Small Battles – serie
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On May 9, 1781, American general Nathanael Greene and his Continental army were outside of British-held Camden, South Carolina. Greene was despondent and contemplating resigning his commission, believing he could not force the British out of the fortified village. His compatriot Francis Marion, standing before Fort Motte forty miles to the south, was also in the same mood, informing Greene that he was frustrated by the militia, and he was going to resign after the fort’s capture. The next day, Lord Francis Rawdon, commander of the Camden garrison and all British field forces in South Carolina, abandoned that backcountry village. Marion would capture Fort Motte two days later. In The Battles of Fort Watson and Fort Motte, 1781, the latest in the Small Battles Series, historian and archaeologist Steven D. Smith relates the history of four critical weeks from April 12 until May 12, 1781, in which the tide of the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War turned in favor of the Americans. The book focuses on General Francis Marion’s and Colonel Henry Lee’s capture of two key British forts, Fort Watson and Fort Motte, coordinating with Nathanael Greene in retaking the South Carolina backcountry. These posts defended the supply line between Charleston and the British-occupied villages of Camden and Ninety Six. Although there would be much more fighting to do, once the two forts were lost, the British had to abandon the backcountry or starve. The British would never again be on the strategic offensive and were confined to the Charleston environs until they abandoned the city in December 1782. The story of the capture of the forts is enhanced and enlightened by the findings of archaeological investigation at each site—and even mythology, such as Mrs. Motte providing the fire arrows used to burn her fortified house—which are seamlessly integrated into the account, providing a unique perspective on these important events during the Southern Campaign.
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The decisive Yorktown campaign of 1781 in Virginia, in which an American and French army and navy forced the surrender of the last major British field force in America, was the final Patriot victory of the Revolutionary War. The campaign was an immense and complicated series of operations, a sprawling set of marches, encampments, sea voyages, skirmishes, battles, and a decisive siege that played out from early January to late October 1781. In the weeks before the victorious siege began, a little-known preliminary contest was fought in the Piedmont and Tidewater regions of Virginia between General Charles Cornwallis’s powerful army of redcoats and Hessians, and a small, scrappy force of Continental Army veterans and Virginia militiamen led by the Marquis de Lafayette. From late April to mid-June, a cautious Lafayette avoided fighting a battle against Cornwallis’s far superior force, which was roaming central Virginia destroying Patriot supplies. But after being reinforced in early June, he followed the redcoats more closely, looking for long awaited opportunities to strike the enemy. Lafayette got his chance at Spencer’s Ordinary and Green Spring. Although neither small engagement was an American victory, they demonstrated Lafayette’s maturity as a commander and a renewed capability for Patriot offensives.In The Battles of Spencer’s Ordinary and Green Spring, 1781, historian John Maass demonstrates how these overlooked but significant actions reveal a key aspect of the Yorktown campaign. In late June, surprised near a crossroads tavern (also called an ordinary) not far from Williamsburg, British commander John Graves Simcoe and his seasoned subordinate, Johann Ewald, with a mix of Queen’s Rangers, Hessians, and Loyalists, were able to avoid being enveloped, holding off Lafayette’s advanced force long enough for them to be able to fall back into Cornwallis’s main army. Ten days later, on July 6, the British turned the tables, surprising General Anthony Wayne near the Green Spring plantation, forcing Wayne to lead a spirited defense until Lafayette’s main force could arrive and enact a successful retreat for his troops. Full of major characters and exemplary of the smaller battles that helped shape the American Revolution, this volume offers the most detailed look at these two engagements to date.