On August 16, 1780, American General Horatio Gates lost an army to British General Lord Charles Cornwallis just north of Camden, South Carolina. Gates abandoned his vanquished army and rode 180 miles to Hillsboro, North Carolina. Gates was the third major general the civilian governing body, the Continental Congress, sent to command the Continental Army’s Southern Department and the third to fail in the attempt. His predecessors, Robert Howe and Benjamin Lincoln surrendered Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina respectively to the British. This time, Congress left the choice to the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army: General George Washington. He chose his most trusted and capable major general, Nathanael Greene, who had been by Washington’s side since 1775 at the Siege of Boston where Patriots were keeping the British locked in Boston after the first shots of the American Revolutionary War were fired in Massachusetts.
Greene took command of the ragged, starving remnants of the Southern Army from Horatio Gates in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 3, 1780. His army, including militia forces, totaled 2,300 but only 800 were properly armed and clothed. Greene, who was from Rhode Island and had spent his entire life in the north, had to adapt quickly to the new environment where the landscape, climate, and rivers were different. A place where the majority of the people were poor and the powerful Rice King’s of the south were cowed. Where civil authority had broken down and a civil war raged between Patriots and Loyalists. General Charles Cornwallis was 70 miles south at Winnsboro, South Carolina with a well-equipped principle force of 4,000 men. What was a Continental general with a new independent command to do? Ignore every military doctrine that warned of dividing an army in the face of a superior foe.
Greene executed a strategy that began with sending General Daniel Morgan and a flying detachment to northwest South Carolina to “spirit up the people.” Greene led his wing of the army from Charlotte to Cheraw, South Carolina where food for the army was more plentiful. Cornwallis sent his cavalry colonel Banastre Tarleton to “rid the countryside of Morgan.” On January 17, 1781, Morgan defeated Tarleton at a place called the Cowpens. Cornwallis lost 1,000 men at Cowpens. Furious, he went after Morgan.
With a small contingent of guard, Greene set out through 300 miles of perilous Loyalist country to support Morgan’s retreat toward Salisbury, North Carolina. Cornwallis burned his baggage train to lighten his army’s pursuit. Greene moved his army’s junction to Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina where he decided that a retreat to the Dan River on the border of North Carolina and Virginia was the only way to preserve his army. On February 15, Cornwallis’s troops marched up to the banks of the Dan River. They saw the American campfires burning on the other side. Greene had taken every boat in the Roanoke Valley and there was nothing Cornwallis could do but stare. Greene moved his army back to Guildford Courthouse where he and Cornwallis clashed on the afternoon of March 15, 1781. It was a pyrrhic British victory that cost Cornwallis more than 500 men. He retreated to Wilmington, North Carolina, a coastal port 200 miles away.
Undaunted by the loss at Guilford Courthouse, Greene turned his attention to the British outposts in the interior of South Carolina. The Southern Army marched through country that was extremely difficult to operate—cut by deep creeks and impassable morasses, heavy timber, and thick underbrush. On April 20, they pulled up to the stockade walls of Camden, South Carolina where Lord Francis Rawdon had 900 Loyalist and British troops garrisoned. Aware that it was too strong to attack, Greene pulled his army back to Hobkirk’s Hill, a sandy ridge two miles north of Camden over which ran the Salisbury Road.
In the early morning hours of April 25, 1781, a skittish drummer deserted from the Maryland line. He carried word to Rawdon that the American Army was weakened by detachments and lack of food. General Greene had no artillery with him. It was in the rear along with the baggage train and that militia General Thomas Sumter had not come up yet to support the Americans. Rawdon listened to the drummer. He armed the boy along with every man in the garrison, including musicians and drummers.
Nathanael Greene’s troops were camped on Hobkirk’s Hill in order of battle in a wide line across the hill. Colonel Otho Holland Williams had overall command of the Maryland troops to the left of the road, and General Isaac Huger ranked command over the Virginia Continentals to the right. Otho’s two regiments were the 1st Maryland, commanded by Colonel John Gunby and the 2nd Maryland commanded by Colonel Benjamin Ford. Gunby’s deputy was the brilliant Colonel John Eager Howard, who had led the regiment at Cowpens and taken up command at Guilford Courthouse when Gunby was pinned beneath his horse. The 2nd Virginians were under the direct command of Colonel Samuel Hawes with the 1st under Colonel Richard Campbell. Two hundred fifty North Carolina militia were in back of the Continentals. Colonel William Washington’s 3rd Continental Dragoons—only about fifty mounted due to the difficulty of procuring horses—were held in reserve.
To protect them from surprise, pickets were stationed 300 yards in front of their lines supported by Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware Continentals. Greene’s men were enjoying the quiet morning buoyed by his orders that every man would receive two days’ worth of food and a gill of spirits as soon as quartermaster Colonel Edward Carrington arrived with the stores. Their arms were stacked. Coats and shoes lay scattered. Washington’s dragoon horses grazed peacefully at their loose tethers. Men were relaxing by a rivulet, soaking their sore feet or cleaning their kettles when they heard the sound of sharp musketry at the base of the hill.
