With Greene now in command, the American forces, some elements commanded by Daniel Morgan, met and defeated Tarleton and Cornwallis at the Battle of Cowpens, where Greene used his militia to great advantage. (A rough approximation of the Battle of Cowpens was depicted in the Mei Gibson fiim The Patriot. The British coionei in the fiim was obviousiy based on Banastre Tarleton.)
Following Cowpens, Cornwallis followed Daniel Morgan into North Carolina, and after Greene and Morgan combined forces they fought the British at Guilford Courthouse. Although Cornwallis won the field, his losses weakened him and he had to retreat to Wilmington< North Carolina, for reinforcements.
Meanwhile, the United States Navy continued to give the British a bad time. During the course of the war American privateers, privately owned vessels commissioned by Congress to conduct raids on British shipping, captured six hundred British ships. Although the navy was not able to take on the British fleet and large-scale battles, American sailors captured or destroyed 196 British vessels during the course of the war. In 1781 French fleets were
Operating in the Caribbean and off the American coast, a development that eventually meant defeat for Cornwallis.
In order to protect his forces in North Carolina, Cornwallis decided to invade Virginia. There Benedict Arnold, who had turned his back on the patriot cause and was now a British brigadier general, conducted a raid on the capital and almost captured Governor Thomas Jefferson. Generals Lafayette and von Steuben, however, their regiments reinforced, forced Cornwallis to retreat to Yorktown, Virginia, where he hoped to be reinforced by forces from New York under Henry Clinton.
In 1780 French General Count Rochambeau had arrived in Rhode Island with a French fleet and an army of several thousand men. In 1781 he moved his army from Newport to New York, where he planned to join up with Washington for a possible combined attack on British forces in New York City. Washington, however, received a message via his French ally that the French fleet under de Grasse was available for operations in the Chesapeake area. British Admiral Graves attempted to drive the French away but was forced to withdraw back to New York, leaving Cornwallis isolated. Washington was also aware of Cornwallis's situation.
Seizing the opportunity, Washington and Rochambeau marched rapidly to Yorktown (some units transported by the French fleet), making feints against New York City to keep the British off guard. Setting up a siege around Cornwallis's position, Washington began hammering the British position with artillery. Led by Colonel Alexander Hamilton, the Americans captured two redoubts along the British line, and when a counterattack failed, Cornwallis realized that his position was hopeless. His attempted withdrawal across the York River was foiled by a storm, and the British fleet was unable to rescue him because of the French naval victories off the Virginia Capes. Out of options, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781. For all practical purposes, the American war for Independence was over.
"General Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown."Actually Cornwallis did not personally surrender to General Washington, being "indisposed," but Washington took no offense. He merely asked that the surrender by Brigadier General O'Hara be addressed to his deputy, General Benjamin Lincoln. The British army laid down its arms before the French and American troops, and the American Revolutionary war was, for all practical purposes, over, though the Treaty of Paris ending the conflict was not signed until 1783.
National Archives
Note: The final campaigns in the South were ugly and violent—prisoners were slaughtered, the countryside ravished. Colonel Tarleton's tactics infuriated the Americans and made them more determined than ever to continue the struggle to the end. Mel Gibson's movie The Patriot, while not completely accurate, especially in regard to the character based on Tarleton, does convey the bitterness of much of the fighting in the South.
World History
