Existing comment:
The British Invade North Carolina:
War returned to North Carolina when the British army's focus shifted to the southern colonies in 1779. Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis aimed to subdue the South and started by seizing Savannah and Charleston. In June 1780, his army marched north out of Charleston, beginning a campaign that would wind through three states over the next year and a half. The Continental army, led in the South by Gen. Horatio Gates and, later, by Gen. Nathanael Greene, met the British threat. The two armies followed each other's movements and clashed in some of the war's most ferocious battles, including Cowpens and Eutaw Springs in South Carolina and Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina. Soldiers from both sides ravaged the countryside for good and supplies and incited the local residents.
After concluding that "North Carolina is of all the provinces in America the most difficult to attack," Cornwallis marched on to Virginia in September 1791. His army dug in at the coastal town of Yorktown, where a combined force of French and American army and navy troops forced Cornwallis's surrender on October 19. The allied victory signaled the end of the Revolutionary War and the beginning of the independent American nation. |