It is January 16th. Welcome to Episode 16 of History in a Year. Today, the British change their strategy. Frustrated by the stalemate in the North, they invade the American South, believing thousands of loyalists are waiting to join them. We witness the disastrous Fall of Charleston—the worst American defeat of the war—and the humiliation of the “Hero of Saratoga,” Horatio Gates, who feeds his army green corn and then flees the battlefield on a fast horse.
STEPHEN: Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH: Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH: And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: It is January 16th. Welcome to Episode 16. Yesterday, we left George Washington’s army emerging from Valley Forge in 1778, stronger and more professional.
LEAH: But despite that improvement, the war in the North had turned into a stalemate. The British held New York City, Washington held the countryside, and neither side could knock the other out.
STEPHEN: So, in late 1778 and 1779, the British High Command decided on a new plan: The “Southern Strategy.”
LEAH: They believed a myth. They convinced themselves that the Southern colonies—Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia—were packed with secret Loyalists who were just too afraid to speak up.
STEPHEN: They thought, “If we land a massive army in the South, thousands of these loyal subjects will grab their muskets, join us, and we will roll up the colonies from the bottom to the top.”
LEAH: At first, it seemed to work. They captured Savannah, Georgia, easily in late 1778. Georgia effectively dropped out of the war.
STEPHEN: Encouraged, they set their sights on the biggest prize in the South: Charleston, South Carolina. This was the wealthiest city in the colonies and the most important port in the South.
LEAH: In early 1780, the British Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Clinton, sailed south from New York with 8,500 men. He landed outside Charleston and began a textbook siege.
STEPHEN: Defending the city was General Benjamin Lincoln. He was a solid, reliable officer, but he was in a terrible position. He wanted to evacuate the city to save his army, but the local politicians in Charleston demanded he stay and fight.
LEAH: He bowed to political pressure. It was a fatal mistake. Clinton dug trenches, moved his heavy mortars closer, and cut off every escape route.
STEPHEN: On May 12, 1780, after weeks of bombardment, Benjamin Lincoln had no choice. He surrendered.
LEAH: This was the absolute low point of the Revolution. It was the single worst American defeat of the war. The British captured over 5,000 Continental soldiers, 400 cannons, and massive stockpiles of ammunition.
STEPHEN: In one stroke, the entire Southern army of the United States was erased. It simply ceased to exist.
LEAH: General Clinton was ecstatic. He sailed back to New York, leaving his second-in-command, General Charles Cornwallis, to finish the job of “pacifying” the South.
STEPHEN: Cornwallis was a capable, aggressive general. And he had a weapon that terrified the rebels: his cavalry commander, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton.
LEAH: Tarleton was only 26 years old. He was handsome, dashing, and absolutely ruthless. He wore a green jacket, and his men were known as the “Green Dragoons.”
STEPHEN: A few weeks after Charleston fell, Tarleton chased down a group of retreating Americans at a place called the Waxhaws. The Americans tried to surrender, but Tarleton’s men dove in with sabers slashing.
LEAH: They butchered 113 men and wounded 150 more, many so badly they couldn’t be moved. It became known as the “Waxhaws Massacre.” The rebels had a new phrase for it: “Tarleton’s Quarter.” It meant “no mercy.”
STEPHEN: The South was in flames. It became a vicious civil war. Neighbors were killing neighbors. It wasn’t just armies fighting; it was militias, gangs, and families settling old scores.
LEAH: Congress, sitting in Philadelphia, was in a panic. They needed to send a new army South immediately. And they needed a hero to lead it.
STEPHEN: George Washington wanted to send his best strategist, Nathanael Greene. But Congress overruled him. They wanted the celebrity. They wanted the “Hero of Saratoga.”
LEAH: Horatio Gates.
STEPHEN: Gates arrived in North Carolina in July 1780. He took command of a hastily assembled force of about 3,000 men. Most were untrained militia, plus a core of tough Continental soldiers led by a giant German officer, Baron de Kalb.
LEAH: Gates was arrogant. He immediately ordered a march deep into South Carolina to attack the British base at Camden. But he ignored the advice of his officers about logistics.
STEPHEN: He marched his army through a “pine barren”—a desolate swamp with no food. The soldiers were starving. They resorted to eating green corn and green peaches they found in the fields.
LEAH: You can imagine the result. By the time they reached Camden, half the army was sick with dysentery. They were literally too weak to stand. But Gates ordered an attack anyway.
STEPHEN: On the morning of August 16, 1780, the two armies met. The Battle of Camden.
LEAH: Gates made a tactical error that you learn not to make in “General School 101.” He placed his best troops on his right, and his worst troops—the untrained militia—on his left.
STEPHEN: Unfortunately, Lord Cornwallis did the exact same thing. Which meant the best British troops were staring right at the worst American militia.
LEAH: When the British Redcoats fixed bayonets and charged, the American militia didn’t even fire. They just threw down their muskets and ran.
STEPHEN: The entire left wing of the American army evaporated in minutes.
LEAH: The Continental soldiers on the right fought heroically. Baron de Kalb led them in counter-attack after counter-attack. But they were surrounded. De Kalb was unhorsed and fought on foot until he fell, bleeding from 11 wounds. He died three days later.
STEPHEN: And where was Horatio Gates?
LEAH: This is the part that ruined his reputation forever. When the line broke, Gates jumped on his fast racehorse and rode away.
STEPHEN: He didn’t stop at the camp. He didn’t stop at the next town. He rode 60 miles that day, and 120 miles more over the next three days. He basically ran all the way to Hillsborough, North Carolina, leaving his army to be slaughtered.
LEAH: Alexander Hamilton later wrote sarcastically, “Was there ever an instance of a General running away as Gates has done? It does him profound honor.”
STEPHEN: So, in the span of three months, the Americans had lost two entire armies. Charleston was gone. The army at Camden was destroyed. There was literally nothing stopping Cornwallis from marching all the way to Virginia.
LEAH: It looked like the British strategy had worked. The South was conquered.
STEPHEN: But the British made a mistake. They thought that by destroying the regular armies, they had won the war. They forgot that the people were still there.
LEAH: As the British troops moved into the backcountry, they started burning houses and stealing cattle. And suddenly, the farmers who had been neutral grabbed their rifles.
STEPHEN: A new kind of war was about to begin. Not a war of armies, but a war of ghosts. Men who lived in the swamps and struck at night.
LEAH: Join us tomorrow for Episode 17. We head into the marshes of South Carolina to meet the “Swamp Fox,” Francis Marion. And we watch as a group of angry frontiersmen come down from the Appalachian Mountains to hunt a British major at Kings Mountain.
STEPHEN: I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: And I’m Stephen.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.