General Greene's Famous Retreat
The rain was pouring pitilessly from the skies. The wind blew chill from
the north. The country was soaked with the falling flood, dark
rain-clouds swept across the heavens, and a dreary mist shut out all the
distant view. In the midst of this cheerless scene a solitary horseman
stood on a lonely roadside, with his military cape drawn closely up, and
his horse's head drooping as if the poor beast was utterly weary of the
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situation. In truth, they had kept watch and ward there for hours, and
night was near at hand, the weary watcher still looking southward with
an anxiety that seemed fast growing into hopeless despondency.
At times, as he waited, a faint, far-off, booming sound was heard, which
caused the lonely cavalier to lift his head and listen intently. It
might have been the sound of cannon, it might have been distant thunder,
but whatever it was, his anxiety seemed steadily to increase.
The day darkened into night, and hour by hour night crept on until
midnight came and passed, yet the lone watcher waited still, his horse
beside him, the gloom around him, the rain still plashing on the sodden
road. It was a wearing vigil, and only a critical need could have kept
him there through those slow and dreary hours of gloom.
At length he sharply lifted his head and listened more intently than
before. It was not the dull and distant boom this time, but a nearer
sound that grew momentarily more distinct, the thud, it seemed, of a
horse's hoofs. In a few minutes more a horseman rode into the narrow
circle of view.
"Is that you, sergeant?" asked the watcher.
"Yes, sir," answered the other, with an instinctive military salute.
"What news? I have been waiting here for hours for the militia, and not
a man has come. I trust there is nothing wrong."
"Everything is wrong," answered the new-comer. "Davidson is dead and the
militia are scattered to the winds. Cornwallis is over the Catawba and
is in camp five miles this side of the river."
"You bring bad news," said the listener, with a look of agitation.
"Davidson dead and his men dispersed! That is bad enough. And Morgan?"
"I know nothing about him."
Sad of heart, the questioner mounted his impatient steed and rode
disconsolately away along the muddy road. He was no less a person than
General Greene, the newly-appointed commander of the American forces in
the South, and the tidings he had just heard had disarranged all his
plans. With the militia on whose aid he had depended scattered in
flight, and no sign of others coming, his hope of facing Cornwallis in
the field was gone, and he was a heavy-hearted man when he rode at
length into the North Carolina town of Salisbury and dismounted at the
door of Steele's tavern, the house of entertainment in that place. As he
entered the reception-room of the hotel, stiff and weary from his long
vigil, he was met by Dr. Read, a friend.
"What! alone, General?" exclaimed Read.
"Yes; tired, hungry, alone, and penniless."
The fate of the patriot cause in the South seemed to lie in those
hopeless words. Mrs. Steele, the landlady, heard them, and made all
haste to prepare a bountiful supper for her late guest, who sat seeking
to dry himself before the blazing fire. As quickly as possible a smoking
hot supper was on the table before him, and as he sat enjoying it with a
craving appetite, Mrs. Steele again entered the room.
Closing the door carefully behind her, she advanced with a look of
sympathy on her face, and drew her hands from under her apron, each of
them holding a small bag of silver coin.
"Take these, general," she said. "You need them, and I can do without
them."
A look of hope beamed on Greene's face as he heard these words. With a
spirit like this in the women of the country, he felt that no man should
despair. Rising with a sudden impulse, he walked to where a portrait of
George III. hung over the fireplace, remaining from the old ante-war
time. He turned the face of this to the wall and wrote these words on
the back: "Hide thy face, George, and blush."
It is said that this portrait was still hanging in the same place not
many years ago, with Greene's writing yet legible upon it, and possibly
it may be there still. As for Mrs. Steele, she had proved herself a
patriot woman, of the type of Mrs. Motte, who furnished Marion with
arrows for the burning of her own house when it was occupied by a party
of British soldiers whom he could not dislodge. And they two were far
from alone in the list of patriot women in the South.
The incident in General Greene's career above given has become famous.
And connected with it is the skilful military movement by which he
restored the American cause in the South, which had been nearly lost by
the disastrous defeat of General Gates. This celebrated example of
strategy has often been described, but is worth telling again.
Lord Cornwallis, the most active of the British commanders in the war of
American Independence, had brought South Carolina and Georgia under his
control, and was marching north with the expectation of soon bringing
North Carolina into subjection, and following up his success with the
conquest of Virginia. This accomplished, he would have the whole South
subdued. But in some respects he reckoned without his host. He had now
such men as Greene and Morgan in his front, Marion and Sumter in his
rear, and his task was not likely to prove an easy one.
As for Morgan, he sent the rough-rider Tarleton to deal with him,
fancying that the noted rifleman, who had won undying fame in the
North, would now meet fate in the face, and perhaps be captured, with
all his men. But Morgan had a word to say about that, as was proved on
the 17th of January, 1781, when he met Tarleton at the Cowpens, a place
about five miles south of the North Carolina line.
Tarleton had the strongest and best appointed force, and Morgan, many of
whose men were untried militia, seemed in imminent danger, especially
when the men of the Maryland line began to retreat, and the British,
thinking the day their own, pressed upon them with exultant shouts. But
to their surprise the bold Marylanders suddenly halted, turned, and
greeted their pursuers with a destructive volley. At the same time the
Virginia riflemen, who had been posted on the wings, closed in on both
flanks of the British and poured a shower of bullets into their ranks.
The British were stunned by this abrupt change in the situation, and
when the Maryland line charged upon them with levelled bayonets they
broke and fled in dismay.
