The North American English colonies occupied an ambiguous place within the British Empire. For most of the colonies’ existence, the imperial British government interfered little with the American colonies’ government or constitutional development. This changed drastically with the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 when Parliament implemented an intrusive imperial policy that included stationing army regiments in some American cities and levying taxes intended to raise revenue to pay for the huge wartime debt and the salaries of colonial officials. Americans viewed these actions as despotic, unconstitutional, and a threat to their liberties and property.
Colonial opposition to the new imperial policy was widespread. The severe British reaction in Massachusetts evoked sympathetic responses from other colonies, particularly from Virginia, the oldest, largest, wealthiest, and most populous of the American colonies.
In July 1774 a committee in Alexandria, Virginia, led by George Mason drafted resolutions critical of the British policy. Expanded in deliberations with George Washington, the Fairfax Resolves did not seek independence but condemned the violation of the colonists’ “Ancestral rights” as Englishmen. The royal governor of Virginia, John Murray, earl of Dunmore, dissolved the House of Burgesses on May 26, 1774, whereupon the Burgesses met in a series of five Revolutionary Conventions that vied with the governor for control of the colony. The first of the conventions appointed delegates to the First Continental Congress and adopted non-importation measures against Britain. Fighting broke out between British troops and the Virginia militia led by Patrick Henry. On June 19, 1775, the Continental Congress commissioned George Washington as commander in chief of the American forces.
Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, continued military actions and also issued a proclamation in November 1775 urging slaves to leave their masters and join the British in exchange for their freedom. The Second Continental Congress condemned Dunmore’s actions as the equivalent of “tearing up the foundations of civil authority and government” and urged Virginians to establish a new form of government that would “produce the happiness of the people, and most effectually secure peace and good order in the colony, during the continuance of the present dispute between Great Britain and these colonies.” The fifth Revolutionary Convention on May 15, 1776, unanimously resolved to instruct its congressional delegates to propose independence, seek foreign alliances, and form a confederation among the colonies. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee submitted Virginia’s resolution to Congress, which appointed three committees to address Virginia’s proposals. Thomas Jefferson, on a five-man committee appointed to write a declaration of independence, drafted the document that Congress adopted on July 4, 1776, two days after Congress had voted to declare independence. The War began in earnest.
Most of the conflict for the first four years of the Revolutionary War occurred in the Northern Colonies. Below is a discussion of Britain’s ill-fated Southern Campaign to win the war.
Summary of the Southern Campaign
Note: the following is not original work but taken from the resources listed at the bottom.
The Continental victory at Saratoga in 1777 and the Continental Congress’ Treaty with the French in 1778 transformed the Revolutionary War, especially for the British. Although increased French aid to the Continentals was very slow in coming and coordinated military activity between the two new allies was even slower to happen, the British were immediately faced with a global conflict with France. As a result, the British changed their strategy yet again in 1778. Rather than mounting a full-scale military campaign against the Continental Army, the British decided to focus their efforts on the loyalists, who they still believed were the majority of the American population.
The British thought the South would be full of Loyalists—people who were loyal to King George III and to the way of life that had made them rich. If British soldiers and Southern Loyalists had combined their strength, they might have been able to defeat the Southern rebels in the American Revolution. But Great Britain’s troops had been tied up in battle after battle in the North from 1775 to 1778. By the end of 1775, Southern rebels controlled the South and that was still true at the beginning of the Southern Campaign of 1778–80.
In June 1778 , General Henry Clinton arrived in Philadelphia to replace British General William Howe who had resigned because he felt that the British government had not sent him enough troops; without them, he said, he could not be expected to win the Revolutionary War. Clinton soon learned that the French had joined forces with the Americans. Fearful that the French navy would cut him off from British headquarters in New York, Clinton quickly abandoned Philadelphia and headed for New York. In response, George Washington set up camp at West Point, New York.
For the next two years, there were no important battles in the North, although sporadic fighting did continue. New York and Pennsylvania were shocked by Indian raids. In the fall of 1778, Washington arranged his army in a semicircle around New York City, but Clinton did not respond to this maneuver. Clinton had decided to shift his fighting forces to the South, reasoning that England’s best efforts in the North had failed and that the loyalists were strongest in the South. The British also hoped to enlist southern slaves in their cause–an objective that seems incompatible with a focus on Southern loyalists.
The South had not seen any military action for two years, and the rebels had grown careless. In December 1778, Clinton sent British forces from New York to take Savannah, Georgia. It was easily captured and became the British center of Southern operations. In September-October of 1779, the patriots tried to take back Savannah with the help of the French navy. Their efforts failed, though, and patriot spirits sank. The British continued to hold Georgia.
Clinton had returned to New York in June 1779. Six months later, he and some 8,000 soldiers headed down to Charleston, South Carolina. It was a stormy thirty-eight-day voyage. Many of the British troops’ horses, supplies, and artillery were lost as their ship, the Anna, “was blown across the Atlantic,” noted Mark M. Boatner III in the Encyclopedia of the American Revolution.
Charleston was the major political and economic center of the South, home to 2,000 wealthy planters and their families—the richest group of people in America. Clinton’s spirits brightened at the thought of a sure victory in Charleston. From there he sought to conquer the rest of the South.
