us, and we get engaged in what is called the Race to the Dan River. My goal was to cross the Dan River into Virginia, resupply, and make sure that my troops rest before I engage in a major battle. We pass through several places as we go. One place we stopped was in Salisbury, North Carolina. We stopped and my surgeon was sitting in one of the taverns there owned by a Miss Elizabeth Maxwell Steele. So I walk in and I rode alone up to the tavern, head of the army, and I walk in and the doctor says, Alone, General? I said yes, alone, tired, hungry, and without funds. Now Miss Steele is behind the bar in her tavern. Now taverns at this time were multipurpose buildings. They were hotels, restaurants, things of that nature. So she's back there selling rooms, selling food. But she hears this and goes into one of the back rooms of the tavern and picks up two bags of gold and silver coins. She brings them out and hands them to me saying, Take these sir, you need them more than I do. I thanked her by walking over to a portrait of old King George in her tavern, flipping it backwards and writing on the back, Oh George, hide thy face and mourn. I left, I gave a thank you letter to the town of Salisbury. They treated the Continental Army very well and we continued on our march. We also engaged in a few battles with the British. I was stockpiling weapons and ammunition at Baby's Ford near Charlottetown. I had sent one of my key militia generals, William Lee Davidson, to that area and he engaged with the British at the Cowan's Ford. Unfortunately, Davidson, being a former Continental, decided to wear his Continental coat to the battle and loyalist sharpshooters pointed him out and shot and killed him during the battle. We lost that engagement, but I was able to get the rest of the army far enough away. So we continue, Cornwallis is right on our heels, and I decide once again to split my army. I send one army, the army that was under Morgan, and I sent Morgan home due to, he had extreme back ailments, so I decided, you've done your job, you can go home and rest. So I sent Morgan home and put those troops under the command of Colonel Othehoff Williams from Maryland. So I send Colonel Williams in one direction as a diversion, and Cornwallis takes the bait. He goes after Williams. They engage in some skirmishes, and I get my troops across the Dan River. One thing I had done on the way to the Dan was sent scouts to gather every boat they could on the river and have them there at where we crossed into Halifax, Virginia. When I got to the river, we crossed over only a few hours before Cornwallis. Cornwallis gets there, and we're nowhere to be found. The diversionary force had also crossed, and Cornwallis could hear us cheering on the other side of the river. So this aggravated him a lot. He moved his troops to Hillsborough, North Carolina. Now after a few days in Virginia, we resupplied our troops, and I decided to cross back into North Carolina. I was ready to fight. Now on my way to the Dan River, I passed through a little area called New Garden, which is the area where the Guilford County Courthouse was. I had surveyed the land, and this is also when General Morgan was still with us. He said, you should fight a battle here. The layout is perfect to use the same tactics I used at Calvary's, which is exactly what I did. I crossed back into North Carolina and went straight through the Guilford Courthouse. There on March 15, 1781, we engaged in the largest battle fought in the South during the American Revolution. Now I did do as Morgan said. I set up my troops in three lines. We got a large number of local militias coming in. We actually outnumbered Cornwallis by over half. I had 4,500 troops. I believe he had about 2,100. So I set my first line up with the local militia. They were untrained and never fought a battle. They're on the front line, and flaked on each side are two Calvary units. One, William Washington's 3rd Continental Infantry Regiment, and on the opposite side, Henry Black Horse Harry Lee's partisan division. Now, Henry Lee is a young officer, and I hear his son is a lot more famous here in the South. Any guesses who his son is? Yep, Robert E. Lee. So Henry Lee is a glory-seeking young officer, Calvary officer. So that's the first line. The second line is veteran militias from Virginia, most of which fought at Kings Mountain, including troops under William Campbell and troops under Joseph Winston of Surry County. And he also had the Wilkes County Militia Division. The third line is where I set up my continentals and my artillery. There's where we had the Veteran 1st and 2nd Maryland. We had a new regiment, the 3rd Maryland. A few new North Carolina continental troops that I had guarding the artillery, as well as the Delawares and other Virginia continentals. And at about 2 o'clock, Wallace arrives. His troops advance across an open field, and the militia were also ordered to fire two shots. They fired one good volley and halted the line. It caused a lot of casualties to the British, but then the British engaged in a bayonet charge. And as they charged, those militia got scared and ran away. So they break through the first line. They get to the second line, and the fighting gets more heated. We actually nearly killed Lord Cornwallis at this point in the battle. He gets disoriented and starts riding toward our line. Unfortunately, one of his officers caught his horse and pulled him back. We could have won the war a lot quicker if we had captured or killed Cornwallis at that point. But eventually, the British flanked our second line. They were forced to pull back. And Henry Lee, being the young officer he is, decides to go on a glory-seeking campaign. He takes some of my Virginia continentals and goes off to the side and engages with the British Brigade of Guards, one of the top regiments of the British Army, as well as the Hessian Regiment of Bombosa. So they're engaged over to the side. And coming out of the woods first are the 23rd and 33rd Regiments of Foot. Another two regiments that are some of the top of the British Army. I order my troops to give them a nice southern welcome with a cannon and musket fire. And we halt the line. Engage with them a little bit. And next thing we know, here comes the Hessians and the Brigade of Guards. Lee had failed on his glory-seeking campaign and was forced to pull back. So they come out of the woods, and I send the Marylanders to engage with them, as well as William Washington's cavalry. Now at this point, the battle gets really heated. It's hand-to-hand combat, bayonet to bayonet. I can't tell who's winning. Cornwallis obviously can't tell who's winning. But Cornwallis was adamant that he was going to win this battle. So he orders his two light three-pounder cannons loaded with grapeshot. Now grapeshot is a cloth bag with iron balls in it that when fired,