|
 America's
greatest naval disaster occured July and August, 1779, in the expedition under
Capt. Dudley Saltonstall against British fortifications on the Penobscot River
at Castine, Maine. In a badly managed amphibious operation, 500 Americans were
killed or wounded and 39 of 41 ships were lost. Saltonstall was
court-martialed. It was a dark day for the United States navy.
The Americans fared little better in the south. In the spring Washington send
Ge. Benjamin Lincoln with a detachment from the Continental Army to retake
Augusta. His failure was compounded by an unsuccessful seige of Savannah from
September 16 to October 18, where he suffered 800 casualties. The British
victory gave encouragement to Clinton to continue his quest for the southern
colonies. On December 26 he sailed from New York for Charleston with 8,000
troops.
1770 was not without some redeeming value. Significant American victories at
Stony Point on the Hudson with "Mad Anthony" Wayne, Paulus Hook,
N.J., with Maj. Henry Lee, and at Newton (Elmira), N.Y.l under Gen. John
Sullivan, greatly bolstered morale.
Washington moved his army into winter quarters at Morristown in December. This
would be the worse winter yet, as one historian has put it, making Valley Forge
look like a picnic. Only the generosity of the local citizens saved the army
from complete starvation.
While the spring of 1780 brought relief to Washington's army, there waws bad
news from the south. The British arrived off Charleston in February and by
April had the city surrounded. Within weeks Gen. Lincoln was forced to
surrender his 5,000 troops, the largest loss suffered by the Americans in the
war.
July brought new hope, however, as 5,000 French troups arrived at Newport,
Rhode Island, under the Comte de Rochambeau. The strategy now was to confine
the British to the south. To do this the Congress appointed Horatio Gates to
head the southern departnment. Gates, with 4,000 men, confronted Lord
Cornwallis at Camden, S.C., in August, and barely came away with half of his
army.
The American defeat opened the way for the British to move into North
Carolina. Just as Maj. Patrick Ferguson, with 1,000 American Tories, or British
sympathizers, reached the Carolina border, a band of 900 "mountain
men" Patriots attacked. The Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7 was a
major American victory, forcing Cornwallis to withdreaw back to South Carolina
and forever halting British influence in the Carolinas.
While and extraordinary Patriot courage was being exhibited in the south, one
of the darkest chapters in American history was being written on the Hudson. On
August 3, 1780, Gen. Benedict Arnold was placed in charge of the fortification
at West Point. On Septeber 23rd a British officer, Maj. John Andre, alias John
Anderson, was captured, thus revealing Arnold's traitorous attempts to hand
over the strategic location to the enemy for pounds20,000. Arnold fled to a
British ship on the Hudson two days later. Andre was executed as a spy on
October 2nd. Washington had lost one of his most valuable military minds.
Not many miles from King's Mountain in South Carolina was a place called
"Hannah's Cowpens" where cattle were grazed in the winter. Here on
January 17, 1781, took place one of the most dramatic American victories in the
south when Gen. Daniel Morgan defeated Col. Banastre Tarleton, one of the most
feared men in the British Army. Gen. Nathanel Greene, now commanding American
forces immediately began enlarging his southern army. With 4,000 men,
outnumbering Cornwallis two to one, Greene met the British on March 15 at
Guilford Courthouse in a desperate fight that he almost won. Suffering 500
casualties, Cornwallis backed off to Wilmington, North Carolina, until April.
TOP
|
