Exhibit Project
R & D Planning Page - Segment 4
4. Then even more detail describing the "Retreat to the Dan" from the Battle of
the Cowpens to the council of war at Guilford Courthouse, including the
Carolina river crossings. (Slide 8  )
Summary: A messenger from General Morgan reached General Greene, at his camp on Hick's Creek, a fork of the Great Republic, January twenty-fifth, 1781, and informed him of the battle of Cowpens, that a large number of prisoners were to be provided for, and that the army of Cornwallis was in pursuit. Cornwallis was infuriated by the loss at Cowpens, and ridding himself of his heavy luggage and whatever might impede his progress, at once set out in active pursuit of Morgan, in a most brilliant march Greene effected a junction of the two divisions of his army at Guilford Court House on 9 February, 1781. He had expected here to meet re-enforcements from Virginia, but, as they had not yet arrived, he thought it best to retreat toward them and put the broad stream of the Dan between himself and the enemy. On February 9th, 1781, General Nathanael Greene's council of war met at Guilford and approved his decision to abandon North Carolina. The spring campaign of 1781 was one of operations, and there was no retreat of General Greene which did not constitute a maneuver, having in view an ultimate engagement, with the recovery of the South as the chief objective. In a letter to Lord Germaine, of March nineteenth, Cornwallis says, "I was informed that the American commander could not collect many flats at any of the ferries on the River Dan." |
| Guilford Courthouse: A Pivotal Battle in the War for Independence-- Supplementary Resources |
4.1 Email response - "Greetings, Yes we do have the letter from Gen. Greene,Camp at Pedee, January l,1781 to Thomas Jefferson.
It is in the FOGG COLLECTION,(Coll.420,Vol35).There is a photocopy of the letter,which I could send ($l.00 photocopied).
As far as inclusion in a museum display, I assume you want a photograph or scan. Please contact Chris Albert, Photoservices Coordinator(1-207-774-1822, Ext.217).She is her Tues through Thursday,and handles all such requests. Best wishes with your work,
W.D.Barry, Reference May 21,2004
(rdesk@mainehistory.org)
4.2 On February 9th, 1781, when General Nathanael Greene's council of war met at Guilford and approved his decision to abandon North Carolina, Dan Morgan, victor at the Cowpens, was one of the officers in attendance. He was sick, suffering from 'sciatick' and 'violently attack'd with the piles', so that he was unable to sit a horse. He was granted relief from active duty on the next day and command of his Light Infantry Corps was given to Colonel Otho Williams of the Maryland Line. Morgan left in a wagon, crossed the Dan River and headed for home in the Valley of Virginia. On the way north his thoughts stayed with the army. He visited General Robert Lawson, persuaded him to raise a brigade of militia from Prince Edward and other southside Virginia counties to send to the aid Greene. And a few days later the 'Old Wagoner' wrote his former commander a letter of advice:
Carter Harrison's 20th Feb 1781
Dr Sir
I have been doctreing this several days thinking to be able to take the field but I find I get worse, my pains now are accompanied with a fevour every day. I expect Lord Cornwallis will push you till you are obligd to fight him on which much will depend. You'l have from what I see, a great number of militia---if they fight you'l beat Cornwallis if not he will beat you and perhaps cut your regulars to pieces, which will be losing all our hopes.
I am informed among the militia will be a number of old Soldiers. I think it would be advisable to select them from among the militia, and put them in the ranks with the regulars, select the riflemen also, and fight them on the flanks under enterprising officers who is aquainted with that kind of fighting and put the remainder of the Militia in the centre with some picked troops in the rear with orders to shoot down the first man that runs, if anything succeeds a disposition of this kind will......
I have the Honor to be Sir with esteem your oblid hble servt
Dan Morgan
This letter, coming as it did from one of the most successful commanders in the Continental Army, its acknowledged expert on the use of riflemen and militias, would have a profound influence on Greene's tactics when the time came for him to fight Cornwallis and on the lives of the riflemen from Rockbridge and Augusta Counties who would come to help him.
From Many Were Sore Chased And Some Cut Down
Fighting Cornwallis with the Rockbridge Militia, by Odell McGuire, © Oct '95
4.3
Battles of the American Revolution 1775 - 1781,
Henry B. Carrington, original publication 1881
FROM COWPENS TO GUILFORD COURT HOUSE. MANEUVERS OF THE ARMIES. 1781.
