Victory, At Last

On May 6, 1778, George Washington’s army celebrated America’s alliance with France. Twelve days later, in British-occupied Philadelphia, musicians played “God Save the King” during a lavish tribute to the departing commander in chief, Maj. Gen. William Howe, that had fireworks and jousts between mounted officers in costume. 

Howe had also grown tired of the war and asked to be “relieved from this very painful service.” His successor, Lt. Gen. Henry Clinton, had orders to abandon Philadelphia and return occupying troops to New York City, thus nullifying Howe’s campaign the year before. While giving up the American capital, the British were planning to expand operations elsewhere to contend with France and target southern states. Clinton would have to hold New York while deploying troops to battle French forces in the West Indies; defend British East Florida and West Florida, which extended along the Gulf Coast to the Mississippi River; and invade Georgia and the Carolinas. 

As Clinton marched his army through New Jersey to New York, Washington sent 5,000 men under Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, recently released by the British in a prisoner exchange, to strike Clinton’s rear guard. Lee’s erratic attack at the village of Monmouth Court House on June 28 resulted in a chaotic retreat that ended his military career.

Washington rode forward to steady the troops until reinforcements arrived and held off Clinton, who resumed his march northward the next day. The indecisive contest was the last battle Washington would fight until the war’s final campaign in 1781. The conflict was shifting from North to South, and from a struggle decided on land to one in which the fate of armies often hinged on naval support.

After a setback in Newport in July, Washington concluded that “without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it everything honorable and glorious.” France would have to furnish that force because the small Continental Navy was no match for Britain’s Royal Navy, arguably the most powerful in the world. Continental Navy captains instead seized supply or merchant ships, which were also taken as prizes by American privateers, privately owned ships with a commission from the Continental Congress. Some 800 American privateers captured millions of dollars’ worth of goods.

The career of Scottish-born John Paul Jones covered the full range of Continental Navy operations.

On December 29, 1778, 3,500 troops dispatched by ship from New York City under Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell launched Britain’s southern offensive by attacking Savannah, then Georgia’s capital. Maj. Gen. Robert Howe, the American commander there, was outnumbered roughly four to one but vowed to fight to the finish. He retreated that evening, leaving behind more than 100 men dead or wounded and 450 captured. Campbell then advanced inland to Augusta, Georgia, where he recruited 1,400 Loyalists to fight for the British. But arming them provoked violent reactions by Revolutionaries, who gathered menacingly across the Savannah River in South Carolina, causing many of Campbell’s recruits to flee before he withdrew from Augusta in mid-February 1779.

In June Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, commander of the Continental Army’s Southern Department, repulsed a British push toward Charleston. The British withdrew to Savannah, which soon came under combined assault by Lincoln and French vice admiral Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, Comte d’Estaing, whose fleet approached the Savannah River in early September. 

In early October d’Estaing’s warships and American batteries shelled Savannah, which was “torn to pieces,” wrote British officer T.W. Moore, who heard “the shrieks of women and children” during bombardments that killed about 40 civilians while doing little harm to fortified British soldiers. Lincoln deferred to d’Estaing, who was neither willing to besiege Savannah at length nor quick enough to prevent the British from obtaining reinforcements. The assault d’Estaing launched focused on a redoubt situated near a swamp that bogged down one advancing column as other French and American forces forged ahead under British infantry and artillery fire. The assault was futile, and the battle left Savannah in the hands of the British.

One American who fought at Savannah, Lt. Col. John Laurens of South Carolina—son of Henry Laurens, a wealthy planter and enslaver, and president of the Continental Congress—believed that Revolutionaries could not contend with “good grace for liberty” while denying enslaved people freedom. At his urging, Congress had authorized Laurens in March 1779 to recruit 3,000 Black soldiers in South Carolina and Georgia by offering them emancipation at war’s end. Both Georgia and South Carolina rejected the plan, despite Congress’s offer to pay enslavers up to $1,000 for each man enlisted in the Continental Army. Laurens renewed his request to the South Carolina legislature multiple times and was overwhelmingly rejected every time. Meanwhile, on June 30 Clinton offered Black people held as “property of a rebel” freedom to pursue any occupation they wished behind British lines without fear of being sold or claimed. Clinton’s offer did not apply to those enslaved by Loyalists, whose human “property” he would employ during his forthcoming assault on Charleston.

On December 26, 1779, Clinton embarked from New York for South Carolina with more than 13,000 soldiers and sailors. He landed there in February 1780 and prepared to lay siege to Charleston while British warships cautiously maneuvered between sandbars toward its inner harbor, guarded by Fort Moultrie. The Americans in Charleston, under the command of Lincoln, found themselves outnumbered nearly two to one by Clinton’s men. In early April, eight British warships blasted past Fort Moultrie, which was later captured, and drew within range of Charleston as Clinton’s siege lines neared the city. Lincoln prepared to evacuate his men across the Cooper River if necessary, prompting Georgia officials to insist that he remain to defend Charleston. Only Congress had authority over him, but he stayed in a city he doubted his troops could save. 