Clinton finally moved against Charleston on February 11, 1780. The siege lasted three months. American General Benjamin Lincoln and his 5,000 men were trapped and outnumbered by British sailors, redcoats, and Hessians. By May 12, they could hold out no longer and Lincoln surrendered. The loss of Charleston was the worst defeat in the entire war; it would remain America’s biggest loss until the World War II Battle of Bataan.
Clinton returned to New York and stayed there, leaving Charles Cornwallis in charge of Savannah. Cornwallis had been second in command when Clinton captured Charleston, SC in May 1780. Clinton left Cornwallis with instructions to neutralize any remaining American forces. Both generals agreed that with the surrender of Charleston, there were few American troops to oppose the conquest of the South. The Continental Congress sent Major General Horatio Gates south with a moderate size detachment of Continental troops to oppose Cornwallis. They met at Camden, South Carolina on August 16, 1780. Cornwallis completely defeated Gates. Gates himself left the battlefield and rode 60 miles in one day to escape.
Cornwallis and his army went into winter encampment at Winnsboro, South Carolina. The entire winter saw the British harassed at every turn. Francis Marion (“the Swamp Fox”) and Thomas Sumter took it upon themselves to make life as miserable as possible for Cornwallis.
The Battle of Guilford Court House proved to be one of the bloodiest fought during the war. At one point it appeared that Greene’s Continentals were driving back the center of Cornwallis’ line. If his line broke, it would be disastrous. Cornwallis ordered his artillery to fire grape shot into the center – – killing both British and American soldiers. It had to have been one of the most difficult orders he ever gave. In the end the American’s retreated, but General Cornwallis lost, wounded or killed one third of his force. Cornwallis made every attempt to catch the retreating Americans. But each day his supplies ran shorter, and contrary to Loyalist intelligence, Loyalist recruits were not joining his Army, whereas every day saw Greene’s Army gaining strength.
Heading into Virginia after failing in the Carolinas, Cornwallis ended up in Yorktown. There, Cornwallis found himself completely surrounded, with no retreat route. He simply had to wait on the fleet to arrive. It was not to be. The French Admiral Count de Grasse intervened, and defeated the Royal Navy. General Cornwallis was trapped. In short order Washington and Rochambeau arrived and besieged Yorktown, which surrendered on October 17th, 1781.
Two months later Lord Cornwallis was on board a ship bound for England after being exchanged for Henry Laurens, former President of the Continental Congress.
For terrific detail on the role of the people and militia of Rowan County in the Revolutionary War: https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE106509
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Patriot Grandfathers and their service in the Revolutionary War
- Samuel Houston served in the Salisbury District militia of NC and was from Rowan County. We don’t know his involvement in specific battles but there were multiple battles in Rowan County in 1781 and there is good documentation of Cornwallis’ and Nathaniel Greene’s movements through the area where Samuel Houston and William Simonton lived. Interestingly, Samuel’s brothers, Christopher and James, also served actively in the war. Christopher played served both as a civilian and as a soldier. As a civilian, he was responsible for procuring goods for the community from Virginia. As a soldier, he served from 1776 to 1782 in the North Carolina Rangers along with his brother James. Both fought in the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill near present-day Lincolnton, in which James was killed. Houston was guarding the Forks of the Yadkin River during the Battle of King’s Mountain and was one of a band of patriots assembled by General Greene to fight in the Battle of Guilford Court House.
- William Simonton served Rowan County as a Processioner and Juror for the provincial government. Among the unsung heroes of the Revolution in Virginia are the civilian district officials who dealt with home front problems during this trying period. Not only did they have to work with state officials, they had to contend with Torys, collect taxes, defend the frontier and deal with ‘reluctant patriots’ at home. They were to account for the available manpower, provide assistance and relief for families of men away in service, obtain supplies for the troops – often from small larders – keep a semblance of law and order in their home precincts, obtain Oaths of Allegiance, and, if so inclined, look after personal and property interests of those residents who preferred to remain loyal to the Crown. Additionally, through congressional records we know that General Nathaniel Greene camped his troops on William Simonton’s plantation, causing damage for which William requested compensation.
- Henry Eidson became an ensign in the Bedford County Militia of VA in October 1781. From 1780 on, until the surrender at Yorktown things were critical in Virginia. By May, 1780 the entire state of Virginia ‘faced a alarming and critical condition of War, with a powerful army in the neighboring states, the Carolinas.’ Virginia units, state and militia troops, were ordered out, sent out of the state to assist those further South. By mid-1781 the War reached Bedford county. In July, 1781, Lt. Col. Banestre Tarleton, 1754-1833, of Cornwallis’ forces raided into New London, Bedford county, razing the country and destroying supplies. We don’t know Henry’s specific battles but we do know that Virginia militiamen served not just in their own county but throughout the Carolinas and Virginia.
Americans basically paid for their own rebellion… the merchants, suppliers, planters and growers, average families, and of course the soldiers of the Continental Army. 100 percent of the War for Independence was paid for by Americans themselves through taxes, bonds, IOUs, and by paying off all foreign loans. Three of our grandfathers provided supplies and material aid to the cause:
- William Arthur (his daughter, Jane, married Henry Eidson), Bedford County, VA
- William Griffin, planter/farmer, Laurens County, SC
- William Simonton, planter/farmer, Rowan County NC
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Resources:
- Much of this description is taken directly from King George III’s Soldiers, Lt. General Charles Earl Cornwallis, by Donald N. Moran
- http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/south
- http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battle-of-guilford-courthouse