A Southern Strategy

Victory, Defeat, & Surrender in the Southern Colonies, 1778-1781

Banastre Tarleton,Light Cavalry leader atThe Waxhaw Massacre

Reasons for Southern Strategy

• Loyalist Exiles convince George Germaine that their kinsmen would flock to royal standard.

• Exile loyalists were really hoping to regain their abandoned lands.

• British had not won decisively in northern or middle colonies.

Major Episodes in Southern Campaign

• Dec. 29, 1778—Archibald Campbell captures Savannah.

• October 1779—combined operation (Lincoln and D’Estaing) fail to recapture Savannah.

• After long siege, Benjamin Lincoln surrendered his garrison of 5,000 at Charleston to Henry Clinton, May 12, 1780.

• Those who escaped from Charleston were routed at Battle of Waxhaws (May 29, 1780).

Red Tide Crests in South

• Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) assumes command from Henry Clinton.

• Dispatches new colonial army under Horatio Gates at Camden (August 16, 1780).

• All of Georgia and South Carolina are firmly in British hands.

A Rising Blue Tide• Patrick Ferguson and loyalists are routed by partisan forces at Kings

Mountain, October 7, 1780. • Loyalist recruiting numbers slow.• Daniel Morgan routed Tarleton at Cowpens (Jan. 17, 1781)• Nathaniel Greene brilliantly loses a series of battles (Cowan's Ford,

Guilford Court House, Hobkirk's Hill, Ninety Six, and Eutaw Springs) in spring and summer 1781.

• “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.” Nathaniel Greene.• Backcountry in U. S. hands; Cornwallis heads to Virginia to interdict

supplies.• Controls lower neck in Virginia against Marquis de Lafayette.• Seeks refuge at Yorktown, but pinned in by French navy after Battle

of Virginia Capes (5 Sept. 1781) and is besieged by Washington and Rochambeau. Surrendered on Oct. 19, 1781.

Battle of Cowpens

Siege of Yorktown