Meanwhile, the two divisions of the American army were marching on converging lines, and on the 9th the forces under Greene and Morgan made a junction at Guilford Court-House, Cornwallis being then at Salem, twenty-five miles distant. A battle was fought at this place a month later, but just then the force under Greene's command was too small to risk a fight. A defeat at that time might have proved fatal to the cause of the South. Nothing remained but to continue the retreat across the State to the border of Virginia, and there put the Dan River between him and his foe.
To cover the route of his retreat from the enemy, Greene detached General Williams with the flower of his troops to act as a light corps, watch and impede Cornwallis and strive to lead him towards Dix's ferry on the Dan, while the crossing would be made twenty miles lower down.
It was a terrible march which the poor patriots made during the next four days. Without tents, with thin and ragged clothes, most of them without shoes, "many hundreds of the soldiers tracking the ground with their bloody feet," they retreated at the rate of seventeen miles a day along barely passable roads, the wagon-wheels sinking deep in the mud, and every creek swollen with the rains. In these four days of anxiety Greene slept barely four hours, watching every detail with a vigilant eye, which nothing escaped. On the 14th they reached the ford, hurrying the wagons across and then the troops, and before nightfall Greene was able to write that "all his troops were over and the stage was clear."
General Williams had aided him ably in this critical march, keeping just beyond reach of Cornwallis, and deceiving him for a day or two as to the intention of the Americans. When the British general discovered how he had been deceived, he got rid of more of his baggage by the easy method of fire, and chased Williams across the State at the speed of thirty miles a day. But the alert Americans marched forty miles a day and reached the fords of the Dan just as the last of Greene's men had crossed. That night the rear guard crossed the stream, and when Cornwallis reached its banks, on the morning of the 15th, to his deep chagrin he found all the Americans safe on the Virginia side and ready to contest the crossing if he should seek to continue the pursuit.
That famous march of two hundred miles, from the south side of the Catawba to the north side of the Dan, in which the whole State of North Carolina was crossed by the ragged and largely shoeless army, was the salvation of the Southern States. In Greene's camp there was only joy and congratulation. Little did the soldiers heed their tattered garments, their shoeless feet, their lack of blankets and of regular food, in their pride at having outwitted the British army and fulfilled their duty to their country. With renewed courage they were ready to cross the Dan again and attack Cornwallis and his men. Washington wrote to General Greene, applauding him highly for his skilful feat, and even a British historian gave him great praise and credit for his skill in strategy.
Shall we tell in a few words the outcome of this fine feat? Cornwallis had been drawn so far from his base of supplies, and had burned so much of his war-material, that he found himself in an ugly quandary. On his return march Greene became the pursuer, harassing him at every step. When Guilford Court-House was reached again Greene felt strong enough to fight, and though Cornwallis held the field at the end of the battle he was left in such a sorry plight that he was forced to retreat to Wilmington and leave South Carolina uncovered. Here it did not take Greene long, with the aid of such valiant partisans as Marion, Sumter, and Lee, to shut the British up in Charleston and win back the State.
Cornwallis, on the other hand, concluded to try his fortune in Virginia, where there seemed to be a fine chance for fighting and conquest. But he was not long there before he found himself shut up in Yorktown like a rat in a trap, with Washington and his forces in front and the French fleet in the rear. His surrender, soon after, not only freed the South from its foes, but cured George III. of any further desire to put down the rebels in America.