A MESSENGER from General Morgan reached General Greene, at his camp on Hick's Creek, a fork of the Great Republic, January twenty-fifth, 1781, and informed him of the battle of Cowpens, that a large number of prisoners were to be provided for, and that the army of Cornwallis was in pursuit. The completeness of the success reported made the contrast of his inability to improve it, very tantalizing and painful.
The army, including Morgan's corps, numbered only one thousand four hundred and twenty-six infantry, forty-seven artillerists and two hundred and thirty cavalry. The militia numbered four hundred. These numbers fluctuated greatly, since the Southern militia were quite like the minute men of 1775-6, who volunteered for pressing duty, and then returned to the ordinary pursuits of life. There was no money, little clothing, and constant hardship. A single extract from a letter written by General Greene to General Sumter, two days before the battle of Cowpens, contains this paragraph: "More than half our members are in a manner naked; so much so that we can not put them on the least kind of duty. Indeed there is a great number that have not a rag of clothes on them except a little piece of blanket, in the Indian form, around their waists."
It was under such circumstances that this commander was summoned to save the fruits of Morgan's victory, to expel the British army from the Carolinas, and to vindicate the supremacy and power of the United Statest. For three days he devoted his time to putting this nominal army in preparation for taking the field, and on the twenty-eighth, accompanied by one aid, a guide and a sergeant's party of cavalry, he started for Morgan's command. On the night of the thirteenth, after a ride of over one hundred and twenty-five miles, he was with Morgan. His letters to Varnum, then in Congress, to Gist, Smallwood, Rutledge, Washington and others, are full of urgent appeals for at least five thousand infantry and six or eight hundred horse.
It was an extraordinary state of affairs, when a victory seemed but the first step toward disaster, and when even the Commander-in-chief was constrained to write, "I wish I had it in my power to congratulate you on the brilliant and important victory of General Morgan, without the alloy which the distresses of the department you command, and apprehensions of posterior events, intermix. I lament that you will find it so difficult to avoid a general action; for our misfortunes can only be completed by the dispersion of your little army, which will be the most probable consequence of such an event."
It must be borne in mind that Arnold landed in Virginia on the fourth day of January, with sixteen hundred regular troops, so that General Steuben's local responsibilities were as pressing as when General Greene passed through Virginia on his way to the Southern Department.
A brief diversion from the immediate narrative is necessary, in order to indicate the exact circumstances which controlled both Generals Greene and Cornwallis, in their subsequent movements, and to correct the impression that the campaign consisted simply of a swift pursuit and successful retreat, and,one where ravines and floods alone determined the result. The spring campaign of 1781 was one of operations, and there was no retreat of General Greene which did not constitute a maneuver, having in view an ultimate engagement, with the recovery of the South as the chief objective.
A statement of Arnold's position and operations up to the first of February, is an essential element to be taken into view. He left New York on the nineteenth of December, 1780, with sixteen hundred men. It appears from General Clinton's letters that he did not rely upon that officer's discretion, and attached Lieutenant-colonels Simcoe and Dundas to the command, "two officers of tried ability and experience, and possessing the entire confidence of their commander." The Queen's Rangers, and the Eighteenth British regiment (Scotch), respectively commanded by the officers named, formed the larger portion of Arnold's division. The characteristic accompaniment of the naval movements of the period, a gale, separated the fleet on the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of December; but on the thirty-first, without waiting for other transports still at sea, twelve hundred men were transferred to small vessels and moved up the James River. On the night of January third, Lieutenant-colonel Simcoe landed at Hood's Point with one hundred and thirty of the Queen's Rangers and the light infantry and grenadiers of the Eighteenth regiment, spiked the guns of a battery, which was abandoned by the small detachment of fifty men who occupied it, and on the fourth the expedition landed at Westover, nearly twenty-five miles below Richmond, and marched immediately to that city. On the afternoon of the fifth, Arnold entered Richmond. Lieutenant-colonel Simcoe quickly dislodged a force of two hundred irregulars, militia which Colonel John Nichols had assembled on Richmond Hill, and a few mounted men who were on Shrove Hill also retired as the British troops advanced. The Rangers, light infantry and grenadiers, proceeded promptly to Westham, nearly seven miles above Richmond, and destroyed a foundry, laboratory and some shops, as well as the auditor's records which had been withdrawn from Richmond for safety, and returned to the city in the evening. Arnold sent to Governor Jefferson a proposal to compromise the terms of his incursion, and to save the buildings if vessels might come up the river and remove tobacco and other plunder. Upon its rejection, he burned so much of the city as time permitted, and returned to Westover on the sixth, without loss to his command. The expedition was a surprise, but the loss, except to private property and the capture of the books and papers of the council, was very inconsiderable. Five brass guns, three hundred stand of arms, found in the loft of the capitol and in a wagon, and some quartermaster stores, constituted the chief articles captured. Even the workshops and warehouses were not wholly consumed. Reference is had to maps " Operations in Southern States," and " Arnold at Richmond."
