21
THE BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURTHOUSE
Bivouacked means to have set
up camp, usually without tents
or with very small tents.
Wily means sly or toxy.
Counterstrok* Is a Plow or
attack that follows another;
retaliation.
I hom jr> I . Kakor
iiiiiinlr nma) t'nnrsiruior
lloilrd
ЬМГг
Drpartmont the Interior
National 1‘ark Srmir
GiiiH,»rd tou’thouio N.il«>nal Vtili I .• ry I'ark
Greensboro
On March 15, 1781, one ol the most important battles of the
Revolutionary War took place around the tiny central North
Carolina village called Guilford Courthouse. Guilford Court¬
house was normally the scene of nothing more exciting than the
sessions of the court of pleas and quarter sessions in the building
that lent the community its name. But on March 14, 1781, the
American army of Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene had camped
around this rural county seat. The next day Greene planned to
attack the forces of British general Charles, Lord Cornwallis, then
bivouacked around the Deep River Friends Meeting House,
twelve miles away. Cornwallis was a very aggressive soldier,
however, and well before dawn on the cold winter morning of
March IS, 1781, his 2,000 redcoats shook the frost from their
blankets and marched out to attack the rebels at Guilford Court¬
house. The fate of the South — and perhaps all of America — would
rest on the outcome of this battle.
Since 1778 the British had made the South their major
theater of operations in America. In a bit more than two years,
their redcoated forces had overrun Georgia and South Carolina,
destroying two rebel armies in their path. The British had
suffered major setbacks in October, 1780, when a loyalist army
was destroyed at Kings Mountain, S.C., and in January, 1781,
when a detachment of Cornwallis's finest troops was routed at
Cowpens, S.C. In spile of these reverses, Cornwallis refused to
give up his offensive and pushed north into X’orth Carolina,
where he hoped to rally loyalist support, and where he intended to
destroy the last large body ol organized rebel troops in the
South— Nathanael Green's army.
f Jowever, Nathanael Greene was a wily strategist. After five
years of service with the Continental Army in the North, he has
been sent by General George Washington to stem the tide of
British conquest in the South. For months he worked diligently to
restore the southern army to fighting condition. To buy time to
complete this buildup, and to escape the British counterstroke
that would surely follow Cowpens, he marched his troops across
North Carolina and entered Virginia, refusing to be drawn into an
ill-advised battle until his army had grown to its peak strength.
In late February, Greene felt secure enough to dispatch units
of his command back into North Carolina. By the second week of
March he concluded that his army, numbering more than -1,100
men, was as strong as it would ever be. The time for maneuvering
was now past.
Marching toward Guilford Courthouse early on the morning
of March 1 5, the advance units of Cornwallis's army engaged in a