Colonel Washington commanded the small cavalry force, so far held in
reserve and unseen. This compact body of troopers now charged on the
British cavalry, more than three times their numbers, and quickly put
them to flight. Tarleton himself made a narrow escape, for he received a
wound from Washington's sword in the hot pursuit. So utter was the rout
of the British that they were pursued for twenty miles, and lost more
than three hundred of their number in killed and wounded and six
hundred in prisoners, with many horses, wagons, muskets, and cannon.
Tarleton's abundant baggage was burned by his own order to save it from
capture. In this signal victory Morgan lost only ten men killed and
sixty wounded.
And now began that famous retreat, which was of more advantage to the
Americans than a victory. Morgan, knowing well that Cornwallis would
soon be after him to retrieve the disaster at the Cowpens, hastened with
his prisoners and spoils across the Catawba. Cornwallis, furious at his
defeat and eager to move rapidly in pursuit, set fire to all his baggage
and wagons except those absolutely needed, thus turning his army into
light troops at the expense of the greater part of its food-supply and
munitions.
But when he reached the Catawba, he found it so swollen with the rains
that he was forced to halt on its banks while Morgan continued his
march. Meanwhile, General Greene was making earnest efforts to collect a
force of militia, directing all those who came in to meet at a certain
point. Such was the situation on the 1st of February when Greene waited
for weary hours at the place fixed upon for the militia to assemble,
only to learn that Cornwallis had forced the passage of the river,
dispersing the North Carolina militia left to guard the ford, and
killing General Davidson, their commander. He had certainly abundant
reason for depression on that wet and dreary night when he rode alone
into Salisbury.
The Catawba crossed, the next stream of importance was the Yadkin.
Hither Morgan marched in all haste, crossing the stream on the 2d and 3d
of February, and at once securing all boats. The rains began to fall
again before his men were fairly over, and soon the stream was swelling
with the mountain floods. When Cornwallis reached its banks it was
swollen high and running madly, and it was the 7th of February before he
was able to cross. It seemed, indeed, as if Providence had come to the
aid of the Americans, lowering the rains for them and raising them for
their foes.
Meanwhile, the two divisions of the American army were marching on
converging lines, and on the 9th the forces under Greene and Morgan made
a junction at Guilford Court-House, Cornwallis being then at Salem,
twenty-five miles distant. A battle was fought at this place a month
later, but just then the force under Greene's command was too small to
risk a fight. A defeat at that time might have proved fatal to the cause
of the South. Nothing remained but to continue the retreat across the
State to the border of Virginia, and there put the Dan River between him
and his foe.
To cover the route of his retreat from the enemy, Greene detached
General Williams with the flower of his troops to act as a light corps,
watch and impede Cornwallis and strive to lead him towards Dix's ferry
on the Dan, while the crossing would be made twenty miles lower down.
It was a terrible march which the poor patriots made during the next
four days. Without tents, with thin and ragged clothes, most of them
without shoes, "many hundreds of the soldiers tracking the ground with
their bloody feet," they retreated at the rate of seventeen miles a day
along barely passable roads, the wagon-wheels sinking deep in the mud,
and every creek swollen with the rains. In these four days of anxiety
Greene slept barely four hours, watching every detail with a vigilant
eye, which nothing escaped. On the 14th they reached the ford, hurrying
the wagons across and then the troops, and before nightfall Greene was
able to write that "all his troops were over and the stage was clear."
General Williams had aided him ably in this critical march, keeping just
beyond reach of Cornwallis, and deceiving him for a day or two as to the
intention of the Americans. When the British general discovered how he
had been deceived, he got rid of more of his baggage by the easy method
of fire, and chased Williams across the State at the speed of thirty
miles a day. But the alert Americans marched forty miles a day and
reached the fords of the Dan just as the last of Greene's men had
crossed. That night the rear guard crossed the stream, and when
Cornwallis reached its banks, on the morning of the 15th, to his deep
chagrin he found all the Americans safe on the Virginia side and ready
to contest the crossing if he should seek to continue the pursuit.
That famous march of two hundred miles, from the south side of the
Catawba to the north side of the Dan, in which the whole State of North
Carolina was crossed by the ragged and largely shoeless army, was the
salvation of the Southern States. In Greene's camp there was only joy
and congratulation. Little did the soldiers heed their tattered
garments, their shoeless feet, their lack of blankets and of regular
food, in their pride at having outwitted the British army and fulfilled
their duty to their country. With renewed courage they were ready to
cross the Dan again and attack Cornwallis and his men. Washington wrote
to General Greene, applauding him highly for his skilful feat, and even
a British historian gave him great praise and credit for his skill in
strategy.
Shall we tell in a few words the outcome of this fine feat? Cornwallis
had been drawn so far from his base of supplies, and had burned so much
of his war-material, that he found himself in an ugly quandary. On his
return march Greene became the pursuer, harassing him at every step.
When Guilford Court-House was reached again Greene felt strong enough to
fight, and though Cornwallis held the field at the end of the battle he
was left in such a sorry plight that he was forced to retreat to
Wilmington and leave South Carolina uncovered. Here it did not take
Greene long, with the aid of such valiant partisans as Marion, Sumter,
and Lee, to shut the British up in Charleston and win back the State.
Cornwallis, on the other hand, concluded to try his fortune in
Virginia, where there seemed to be a fine chance for fighting and
conquest. But he was not long there before he found himself shut up in
Yorktown like a rat in a trap, with Washington and his forces in front
and the French fleet in the rear. His surrender, soon after, not only
freed the South from its foes, but cured George III. of any further
desire to put down the rebels in America.