On the eighth, Lieutenant-colonel Simcoe visited Charles City Court House, and, according to Tarleton's narrative, killed or wounded twenty militia, with a loss of one man killed and three wounded.
General Steuben had in vain attempted to equip a sufficient force to anticipate the movement. Of six hundred men at Chesterfield Court House, he had clothing for only one hundred and fifty. The appearance of some militia at Manchester, however, and information that General Steuben was at Petersburg, led Arnold to hasten back to save his line of retreat, and he proceeded at once to Portsmouth to put it in a defensive condition.
At this time General Leslie also received advices that General Phillips was preparing to leave New York with additional troops for Virginia, so that the difficulties in the way of receiving reinforcements from the north increased daily, and the whole Southern army was in pursuit of Morgan.
As the mind reverts to the contentions for high command which characterized the first years of the war, and one officer after another, then so ambitious, disappears from battle record, it looks as if the man who sat by Morgan on the banks of the Catawba on the thirtieth of January, 1731, must have felt as if a new generation had taken the place of old comrades, and that he was only waiting to pass away also.
The hazard of delay aroused him to action. Lee was ordered to hasten back and join Morgan without delay. The commissary of supplies was ordered to remove everything from the sea coast to the interior. The commissaries at Hillsborough and Salisbury were placed in readiness to move the prisoners into the upper counties of Virginia. Colonel Carrington, Quartermaster-general, was ordered to collect magazines on the Roanoke. Letters were written to General Steuben to hasten on his recruits ; to the governors of North Carolina and Virginia, to fill up their quotas of regulars and to call into the field all the militia they could arm; to Shelby, Campbell and the other participants in the battle of King's Mountain, to bid them come out once more, to repel the threatened invasion; to General Huger, "to march to Guilford Court House direct instead of to Salisbury," adding, "from Cornwallis' pressing disposition and the contempt he has for our army, we may precipitate him into some capital misfortune."
Just then, the tidings came that a garrison had been landed at Wilmington, almost in the rear of the small army which he left at Hick's Creek. The terms of service of the Virginia militia brigade was about expiring and according to precedent they were to be discharged at the place where they organized. Availing himself of this opportunity he placed General Stevens in command, consigned to him the escort of the prisoners then in depot at Hillsborough and thereby saved a detail from his other troops. General Stevens discharged the duty and reported back promptly to meet the responsibilities of the campaign. The condition of Cornwallis requires passing notice. He affirms that "his second invasion of North Carolina was approved by General Clinton:" "that the defense of the frontier of South Carolina, even against an inferior army, would be, from its extent, the nature of the climate and the disposition of the inhabitants, utterly impracticable, while the enemy could draw supplies from North Carolina and Virginia." Of the affair at Cowpens he says, "the disaster of the seventeenth of January can not be imputed to any defect in my conduct, as the detachment sent, was certainly superior to the force against which it was sent, and, put under the command of an officer of experience and tried abilities." "The public faith was pledged to our friends in North Carolina, and I believed my remaining force to be superior to that under the command of General Greene," but, "our hopes of success were not founded only upon the efforts of the corps under my immediate command, which did not much exceed three thousand men; but principally upon the most positive assurances, given by apparently credible deputies and emissaries, that upon the approach of a British army in North Carolina, a great body of the inhabitants were ready to join and to cooperate with it, in endeavoring to restore his Majesty's government." "All inducements in my power were made use of without material effect; and every man in the army must have been convinced that the accounts of our emissaries had greatly exaggerated the number of those who professed friendship for us: - a very inconsiderable number could be prevailed upon to remain with us, or to exert themselves in any form whatever."