Clinton’s announcement that hostilities were imminent prompted gunners in Charleston to fire the first shots of a furious artillery duel on the night of May 9, which sent cannonballs “whizzing and shells hissing continually amongst us,” wrote Brig. Gen. William Moultrie, for whom Fort Moultrie was named. “It was our last great effort,” he added, “but it availed us nothing.” On May 12, no longer able to retreat or obtain supplies, Lincoln conceded the greatest American defeat of the Revolutionary War by surrendering Charleston and nearly 5,500 soldiers.

Clinton claimed in triumph that the Carolinas were “conquered in Charleston.” All that remained to be done, he and his second-in-command, the now Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis, assumed, was to eliminate pockets of resistance such as Col. Abraham Buford’s Virginia Continentals, who had entered South Carolina too late to aid Charleston. 

Cornwallis sent the hard-driving Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton with men of his Loyalist legion and other forces in pursuit of Buford. When Tarle­ton caught up with the rebels in the Waxhaws region near the North Carolina border, he launched a devastating cavalry charge during which he was pinned under his horse temporarily and lost control of his men. Some of them killed adversaries who were trying to surrender, but Virginians who survived the battle blamed Tarleton, whom they accused of granting his foes no quarter, thus dooming many soldiers who should have been spared. 

The Waxhaws Massacre intensified Revolutionary resistance. Although the British held various forts and towns in the region, including Camden, South Carolina, much of the countryside would remain beyond their control, with the inhabitants leaning neutral or favoring the American cause. Clinton antagonized both groups in early June 1780 by declaring that Revolutionaries who had been captured and paroled by the British must swear allegiance to the crown—and by insisting that Carolinians aid British forces “in order to extirpate the rebellion.”

Soon after issuing that edict in June, Clinton returned to New York City, leaving Cornwallis to pacify South Carolina and enter North Carolina as he saw fit. An aggressive officer eager to make the most of his first independent command, Cornwallis left the bulk of his forces in Charleston and marched to defend Camden against some 4,000 oncoming Americans under Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates, whose victory at Saratoga had led some to tout him as better suited than Washington to command the Continental Army. But Gates erred as battle loomed near Camden on August 16 by placing reliable Continental troops on his right and inexperienced militiamen to their left, opposite Cornwallis’s finest troops. When those redcoats launched a bayonet charge, many of the militiamen fled, exposing the Continentals, who fought hard but gave way. Gates retreated on horseback before the battle ended, leaving behind 800 men dead or wounded and 1,000 captured—some of whom were later freed by Col. Francis Marion of South Carolina, an elusive raider dubbed the Swamp Fox. 

Cornwallis’s resounding victory at Camden made him overconfident. He proceeded with about 2,000 men to Charlotte, North Carolina, trusting that a Loyalist legion led by Maj. Patrick Ferguson could handle any opposition that might arise along the mountains to the west. But determined frontier militia bands were forming there under influential officers like Col. Isaac Shelby of Virginia (future governor of Kentucky) and Col. John Sevier of North Carolina (future governor of Tennessee). Angered by Ferguson’s threat to execute Shelby “and burn his whole country” if he did not surrender, frontiersmen armed largely with hunting rifles surrounded and annihilated Ferguson’s Legion at Kings Mountain on October 7. 

Cornwallis withdrew to South Carolina, where he lost Tarleton’s Loyalists after a bruising attack. 

Cornwallis then went after Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, Gates’s adept successor, in North Carolina and attacked his forces at Guilford Court House in March 1781. Greene withdrew, but his stout defenses exacted a heavy toll. Cornwallis’s weary men trudged toward British-­occupied Wilmington, North Carolina. From there, Cornwallis entered Virginia in May, leaving the Deep South swarming with combative Revolutionaries, who would aid Greene as he confined the British largely to coastal enclaves like Charleston and Savannah. 

As the war shifted southward, Washington was reduced to commanding a small army along the Hudson River, but his responsibilities as commander in chief of the extensive Continental Army increased. He dispatched to the South some of his best troops and most trusted commanders, including Greene. Washington also coordinated operations with the Comte de Rochambeau, a general who had landed with more than 5,000 French troops in July 1780 at Newport. Washington communicated with him through an esteemed French officer on his own staff, the Marquis de Lafayette, who had arrived in America in July 1777 at the age of 19 with a recommendation from Franklin. Lafayette joined Washington’s army as an honorary major general, a rank he soon earned by taking command of a division after recovering from a shot to the leg at Brandywine Creek. Washington hoped to retake New York City with Rochambeau’s help, but his attention turned to Virginia and events set in motion by Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold, whom he had placed in charge of Fortress West Point, a crucial stronghold along the Hudson.

