Battle of Eutaw Springs, Sept. 8, 1781.
Meanwhile Greene, after pursuing Cornwallis for about fifty miles from Guilford, faced about and marched with all speed upon Camden, a hundred and sixty miles distant. Whatever his adversary might do, he was now going to seize the great prize of the campaign, and break the enemy's hold upon South Carolina. Lord Rawdon held Camden. Greene stopped at Hobkirk's Hill, two miles to the north, and sent Marion and Lee to take Fort Watson, and thus cut the enemy's communications with the coast. On April 23 Fort Watson surrendered; on the 25th Rawdon defeated Greene at Hobkirk's Hill, but as his communications were cut, the victory did him no good. He was obliged to retreat toward the coast, and Greene took Camden on the 10th of May. Having thus obtained the commanding point, Greene went on until he had reduced every one of the inland posts. At last on the 8th of September he fought an obstinate battle at Eutaw Springs, in which both sides claimed the victory. The facts were that he drove the British from their first position, but they rallied upon a second position from which he failed to drive them. Here, however, as always after one of Greene's battles, it was the enemy who retreated and he who pursued. His strategy never failed. After Eutaw Springs the British remained shut up in Charleston under cover of their ships, and the American government was reëstablished over South Carolina. Among all the campaigns in history that have been conducted with small armies, there have been few, if any, more brilliant than Greene's.
Lafayette and Cornwallis in Virginia, May-Sept., 1781.
There was something especially piquant in the way in which after Guilford he left Cornwallis to himself. It reminds one of a chess-player who first gets the queen off the board, where she can do no harm, and then wins the game against the smaller pieces. As for Cornwallis, when he reached Petersburg, May 20, he found himself at the head of 5000 men. Arnold had just been recalled to New York, and Lafayette, who had been sent down to oppose him, was at Richmond with 3000 men. A campaign of nine weeks ensued, in the first part of which Cornwallis tried to catch Lafayette and bring him to battle. The general movement was from Richmond up to Fredericksburg, then over toward Charlottesville, then back to the James river, then down the north bank of the river. But during the last part the tables were turned, and it was Lafayette, reinforced by Wayne and Steuben, that pursued Cornwallis on his retreat to the coast. At the end of July the British general reached Yorktown, where he was reinforced and waited with 7000 men.
Washington's masterly movement.
We may now change our simile, and liken Cornwallis to a ball between two bats. The first bat, which had knocked him up into Virginia, was Greene; the second, which sent him quite out of the game, was Washington. The remarkable movement which the latter general now proceeded to execute would have been impossible without French coöperation. A French fleet of overwhelming power, under the Count de Grasse, was approaching Chesapeake bay. Washington, in readiness for it, had first moved Rochambeau's army from Rhode Island across Connecticut to the Hudson river. Then, as soon as all the elements of the situation were disclosed, he left part of his force in position on the Hudson, and in a superb march led the rest down to Virginia. Sir Henry Clinton at New York was completely hoodwinked. He feared that the real aim of the French fleet was New York, in which case it would be natural that an American land-force should meet it at Staten island. Now a glance at the map of New Jersey will show that Washington's army, starting from West Point, could march more than half the way toward Philadelphia and still be supposed to be aiming at Staten island. Washington was a master hand for secrecy. When his movement was first disclosed, his own generals, as well as Sir Henry Clinton, took it for granted that Staten island was the point aimed at. It was not until he had passed Philadelphia that Clinton began to surmise that he might be going down to Virginia.
When this fact at length dawned upon the British commander, he made a futile attempt at a diversion by sending Benedict Arnold to attack New London. It was as weak as the act of a drowning man who catches at a straw. Arnold's expedition, cruel and useless as it was, crowned his infamy. A sad plight for a man of his power! If he had only had more strength of character, he might now have been marching with his old friend Washington to victory. With this wretched affair at New London, the brilliant and wicked Benedict Arnold disappears from American history. He died in London, in 1801, a broken-hearted and penitent man, as his grandchildren tell us, praying God with his last breath to forgive his awful crime.
Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1781.
Washington's march was so swift and so cunningly planned that nothing could check it. On the 26th of September the situation was complete. Washington had added his force to that of Lafayette, so that 16,000 men blockaded Cornwallis upon the Yorktown peninsula. The great French fleet, commanding the waters about Chesapeake bay, closed in behind and prevented escape. It was a very unusual thing for the French thus to get control of the water and defy the British on their own element. It was Washington's unwearied vigilance that, after waiting long for such a chance, had seized it without a moment's delay. As soon as Cornwallis was thus caught between a hostile army and a hostile fleet, the problem was solved. On the 19th of October the British army surrendered. Washington presently marched his army back to the Hudson and made his headquarters at Newburgh.
Overthrow of George III.'s political schemes, May, 1784.