It will hereafter appear that Cornwallis' movement lost sight of a possible dependence upon support from the British army in Virginia, and that his selection of the Salisbury route, for his invasion, contemplated the control of the river sources, so as to force Greene eastward and make his destruction or capture more certain.
When Greene took command on the Catawba, on the thirty-first of January, the army of Cornwallis was only eighteen miles below, unable to cross the river by reason of high water. Greene summoned the neighboring militia to turn out and guard the fords as the water fell. Beatie's Ford, where the army encamped, is about six miles above McCowan's Ford and nearer to Salisbury. On the evening of January thirty-first, Morgan was sent forward toward Salisbury while General Greene remained to bring off the militia. The river fell rapidly and Colonels Webster and Tarleton crossed at Beatie's Ford shortly after it was abandoned. General Davidson, with three hundred men, met the division of Cornwallis toward morning, February first, and while resisting their crossing at McCowan's Ford, was killed, and his men were scattered. A few rendezvoused at Tarrant's Farm ten miles on the road to Salisbury, but were there attacked and cut to pieces by Tarleton. By the third, Morgan had crossed the Yadkin. Cornwallis burned most of his remaining baggage and wagons, doubled teams, mounted a portion of his infantry and sent a strong corps under General O'Hara in pursuit. It rained all day on the first of February. Greene knew that within two days the water from the mountains would fill the Yadkin. As yet it was not so deep but that his cavalry crossed safely, and his forethought in having boats provided, enabled him to secure all his command. Many inhabitants followed the army, retiring in dread of Tarleton, and the vanguard of the British force only captured the rearmost wagons. A useless cannonade was maintained during the day. Cornwallis remained at Salisbury four days, and passed the Yadkin on the eighth. Greene marched on the fourth, after one day's halt, and united his command at Guilford Court House.
A council of war was held which advised not to offer battle. The re-united army only numbered two thousand and thirty-six men, including fourteen hundred and twenty-six regulars. Some course of action was to be immediately decided upon. Colonel Carrington joined the command, with the report that boats had been secured, and secreted along the Dan, so as to be collected on a few hours' warning. The British army was at Salem, only twenty-five miles from Guilford. This was on the tenth of February. Preparatory to the march, General Greene organized a light corps of seven hundred picked troops under Colonels Williams, Carrington, Howard, Washington and Lee, to cover his rear.
Kosciusko had joined Greene, and was sent forward to throw up a breastwork to cover the landing of the boats, and the army commenced its march.
Cornwallis bore to the left to cross above Greene. He had no idea that Greene could effect a crossing at the few ferries which lay below the possible fording places, while by cutting him off from the fords above, he could follow down the river and strike his small command as well as the army marching from the camp on the Peedee. But that army had already joined Greene. In a letter to Lord Germaine, of March nineteenth, he says, "I was informed that the American commander could not collect many flats at any of the ferries on the River Dan." Colonel Carrington, however, had been specially charged with this duty by General Greene, with the aid of Captain Smith, of the Maryland line; had anticipated almost any contingency which should require the passage of the river; and so provided boats at Boyd's and Irwin's ferries, which were neighboring ferries, that on the fourteenth of February the whole division safely crossed the river, secured their boats, and were beyond reach of the enemy. Tarleton thus reports this affair: "The light army (Williams) which was the last in crossing, was so closely pursued, that scarcely had its rear landed when the British advance appeared on the opposite bank; and in the last twenty-four hours it is said to have marched forty miles. The hardships suffered by the British troops for want of their tents and usual baggage, in this long and rapid pursuit through a wild and unsettled country, were uncommonly great; yet such was their ardor in the service that they submitted to them, without a blow, to the American army, before it crossed the Roanoke." Tarleton adds, "That the American army escaped without suffering any material injury, seems more owing to a train of fortunate incidents, judiciously improved by their commander, than to any want of enterprise or activity in the army that pursued. Yet the operations of Lord Cornwallis, during the pursuit, would probably have been more efficacious, had not the unfortunate affair at the Cowpens deprived him of almost the whole of his light troops."