In July 1780 Arnold sent a coded letter to Clinton’s intelligence chief, Maj. John André, offering to surrender West Point and its troops for “twenty thousand pounds sterling,” which he deemed cheap “for an object of so much importance.” To confirm that deal, Arnold met with André at a house in Haverstraw, New York. André was seized afterward by American militiamen and executed as a spy nine days later, but Arnold evaded capture and offered his services to the British. Clinton then goaded the Americans by sending Arnold, now a brigadier general in the British Army, to raise havoc in Virginia. In early January 1781 he led 1,500 troops, consisting largely of Loyalists, up the James River and sacked Richmond—Virginia’s newly designated capital. Governor Thomas Jefferson and other officials fled before Arnold torched the town.

Washington responded to that shocking raid by sending Lafayette to Virginia with 1,200 Continental troops. Lafayette could do little initially because British forces there swelled to about 7,000 by late May, when Cornwallis took command. Washington ordered additional Continental troops to Virginia, which helped bring Lafayette’s strength to about 5,000 men by June. That month Clinton sent a fateful message to Cornwallis urging him to take a “defensive” position at Williamsburg or Yorktown and send some of his troops to help defend New York City against a possible siege. Clinton altered those instructions in July, telling Cornwallis to retain all his forces and prepare a British naval base near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Pursued by Lafayette, Cornwallis proceeded to Yorktown, where warships could anchor.

Washington, meanwhile, summoned Rochambeau to join forces with him along the Hudson. Aware that Rochambeau had written to French admiral Comte de Grasse proposing that his fleet enter Chesapeake Bay to thwart the British in Virginia, Washington recognized that without naval support and additional troops, his plan to retake New York City might have to be abandoned in favor of an advance southward. 

On August 14, a message delivered by a fast frigate from de Grasse in the West Indies informed Rochambeau and Washington that his fleet would soon reach the Chesapeake. Leaving behind a few thousand men to disguise his departure from Clinton, Washington promptly marched nearly 8,000 allied troops to join Lafayette’s forces at Yorktown, where Cornwallis was fortifying his position. 

Clinton realized belatedly that Washington was heading for Yorktown and wrote Cornwallis promising to “reinforce your command by all means within the compass of my power.” But that command was soon beyond saving. 

On September 5, de Grasse’s larger and more heavily armed ships rebuffed a British fleet near the mouth of the Chesapeake. Before Cornwallis learned the result of that battle, which denied him support by sea, he received another message from Clinton stating that 4,000 British troops would soon embark for Yorktown. He decided to await their arrival rather than attempt to break out against Lafayette. 

In late September, the allied troops reached Yorktown, where sappers began digging trenches that brought soldiers and siege guns ever closer to Cornwallis’s stranded forces. Washington tightened his grip on the night of October 14 by launching attacks led by Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton and Col. Guillaume de Deux-Ponts that shattered Cornwallis’s next-to-last line of defense. 

Under relentless bombardment, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19 with nearly 8,000 men. When told of the outcome at Yorktown, British prime minister Lord North reportedly said, “Oh God! It is all over.” Some in Britain wished to continue fighting, but many had wearied of trying to subdue the Americans who would have no king. 

Washington was not ready to lay down his sword. British forces still occupied American territory in late 1781, and he hoped to conduct one last campaign to evict them. But states would not pay the army to prolong the war as peace talks loomed. Those negotiations in Paris took time because Britain had to settle not only with the United States but also with France and Spain. The latter nation had officially joined the war in 1789 and bolstered France at sea while also contesting British control of the lower Mississippi River and West Florida. Britain ceded East and West Florida to Spain but denied France any large territorial concessions.

Congress had directed Franklin and other American diplomats in Paris not to settle with the British before France did, in keeping with the 1778 Franco-American alliance. But fearing that France and Spain would gain territory at America’s expense, they defied those orders.

Congress criticized its disobedient diplomats but welcomed the concessions they obtained from Britain, which recognized American independence and acknowledged the Mississippi River as the western boundary of the United States. But not all Americans were pleased with the treaty signed at Paris on September 3, 1783. Although it stated that Congress would “earnestly recommend” that state legislatures restore “all estates, rights, and properties” confiscated from Loyalists who had not borne arms against the United States, Loyalists doubted that states would do so. When British troops departed, about 60,000 Loyalists also left America. Some went willingly—and others under duress. 

The treaty’s most controversial article stated that British forces would leave the United States without “carrying away any Negroes or other property of the American inhabitants.” That article was proposed by Henry Laurens of South Carolina and readily accepted by the chief British negotiator at Paris, Richard Oswald, a merchant who had engaged in the transatlantic slave trade with Laurens. Other British officials, however, declined to return formerly enslaved people who had sought liberty behind British lines, insisting that they were emancipated and free to leave the United States. Franklin, a former enslaver, later rejected the idea that anyone could rightfully be held as property. Two months before his death in 1790, he petitioned the U.S. Congress to free those “who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage.” 

A realist, Franklin saw America as it was, with all its strengths and “all its faults,” as he described the U.S. Constitution adopted by Congress in 1787. He endorsed that imperfect but essential document and the representative government it established because, he said, “I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.”