America At War - Concise Histories Of U.S. Military Conflicts From Lexington To Afghanistan Read Online Free PDF

supportive of the Crown. Lincoln lost not only the town, he also turned over five thousand men, practically the entire army of the Southern Department. To make matters worse a company of Virginia militia moving north after the surrender were cornered at Waxhaw, close to the border with North Carolina. After a brief fight, the Americans asked for quarter—that is, they surrendered. Quarter, however, was denied. Banastre Tarleton, the British commander, had his men kill all of the rebels.
    The Waxhaw Massacre reflected the brutality of the war in the South, where the conflict was as much a civil war among Americans as it was a conflict against the British. Tarleton’s men were American loyalists.
    Another engagement in the South exemplifies this internal aspect of the conflict. At King’s Mountain in western Carolina a British officer, Patrick Ferguson, and his nine hundred men found themselves surrounded and outnumbered by an American force of backwoodsmen. When the October battle concluded, Ferguson and two hundred of his men were dead. Many others were wounded and seven hundred were prisoners. Notably, except for Ferguson and a few of his officers, everyone who participated in the battle were Americans. No British redcoats were there.
    The second event in 1780 favorable to the king’s cause occurred at Camden, South Carolina, in mid-August. Two months before, the Continental Congress had appointed Horatio Gates in command of the army in the South. Much was expected of this hero of Saratoga. Gates, confident to a fault, rushed into battle. The result was a crushing defeat, with the American general scampering three miles to personal safety. Gates thus destroyed his reputation as well as his army.
    With Gates in disgrace, a new commander of the Southern Department was needed. The choice lay with the Congress in Philadelphia, and it selected Washington’s quartermaster general, Nathanael Greene. A better selection could not have been made. Somehow Greene rebuilt the army and then engaged the British in several battles. That he won none of these did not matter. He fought well, kept his army intact, and wore down the enemy. They were now commanded by Lord Cornwallis, Clinton having returned to New York.
    Nathanael Greene rode into Charlotte, North Carolina, then a town of some twenty houses and two main streets, late in December 1780. The army he commanded numbered approximately fifteen hundred men. About one-third of these were reliable Continentals, the rest militia. One of his first steps was to divide his force in two, an action contrary to standard military doctrine. He remained in command of one element. The other he gave to Daniel Morgan.
    Morgan was a rugged frontiersman who had fought well at Quebec and Saratoga. Now a brigadier general, he took his small force to western Carolina, to a spot where stray cows often assembled. Chasing him was Banastre Tarleton. Morgan devised unconventional tactics, placing his militia troops in the front line with his Continentals well to the rear. This was risky as militia in the past had run from bayonet-equipped redcoats. Morgan asked his militiamen to fire but twice and then retire. He placed a few sharpshooters among them and awaited Tarleton’s arrival. He expected Tarleton to attack, suffer some initial losses, then, smelling victory, rush after the retreating militia headlong into the volleys of Morgan’s Continental regulars. Essentially, that is what happened. The American victory at Cowpens—it took place on January 19, 1781—cost Morgan twelve dead and sixty wounded. In defeat Tarleton had thirty-nine officers killed, more than twice that number of men slain, and some six hundred soldiers taken prisoner. It could have been worse. Morgan forbade his men to take “Tarleton’s quarter” as some wished to do.
    Morgan’s victory at Cowpens is considered a minor military classic. His plan took advantage of the enemy’s likely behavior and negated the weakness of his own