Phase III: The Southern Strategy [1780-1781]

Military Strategies in the South

Good General Nathanial Greene.

Guerilla tactics you don’t have to win a battle, just wear the British down

Get French military might to take action.

The Americans The British

Brit thought more loyalists in the south.

Use of slaves to “rattle” south.

Southern resources were more valuable/worth preserving.

Who’s strategy works best?Initially…. The British appear to dominate….

• By May 1780 – Brits greatest victory at Charles Town, SC. Why?

• British under General Charles Cornwallis have a string of victories all over the South but the colonists don’t give up.

So, what goes wrong for British in the South?

The British hold the south for 6 months but then GW sends:

General Nathaniel Greene – Who’s he?

Where’s George?Outside NY in a stalemate with the British.1780 another psychological low point.

Why?

But GW “keeps the cause alive!”One great hope left – the French

-Arnold was an American general who secretly offered to turn over the fort at West Point to the British in exchange for money.

- Before he could be convicted he escaped and fought for the British. TRAITOR!!!!

Benedict Arnold

The French, our saviors?

The cast of characters:

• Marquis de Lafayette

• King Louis

• General Rochambeau

British army is worn down:

• 1/3 army sick/wounded• No shoes• Fatigue

So, Cornwallis decides to regroup his troops and sets up camp on Yorktown peninsula.

Back to Yorktown………….……

The Battle of Yorktown (1781)

Count de Rochambeau

AdmiralDe Grasse

The final showdown

• General Cornwallis set up camp in Yorktown, Virginia.

GW putting pressure on Rochambeau to strike.

Then, a lucky break!

Battle of Yorktown (1781)

• George Washington, along with 6,000 French troops led by Gen. Rochambeau, marched to Yorktown from New York.

Help!!I surrender!

• A French fleet, under the

leadership of Admiral de

Grasse, blocked the mouth of the

Chesapeake Bay, preventing

Cornwallis from receiving

supplies from the British navy.

Help!!

Victory!!

What happens on land?

October 17, 1781 – Cornwallis surrenders his army.

British realize they can never win the war – why?

“They cannot conquer an idea with an army” – Thomas Paine

Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 1781, by which over 7,000 British and Hessians became prisoners.

- In December of 1783, Gen. Washington bid farewell to his officers at Fraunces' Tavern in New York City.

Washington's Farewell

“Such a scene of sorrow and weeping I had never before witnessed. ..The simple thought that we were then about to part from the man who had conducted us through a long and bloody war, and under whose conduct the glory and independence of our country had been achieved, and that we should see his face no more in this world, seemed to me utterly unbearable.”

- Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge

War as a Symbol of Liberty Rise of Egalitarianism

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Motto: “A new order of the ages”