The American drums beat to arms as the pickets clashed with Lord Rawdon’s vanguard. The surprised Americans, many still barefoot and half-dressed, rushed to form their lines. Gun smoke curl up and through the towering pine trees. Otho Holland Williams tried to keep his surprise concealed when he mounted his horse and galloped from the front lines to Greene’s headquarters. When he arrived, General Greene, who had been enjoying the rare luxury of a cup of coffee, was on his feet. Satisfied, Otho returned to the lines before the fighting became widespread.
Greene abandoned his breakfast and jumped into the saddle, followed by his aides majors Lewis Morris and Ichabod Burnett. North Carolina militia officer Guilford Dudley was marching up the back side of the hill with the artillery. Otho ordered Dudley to “March to the right and support Colonel Campbell.”
Greene rode forward with a good view of the hill. Captain Robert Kirkwood’s Delaware pickets were slowly being pushed back by Rawdon’s vanguard. The British commander had arranged his men in a single line with his Corps of Observation in the rear, the right wing supported by 675 provincial regulars and the Volunteers of Ireland on the left. Rawdon’s line was narrow. Greene believed that they could strike their flanks, rear, and front. He quickly ordered Colonel Richard Campbell to wheel left upon the enemy’s right flank. He communicated that he wanted Colonel Benjamin Ford that he was to wheel his men to the right.
As Rawdon advanced, Greene sent orders to unmask the artillery. The American gunners shredded the tightly packed British columns with volleys of whistling grapeshot. Through the clearing blue smoke, General Greene saw the destruction and was beside himself with satisfaction. “Victory is in reach! Draw forth and send instructions to Colonels Gunby and Hawes to conduct a bayonet charge in the center. Then send Colonel Washington and his dragoons to turn the enemy’s right flank and charge them in the rear.”
Lord Rawdon raged as he saw his men fall and the Continentals charging with bayonets. He took his aggressive anger out on one of his aides, “I was told that Greene had no artillery!” He shouted orders to the Volunteers of Ireland who came up and added their fire against the Maryland ranks. Rawdon continued to disseminate orders to his aides, “Rally, my boys, and bring up all from the rear. Lengthen our lines and avoid the flanking maneuver the American general intends on executing.”
Aside from the 63rd foot, all of Rawdon’s troops were American Tories fighting against American Whigs, and they were quick to take advantage of the thick woods on the hill. The firing was so intense that musket barrels became too hot to hold in their hands.
As Nathanael Greene’s infantry rolled forward so too did William Washington and his dragoons. They swept down around the hill to avoid felled trees and heavy undergrowth, and then rode hard for Major John Coffin’s dragoons on the British right flank. They clashed and swung their short blades from the saddles of their wheeling horses. Coffin’s men scattered. Although deterred by the thick undergrowth, Washington gathered his dragoons under the direct command of captains William Parsons and Walker Baylor and fell upon the rear of the British infantry. They became bogged down in taking prisoners who were, in fact, Lord Rawdon’s desperate attempt to arm as many as he could. The musicians, surgeons, and teamsters had no stomach to stand up against a force of hard galloping dragoons, and they quickly surrendered.
The American infantry continued to push forward. Many of the Marylanders under Colonel Benjamin Ford were new recruits, and some began firing without orders. Ford was shot off his horse and suffered a mortal wound. None of the skittish 2nd Marylanders came to their colonel’s aide. Gunby’s and Hawes’ men continued a steady advance. Some forgot to use their bayonets and fired instead. The trusted captain of the right company, William Beatty, was shot through the heart and dropped dead.
His company, the 1st Marylanders, became deranged and fell out of line. The other companies under Colonel John Eager Howard were still advancing, and instead of pushing them all forward Colonel John Gunby saw they were marching in the form of a bow and ordered them to fall back to the foot of the hill and reform. The consequences were fatal. General Greene had told them not to fire. Now, they were being told to halt in the face of a charging British force. They broke and ran. This left the 2nd Marylanders isolated, and they too fell back followed by the 1st Virginians.
Otho Holland Williams saw the panic and rode toward them, but neither he nor Colonels Howard or Gunby could stop it. Greene was up on the ridge where he had spent most of the battle with Samuel Hawes’ 2nd Virginians. He exposed himself like a captain of grenadiers and attempted to restore order. It became obvious that Lord Rawdon understood that Hawes’ men were alone, and, seeing his advantage, pressed the hill to flank them and silence the American artillery.
Swept up in the tide of retreating troops, the American gunners mishandled their frightened teams and snagged the limbers in heavy brush. The horses panicked and had to be cut from the limbers. Bitterly disappointed, Greene issued the order for his surviving regiments to withdraw, and they formed with the now-rallied Gunby’s men at the foot of the hill.
