Again the scenes of the war lie south of Baltimore. At the Cowpens, in South Carolina, Colonel Tarleton was caught on the horns of Morgan, three hundred of his men tossed fatally, and the rest, with their leader, severely gored and gashed. Cornwallis soon found that the Southern commander was not a Greenehorn. At Guilford Court-House, the English leader, with a superior force, met the American general, with 4,500 men, and after a severe grapple, fell back with the air and conviction of a man disagreeably undeceived. The Americans now seemed to have received an ally in general success; for in April, May, and June they retook, one after another, all the forts, outposts, cities, and military points occupied by Lord Rawdon. On the Catawba, Morgan gave to Tarleton a little more grape, which sent his lines reeling backwards in awkward confusion towards the main body.
As soon as September began to cool the air and make travelling tolerable in a warm climate, General Greene, with an American party, and Colonel Stewart, with an English company, took it into their heads mutually to visit Eutaw Springs, about fifty miles west of Charleston. The meeting was unusually lively; in fact, quite an Irish gathering. Like most Irish fights, too, it was impossible to say, which had the worst of it. Both sides held a funeral wake over about three hundred killed, and claimed the fewest graves and victory.
After this affair, the British flock, which had been scattered more or less over the two Carolinas and Georgia, gathered back and alighted for a long time on two favorite spots, Charleston and Savannah. Near them gradually collected ready American hunters and fowlers, fond of foreign game, vigilant in watching and very desirous of bagging the entire lot.
Meanwhile, Cornwallis had advanced northward through North Carolina into Virginia, where the young French marquis—more fortunate than the almost useless French fleets, first under D’Estaing, and afterwards under Admiral De Ternay—was doing good service. The route of Cornwallis was nearly along the present track of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, which fortunately for him was not then in existence, to invite him to use its delaying time-tables and dangerous rails. As it was, he reached Petersburg in the course of time, and in safety.
A detachment sent to Charlottesville, where the Legislature of Virginia was in session, seized several of those most unmanageable specimens of the human race, members of assembly, troublesome enough when let alone, but as prisoners wholly incapable of definition, exchange, or valuation. The squad came near burning their fingers by taking the red-haired and red-vested Jefferson, whose term as Governor had expired only two days before, but around whose head there yet lingered enough of the aureola of official dignity to make him worth several cart-loads of assemblymen.
For Cornwallis himself the three military fates—Washington, Rochambeau, and Lafayette—were securely and steadily spinning lines for his entanglement. At last they enmeshed him at Yorktown. Nine thousand Americans and seven thousand Frenchmen held the netting which, gathered in fold after fold, finally, October 19, 1781, caught the whole shoal,—Cornwallis, that voracious old pike which had devoured scores of American armored fish, and 7,000 others. In this splendid haul were found 235 cannon, 8,000 small arms, and regimental colors enough to supply all the state-houses for the next sixty-five years.
When Lord George Germain hastened with the disagreeable and accelerating news to Lord North, the premier raised his hands wildly in the air, and exclaimed, with an oath too big to fit our Comic History, “It is all over.”
For the first time, during the last six years, Lord North was right.
George III. stormed loudly, and, at a hint that American independence must follow, threatened to freight a large boat with his ponderous heaviness, and be transported to Hanover; but he soon concluded to take another bucolic roll in the rich English clover, and to postpone turning himself out into the thin grazing lands along the Weser.
The American George rejoiced with temperate joy, thanked God for the crowning mercy, ordered divine service to be performed throughout the camps, and thanksgiving turkeys to be rendered to, and thanksgiving by, the troops. And so ended 1781, as all years should end, with thanksgiving and turkey.