Long, Obstinate, and Bloody

by Babits, Lawrence E.

• ISBN13: 9780807832660
• ISBN10: 0807832669
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-03-15
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

On 15 March 1781, the armies of Nathanael Greene and Lord Charles Cornwallis fought one of the bloodiest and most intense engagements of the American Revolution at the Guilford Courthouse in piedmont North Carolina. Although victorious, Cornwallis declared the conquest of the Carolinas impossible. He made the fateful decision to march into Virginia, eventually leading his army to the Yorktown surrender and clearing the way for American independence.In the first book-length examination of the Guilford Courthouse engagement, Lawrence Babits and Joshua Howard--drawing from hundreds of previously underutilized pension documents, muster rolls, and personal accounts--piece together what really happened on the wooded plateau in what is today Greensboro, North Carolina. They painstakingly identify where individuals stood on the battlefield, when they were there, and what they could have seen, thus producing a bottom-up story of the engagement. The authors explain or discount several myths surrounding this battle while giving proper place to long-forgotten heroic actions. They elucidate the actions of the Continentals, British regulars, North Carolina and Virginia militiamen, and the role of American cavalry. Their detailed and comprehensive narrative extends into individual combatants' lives before and after the Revolution.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Strategic Situation

The Race to the Dan

From the Dan to Guilford Courthouse

Greene's Army

The British Army Advances

The First Line

The Second Line

The Battle within a Battle

The Third Line

The Aftermath

The Guilford ""Crossroads""

Epilogue

Order of Battle

Battle Casualties

Postwar Location of Pensioners by State of Service

Glossary

A Note on Sources

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.