Lord Cornwallis returned to Hillsborough and issued a proclamation, "but," says Tarleton, "the misfortunes consequent on premature risings had considerably thinned out the loyalists, originally more numerous in North Carolina than in any of the other colonies. Their spirits may be said to have been broken by repeated persecutions. Still, the zeal of some was not repressed; and considerable numbers were preparing to assemble, when General Greene, reinforced with six hundred Virginia militia under General Stevens, took the resolution of again crossing the Dan, and re-entering North Carolina." Lieutenant-colonel Lee, with his legion, was detached across the river on the twenty-first of February, and the next day General Greene passed it with the rest of the army.
Meanwhile General Greene posted a portion of his army at Halifax Court House, and made every exertion to prepare an offensive return. On the seventeenth, his whole force in camp consisted of one thousand and seventy-eight regular infantry - sixty-four artillery, and one hundred and seventy-six cavalry, with one hundred and twelve legionary infantry, so many troops had been detached in charge of prisoners, the baggage, and the sick. The Delaware troops under Kirkwood, so terribly cut up at Camden, did not exceed eighty men for duty. On the nineteenth, Stevens was ordered by Greene to engage volunteers for the service, and he joined within three days, with nearly eight hundred men.
By the twenty-third the whole army was demonstrating towards Guilford, and Lee and Pickens hovered near the outposts of Cornwallis.
At this time the loyalists were organizing a corps under Colonel Pyle upon the marshes of the Haw, and Tarleton was sent to assist and protect them. More than four hundred had collected a little north of the old Hillsborough and Salisbury road, two miles from the Allamance River, in Orange County, Virginia(?). Lee and Pickens fell in with this party, having been advised of their movements by two men whom they picked up while hunting for Tarleton. Tarleton says, "the loyalists were proceeding to Tarleton's encampment, unapprehensive of danger, when they were met in a lane, by Lee with his legion. Unfortunately, mistaking the American cavalry for Tarleton's dragoons they allowed themselves to be surrounded; no quarter was granted; between two and three hundred were inhumanly butchered. Humanity shudders at the recital, but cold and unfeeling policy aroused it, as the most effective means of intimidating the friends of royal government."
There is no doubt that the loyalists commenced the firing as soon as they recognized the Maryland troops in the rear of Lee, and that Lee himself had hoped to pass and strike at Tarieton himself; but after the firing began, it was continued, until the whole party were killed, wounded, or driven into the woods.
Cornwallis withdrew from Hillsborough on the following day, even before the expiration of the nine designated in his proclamation for the people to report to him for duty. Stedman, then his commissary, intimates that the army could not be supported at that point. On the twenty-seventh he crossed the Haw and fixed his camp near Allamance Creek, one of its tributaries. Greene adopted a line of march nearly parallel to that of his adversary, and advanced to the heights between Reedy Fork and Troublesome Creek, having his divided headquarters near the Speedwell iron works and Boyd's Mill, on two streams. Greene had gained the choice of position entirely, reversing the old relations of the armies. He could give battle, retire as he advanced, or move into Virginia by the upper fords which Cornwallis had so eagerly controlled a few weeks before. It will be noticed that the camp of Cornwallis, between the Haw and Deep rivers, was where the roads from Salisbury, Guilford and Hillsborough unite, and thus controlled the direct road to Wilmington, his depot of clothing and supplies, of which his army was already in great need. The light troops of both armies were actively employed, daily, and on the sixth of March, a skirmish at Wetzell's Mills, which was skillfully anticipated and supported by the whole British army, put in peril the whole column of Williams and Lee.
On the eighth, commissioners finally settled upon a plan of exchange of prisoners, the British having exacted paroles of the militia wherever they went, while charging them to the account as if captured in battle. Colonel Carrington and Frederick Cornwallis made an adjustment so that General Greene obtained some officers who would have otherwise been idle during the campaign, but the arrangement had no immediate value as to private soldiers and militia.
In the midst of these anxieties troops began to arrive, and on the twelfth Greene determined to offer battle. On the thirteenth orders were issued for all detachments to report at Guilford Court House, and on the fourteenth of March, General Greene was in readiness for the struggle.