The troubles the gunners were encountering came to Greene’s attention as they tried to pull the cannon out of the reach of the enemy with drag ropes. He jumped from his saddle, and with the horse’s bridle in one hand and a drag rope in the other, he encouraged the dismayed gunners, “There is not a man here who does not have the courage to take the cannon off.” Seeing that their general was with the artillery, others came to help. Greene wasted no time, and he rode on to see what could be done about bringing the rout to a halt.
Major John Coffin’s British dragoons charged toward the cannon with swords aloft and began to put some of the men dragging the cannon to the sword. The assault gave the others time to get the guns hitched to horses and safely away backed up by Washington’s charging dragoons, each with prisoners in tow. It was a wasted effort. Bogged down by captives and the wooded lay of the land, Washington’s cavalry could not act with effect.
Greene called a retreat. Washington caught up with the main army and delivered the prisoners he probably should not have taken. Greene ordered the prisoners processed. He knew Rawdon was in pursuit. He did not know that Rawdon had left Major John Coffin with his cavalry on Hobkirk’s Hill to claim the ground as a British victory.
Greene ordered Washington to go back and screen their retreat and to take Captain Kirkwood’s Delaware unit with him. He also instructed Washington to take up their stragglers and wounded, and bring them back. If circumstances and time permitted, bury their dead.
Greene led his army three miles north of Hobkirk’s Hill and stopped to camp at Saunders’ Creek in the same sandy Pine Barrens where Horatio Gates had lost an army. Lord Rawdon broke off his pursuit and returned to the walls of Camden. Both commanders lost 200 men—dead, wounded, captured, and missing. Greene was in a vexatious mood after the loss he was certain could have been a victory. He changed his password and countersign to “Persevere” and “Fortitude.” The loss angered him and wounded his pride. He directed his anger at Maryland Colonel John Gunby saying his actions were the cause for the loss and had Gunby court-martialed.
On April 28, he issued orders in the camp at Rugeley’s Mill, “General Huger, Colonel Harrison, and Colonel Washington are to compose a court to inquire into the conduct of Colonel Gunby in the action of the 25th instant.” The testimony found that Gunby was exerting himself in rallying and forming his troops, only committing an error in judgment. Greene could not let it pass. He castigated Gunby publicly in written orders:
Col. Gunby’s Spirit and activity were unexceptional. But his order for the regiment to retire, which broke the line, was extremely improper and unmilitary; and in all probability the only cause why we did not obtain a complete victory.
Despite Greene’ loss, by April 24 Cornwallis had had enough of Nathanael Greene. He abandoned the Carolinas and marched to Virginia. Greene’s strategy began to strangle the British. He cut off Lord Rawdon’s supply line and forced him to evacuate Camden on May 9. Over that month under Greene’s orders, the British outposts fell at the hands of “Light-Horse” Harry Lee and militia generals Francis Marion and Andrew Pickens. Greene laid siege to the last remaining outpost at the fortified town of Ninety-Six on May 22. The siege ended in bloody, hand to hand combat. Nathanael retreated on June 18. Lord Rawdon marched into Ninety-Six two days later and eventually burned the outpost.
Greene moved his army to the High Hills of Santee near Camden where the air was cooler and the mosquitos were less relentless. Although it was a camp of repose, there was not a moment that allowed him to let his guard down or cease his endless letters of instruction, exhortation, and solicitation regarding the condition of his ragged, malaria-ridden army and their needs. Still, his sense of humor didn’t completely escape him. He wrote to General Henry Knox that no general had run as often or “more lustily” as he had and likened his flight to that of “a Crab, that could run either way.”
Hobkirk’s Hill and the collapse of the British outposts in South Carolina was not be the end of Greene’s strategy. His relentless perseverance to keep the British locked in Savannah and Charleston paid off. On October 19, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Franco/American forces at Yorktown, Virginia. If it had not been for General Nathanael Greene, the surrender at Yorktown likely would not have happened.
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Resources:
Beakes, John H. Jr. Otho Holland Williams in The American Revolution. Charleston, South Carolina: The Nautical and Aviation Publishing Co. of American, 2015
Beakes, John H. Jr. and Piecuch, Jim. Cool Deliberate Courage: John Eager Howard in the American Revolution. Heritage Books, 2009
Buchannan, John. The Road to Charleston. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019
Carbone, Gerald M. Nathanael Greene A Biography of the American Revolution, 2008.
Golway, Terry. Washington’s General Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company
Greene, George Washington. The Life of Nathanael Greene, Major General in the Army of the Revolution.3 Volumes. New York: Hurd and Houghton. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1871
Thayer, Theodore. Nathanael Greene Strategist of the American Revolution. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1960
Salina B Baker 