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

troops. Its execution was near perfect and its impact, if not decisive, was significant. Its effect was to raise the flagging morale of those in America striving for independence, and conversely, it damped the enthusiasm of those contemplating support for the Crown. As importantly, Cowpens meant that Cornwallis’s small army was smaller still.
    Regardless, the British general held firm to his goal, which was to bring Greene into battle, defeat his forces, and thereby secure for the Crown the three most southern colonies. However, Cornwallis faced several problems: he was short of supplies, the local population was providing less assistance than expected, and Greene was devilishly difficult to engage.
    They met finally at Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina, on March 15, 1781. By then Greene’s forces actually outnumbered those of Cornwallis. Showing the courage typical of British redcoats, the English attacked. At one point the outcome looked to favor the Americans. But Cornwallis trained his artillery on where the battle was most fierce, killing both the enemy and some of his own men. This proved decisive. The British carried the day and Greene retired, though in good order. Nathanael Greene would fight again, at Hobkirk’s Hill and Eutaw Springs. There, once more, the king’s soldiers would win, but Greene and his army would survive. The British would hold the field of battle but little else.
    Cornwallis meanwhile had gone north into Virginia, contrary to orders from General Clinton. He reasoned that his little army—once thirty-five hundred, now reduced to one thousand—could not succeed in the Carolinas. So in April 1781 he chose to rendezvous with the British troops in Virginia, hoping with a larger force to draw the Americans into a major battle. If he could win it, and he expected to, he could put an end to the rebellion. Once in Virginia he needed to be able to be supplied from the sea. To encamp, Cornwallis chose the town of York, a small community on a river that fed into the Chesapeake Bay.
    In Newport, Rochambeau learned that a French fleet would arrive off the Chesapeake in August. He and Washington, who was keeping an eye on the British in New York, conceived a bold plan. Together, they would march south to the York peninsula and lay siege to Cornwallis. If the French fleet could hold off the Royal Navy, Cornwallis would be trapped.
    On June 10, 1781, the first French troops left Newport. They and four thousand others would meet up with Washington’s army and march 756 miles, arriving at Williamsburg in September. The combined French-American force was large. It numbered about eighteen thousand men, far more than that of Cornwallis.
    At first Cornwallis was not alarmed. True, he had his back to the sea, but his army would be reinforced and, if need be, evacuated by the navy. Did not Britain rule the waves? Had not the Royal Navy defeated French fleets whenever they met?
    Two points of land, both in Virginia, define the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. They are Cape Charles to the north and Cape Henry to the south. The distance between them is small, approximately fourteen miles. On September 5, 1781, a naval engagement occurred offshore. Known as the Battle of the Capes, it receives scant attention in history books. Yet it ranks among the most important in history. On that day, the French fleet, still under the command of the Comte François Joseph Paul de Grasse, battled British ships commanded by Admiral Sir Thomas Graves. Graves was no Horatio Nelson. After two and a half hours of exchanging gunfire, he withdrew, sailing back to New York. Cornwallis was left to fend for himself.
    There was not much the British general could do. Laying siege to York, French and American cannons bombarded the town. The town was soon wrecked, British casualties were growing in number, and (typically) supplies were short. Both the French and the Americans had men killed and wounded, but the outcome was never in doubt. On