Battles of the American Revolution 1775 - 1781, Henry B. Carrington, original publication 1881
• - It was said of General Greene that he had never seen the Catawba River but he knew more about it than the men who were born on its banks.
It was also true of the Dan. As soon as Greene received his unwelcome assignment, he began to study the rivers. He ordered “100 batteaux” from Col. Carrington in Richmond, then sent him down to map the Dan. Before he moved out of the Camp of Repose, he ordered Carrington to hide the boats along the banks near Boyd's and Irwin's Ferries.
It is here that Pittsylvania's Revolutionary records leap to life. Greene needed additional transportation, so he called on the ferries. The court of Claims lists four Pittsylvania ferrymen making claims for ferrying men, horses, and wagons in large numbers across the river. They are John Dix, Sherwood Toney, John Wynne, and John Owen. John Lewis asked recompense for the use of three canoes, indicating a need for anything that would float.
From www.victorianvilla.com
• - Report from General Cornwallis to Lord George Germain on the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
MY LORD, Guilford, March 17, 1781
Having occasion to dispatch my aide-dc-camp, Captain Brodrick, with the particulars of the action of the 15th, in compliance with general directions from Sir Henry Clinton, I shall embrace an opportunity to give your Lordship an account or the operations of the troops under my command previous to that event and of those subsequent, until the departure of Captain Brodrick. My plan for the winter's campaign was to penetrate to North Carolina, leaving South Carolina in security against any probable attack in my absence. Lord Rawdon, with a considerable body of troops, had charge of the defensive, and I proceeded about the middle of January upon the offensive operations. I decided to march by the upper, in preference to the lower roads leading into North Carolina, because fords being frequent above the forks of the rivers, my passage there could not easily be obstructed; and General Greene having taken post on the Pedee, and there being few fords in any of the great rivers of this country below their forks, especially in, winter, I apprehended being much delayed; if not entirely prevented from penetrating by the latter route. I was the more induced to prefer this route, as I hoped in my way to be able to destroy or drive out of South Carolina, the corps of the enemy commanded, by General Morgan1 which threatened the valuable districts of Ninety-Six; and I likewise hoped by rapid marches to get between General Greene and Virginia, and by that means force him to fight without receiving any reinforcement from that province; or, failing of that, to oblige him to quit North Carolina with precipitation, and thereby encourage our friends to make good their promises of a general rising to assist me in re-establishing his Majesty’s Government. The unfortunate affair of the 17th of January was a very unexpected and severe blow; for, besides reputation, our loss did not fall short of 600 men. However, being thoroughly sensible that defensive measures would be certain ruin to the affairs of Britain in the southern colonies, this event did not deter me from prosecuting the original plan. That General Greene might be uncertain of my intended route as long as possible, I had left General Leslie at Camden until I was ready to move from Wynnesborough, and he was now within a day's march of me. He employed the 18th in forming a junction with him, and in collecting theremains of Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton's corps, after which great exertions were made by part of the army, without baggage, to retake our prisoners, and to intercept General Morgan’s corps on its retreat to the Catawba; but the celerity of their movements, and the swelling of numberless creeks in our way, rendered all our efforts fruitless. I therefore assembled the army on the 25th at Ramsoure’s Mill, on the south fork of the Catawba, and as the loss of my light troops could only be remedied by the activity of the whole corps, I employed a halt of two days in collecting some flour, and in destroying superfluous baggage and all my wagons, except those loaded with hospital stores, salt, and ammunition and four reserved empty in readiness for sick or wounded. In this measure, though at the expense of a great deal of officers' baggage, and of all prospect in future of rum, and even a regular supply of provisions to the soldiers, I must, in justice to this army, say that there was the most general and cheerful acquiescence. In the mean time the rains had rendered the North Catawba impassable, and General Morgan’s corps, the militia of the rebellious counties of Rowan and Mecklenburg under General Davidson, or the gang of plunderers usually under the command of General Sumpter, not then recovered from his wounds, had occupied all the fords in a space of more than forty miles upwards from the fork. During its height I approached the river by short march; so as to give the enemy equal apprehensions for several fords; and after having procured the best information in my power, I resolved to attempt the passage at a private ford (then slightly guarded) near M’Cowan's Ford, on the morning of the 1st of February.Lieut.-Colonel Webster was detached with part of the army and all the baggage to Beattie's Ford, six miles above McCowan's, where General Davidson was supposed to be posted with 500 militia, and was directed to make every possible demonstration, by cannonading and otherwise, of an intention to force a passage there, and I marched at one in the morning with the brigade of gaurds, regiment of Bose, 23rd, 200 cavalry, and two 3-pounders, to the ford fixed upon for the real attempt.
