When Did British Gain Control Of Georgia And South Carolina

The Southern Strategy was a program implemented by the British during the Revolutionary War to win the conflict past concentrating their forces in the southern states of Georgia, Due south Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. Although the British proposed plans for a southern campaign equally early as 1775, the strategy did not come to full fruition until France became America's marry following the latter's decisive win at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777. France's subsequent entry into the war in February 1778 forced the British to reevaluate the war in America, which had become a military quagmire. British Secretarial assistant of State for the American Department, Lord George Germain, soon responded past turning to the Southern Strategy. The strategy depended upon the assumption that many southerners remained loyal to the British. American loyalist support never matched Germain's expectations, withal, and by 1781 the Southern Strategy failed to prevent British defeat in the war.

In belatedly 1778, Germain directed the British to begin their entrada in the small, sparsely populated, and heavily divided colony of Georgia. The Southern Strategy initially accomplished success at that place with the British capture of the colony'due south major port, Savannah, and the revolt of thousands of colonists to the British in Dec 1778. The next year witnessed continued success of the Southern Strategy when, due to a series of logistical and diplomatic blunders, a Franco-American siege failed to recapture Savannah. Possibly the unmarried-near devastating event for America in the unabridged state of war then occurred at Charleston, an American-held city since the start of the Revolution, in May 1780. Subsequently a six-week siege of Charleston past British land and naval forces, American General Benjamin Lincoln, outnumbered and outsmarted by British forces under generals Henry Clinton and Lord Charles Cornwallis, surrendered over five thousand troops and an ample amount of Continental supplies. American Major General William Moultrie of South Carolina, who aided the American forces defending Charleston against the British, remarked on the desperate state of the American crusade, stating that "at this fourth dimension, at that place never was a country in greater confusion and consternation."¹

Afterwards Charleston's fall, Cornwallis, whom Clinton had appointed commander of the Southern Department before returning to New York, began the chore of fanning his troops into the southern backcountry. The summer of 1780 was demoralizing not only for the S, simply for the entire American state of war attempt, especially after American Full general Horatio Gates'southward humiliating defeat against Cornwallis at the Battle of Camden on August 16. As the British achieved initial success, however, their harsh practices in the South, such as the brutality of officers like Colonel Banastre Tarleton, began to incite feelings of resentment amid southerners. Tarleton's deportment in allowing his cavalrymen to slaughter most of an American force at the Boxing of Waxhaws in late May 1780 made him infamous for cruelty in the S. An American doctor present at Waxhaws recounted the massacre to be a "scene of indiscriminate carnage never surpassed past the ruthless atrocities of the nigh cruel savages."ⁱⁱ As a outcome, a trigger-happy partisan war between an e'er-growing number of American patriots and a shrinking number of loyalists ensued in the South from 1780 to 1782.

Cornwallis's plan to subjugate the South involved turning control of i state after some other to loyalists. The strategy failed, even so, when patriot militiamen and fifty-fifty civilians attacked and gained control of loyalist strongholds left behind by Cornwallis'due south master army. Guerilla bands led past backcountry patriots such as Thomas Sumter too began attacking supply trains of Cornwallis and his army. Southern patriot militiamen proved their growing force over loyalist forces at the decisive Battle of King'southward Mountain in the North Carolina backcountry in Oct 1780. The Battle of King'due south Mountain produced the first major American victory in the South since Savannah's capture, and additional the morale of southern patriots. Continued success of Continental troops under the capable American full general Nathanael Greene, who was chosen to head the Southern Department in 1780, likewise hastened the demise of Britain's Southern Strategy as 1781 dawned.

George Washington's most trusted commander, Greene pursued a successful Fabian strategy confronting Cornwallis'southward ground forces. By dividing his regular army and allowing Cornwallis to chase him through the Carolinas and into Virginia in early on 1781, Greene and i of his equally capable generals, Daniel Morgan, secured victory over the British at the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781. 2 months afterward, Greene secured some other strategic victory even while technically losing at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Cornwallis lost a quarter of his army in the battle, leading him to abandon the backcountry of the Carolinas and move his army to Wilmington on the Northward Carolina coast to resupply and rest his troops. Cornwallis's unsanctioned decision to then march his army to Yorktown, Virginia, finer hastened the finish of the British Southern Strategy.

Although British troops were still stationed at Charleston, Savannah, and Wilmington, Cornwallis'south retreat of the primary British army in the South to Virginia immune Greene'south army, which was however largely intact, to reclaim the Carolina backcountry. With Cornwallis's evacuation, those loyalists who remained either fled or pledged allegiance to the patriots for fear of their safe. Meanwhile, Cornwallis skirmished with American troops in Virginia under the Marquis de Lafayette during the summer of 1781. In October, Cornwallis'south army fell under siege at Yorktown past American troops led past Washington and French troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau. The inflow of French ships on the York River pinned Cornwallis between the French Navy and the French and American troops, forcing him to surrender on October 19. With the give up of the main British army operating in the Due south, the British Southern Strategy, also as the major hostilities of the American Revolution, effectively concluded.

Rachel McBrayer

George Washington University

Notes:

1. William Moultrie,Memoirs of the American Revolutionso far as it Related to united states of Northward and South-Carolina, and Georgia, (New York: David Longworth, 1802), 421.

2. William Dobein James, A Sketch of the Life of Brigadier General Francis Marion, (Marietta: Continental Volume Co., 1948), iv.

Bibliography:

Ferling, John E. Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War for Independence. New York: Oxford Academy Press, 2007. Impress.

James, William Dobein. A Sketch of the Life of Brigadier General Francis Marion. Marietta: Continental Book Co., 1948. Print.

Moultrie, William. Memoirs of the American Revolution so far every bit information technology Related to the States of North and South-Carolina, and Georgia. New York: David Longworth, 1802. Print.

Wilson, David K. The Southern Strategy: Britain's Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775-1780. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. Print.

When Did British Gain Control Of Georgia And South Carolina,

Source: https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/southern-strategy/

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