The morning being very dark and rainy, and part of our way through a wood where there was no road, one of the 3-pounders in front of the 23rd regiment and the cavalry, overset in a swamp, and occasioned those corps to lose the line of march, and some of the artillerymen belonging to the other gun (one of whom had the match) having stopped to assist, were likewise left behind. The head of the column in the mean while arrived at the bank of the river, and the day began to break. I could make no use of the gun that was up, and it was evident from the number of fires on the other side, that the opposition would be greater than I had expected. However, as I knew that the rain then falling would soon render the river again impassable, and I had received information the evening before that General Greene had arrived in General Morgan's camp, and that his army was marching after him with the greatest expedition, I determined not to desist from the attempt, and, therefore, full of confidence in the zeal and gallantry of Brigadier-General O’Hara, and of the brigade of guards under his command, I ordered them to march on but, to prevent confusion, not to fire until they gained the opposite bank. Their behavior justified my high opinion of them; for a constant fire from the enemy, in a ford upwards of 500 yards wide, in many places up to their middle, with a rocky bottom and strong current, made no impression on their cool and determined valor, nor checked their passage. The light infantry, landing first, immediately formed, and in a few minutes killed or dispersed everything that appeared before them, the rest of the troops forming and advancing in succession. We now learned that we bad been opposed by about 300 militia that had taken post there only the evening before, under the command of General Davidson. Their general and two of his officers were among the killed; the number of wounded was uncertain, and a few were taken prisoners. On our side Lieutenant-Colonel Hall and three men were killed, and 36 men wounded, all of the light infantry, and grenadiers of the Guards. By this time the rear of the column had joined, and the whole having passed with the greatest dispatch, I detached Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton with the cavalry and 23rd regiment, to pursue the routed militia. A few were soon killed or taken, and Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton, having learned that 300 or 400 of the neighboring militia were to assemble that day at Tarrant's house, about 10 miles from the ford, leaving his infantry, he went on with the cavalry, and, finding the militia as expected, he, with excellent conduct and great spirit attacked them instantly, and totally routed them with little loss on his side, and on theirs between 40 and 50 killed, wounded, or prisoners. This stroke, with our passage of the ford, so effectually dispirited the militia,that we met with no further opposition on our march to the Yadkin, through one of the most rebellious tracts in America.
During this time, the rebels having quitted Beattie's Ford; Lieut.-Colonel Webster was passing his detachment and the baggage of the army; this had become tedious and difficult by the continuance of the rain and the swelling of the river, but all joined us soon after dark, about six miles from Beattie's Ford. The other fords were likewise abandoned by the enemy; the greatest part of the militia dispersed; and General Morgan with his corps marched all that afternoon and the following night towards Salisbury. We pursued next morning in hopes to intercept him between the rivers; and, after struggling with many difficulties arising from swelled creeks and bad roads, the Guards came up with his rear in the evening of the 3rd, routed it, and took a few wagons at the trading ford of the Yadkin. He had passed the body of his infantry in flats, and his cavalry and wagons by the ford, during that day and the preceding night, but at the time of our arrival the boats were secured on the other side, and the ford had become impassable. The river continued to rise, and the weather appearing unsettled, I determined to march to the upper fords, after procuring a small supply of provisions at Salisbury. This and the height of the creeks in our way detained me two days, and in that time Morgan having quitted the banks of the river, I had information from our friends, who crossed in canoes, that General Greene’s army was marching with the utmost dispatch to form a junction with him at Guilford. Not having had time to collect the North Carolina militia, and having received no reinforcement from Virginia, I concluded that he would do everything in his power to avoid an action on the south side of the Dan, and, it being my interest to force him to fight, I made great expedition and got between him and the upper fords; and, being assured that the lower fords are seldom practicable in winter, and that he could not collect many flats at any of the ferries, I was in great hopes that he would not escape me without receiving a blow. Nothing could exceed the patience and alacrity of the officers and soldiers under every species of hardship and fatigue in endeavoring to overtake him. But our intelligence upon this occasion was exceedingly defective, which, with heavy rains, bad roads, and the passage or many deep creeks, and bridges destroyed by the enemy's light troops, rendered all our exertions vain, for upon our arrival at Boyd's Ferry on the 15th, we learned that his rear-guard had got over the night before, his baggage and main body having passed the preceding day at that and a neighboring ferry, where more flats had been collected than had been represented to me as possible.
My force being ill suited to enter by that quarter so powerful a province as Virginia, and North Carolina being in the utmost confusion, after giving the troops a halt of one day, I proceeded by easy marches to Hillsborough, where I erected the King’s standard, and invited by proclamation all loyal subjects to repair to it, and to stand forth and take an active part in assisting me to restore order and constitutional government. As a considerable body of friends were said to reside between the Haw and Deep rivers, I detached Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton on the 23rd, with the cavalry and a small body of infantry, to prevent their being interrupted in assembling. Unluckily, a detachment of the rebel light troops had crossed the same day, and by accident fell in with about 200 of our friends, under Colonel Pyle, on their way to Hillsborough, who, mistaking the rebels for Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton's corps, allowed themselves to be surrounded, and a number of them were most inhumanely butchered, when begging for quarter without making the least resistance. The same day I had certain intelligence that General Greene, having been reinforced, had re-crossed the Dan, which rendered it imprudent to separate my c6rps, occasioned the recall of Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton's detachment; and forage and provisions being scarce in the neighborhood of Hillsborough, as well as the position too distant (upon the approach of the rebel army) for the protection of the body of our friends, I judged it expedient to cross the Haw, and encamped near Allemance Creek, detaching Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton with the cavalry, light company of the Guards, and 150 men of Lieut.- Colonel Webster's brigade a few miles from me on the road to Deep River, more effectually to cover the country.
General Greene's light troops soon made their appearance; and on the 2nd, a patrol having reported that they had seen both cavalry and infantry near his post, I directed Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton to move forward with proper precautions, and endeavor to discover the designs of the enemy. He had not advanced far when he fell in with a considerable corps, which he immediately attacked and routed, but being ignorant of theirforce, and whether they were supported, with great prudence desisted from pursuit. He soon learned from prisoners that those he had beaten were Lee’s legion, 300 or 400 Back-Mountain men, under Colonel Preston, with a number of militia, and that General Greene, with a part of his army, was not far distant. Our situation for the former few days had been amongst timid friends, and adjoining inveterate rebels; between them I had been totally destitute of information, which lost me a very favorable opportunity of attacking the rebel army. General Greene fell back to Thompson’s House, near Boyd’s Ford, on the Reedy River, but his light troops and militia still remained near us, and, as I was informed that they were posted carelessly at separate plantations for the convenience of subsisting, I marched on the 6th to drive them in, and to attack General Greene if an opportunity offered. I succeeded completely in the first, and at Weitzell's Mill, on the Reedy Fork, where they made a stand, the Back-Mountain men and some militia suffered considerably, with little loss on our side; but a timely and precipitate retreat over the Haw prevented the latter. I knew that the Virginia reinforcements were upon their march and it was apparent that the enemy would, if possible, avoid risking an action before their arrival.
The neighborhood of the fords of the Dan in their rear, and the extreme difficulty of subsisting my troops in that exhausted country, putting it out of my power to force them, my resolution was to give our friends time to join us, by covering their country as effectually as possible consistent with the subsistence of the troops, still approaching the communication with our shipping in Cape Fear River, which I saw it would soon become indispensably necessary to open on account of the sufferings of the army from the want of supplies of every kind; at the same time I was determined to fight the rebel army if it approached me, being convinced that it would be impossible to succeed in that great object of our arduous campaign, the calling forth the numerous Loyalists of North Carolina, whilst a doubt remained on their minds of the superiority of our arms. With these views 1 had moved to the Quaker Meeting, in the forks of Deep River, on the l3th, and on the 14th I received the information which occasioned the movement that brought on the action at Guilford, of which I shall give your Lordship an account in a separate letter.
I have, &c.
Cornwallis.
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