Southern Campaign

British look South

• Plan to clinch the war with an offensive in the South

• Use sea power and Loyalists to defeat the south

Charleston

• 1780 General Henry Clinton attacks and wins Charleston

• Worst defeat of the war for Americans

• Clinton replaced by General Charles Cornwallis

• Horatio Gates commands American southern army

• Camden, SC – British win, but last battle they would win in the south

The Swamp Fox

• Francis Marion (swamp fox) – guerilla warfare• Very smart hid in the swamps of South Carolina• Basis of Mel Gibson’s character in the Patriot

Turning the Tide

• 1780 Gates replaced by Nathaniel Green• defeats the British at the battle of

Cowpens and Guilford Court House• King’s Mountain

Cornwallis retreats• In 1781 Cornwallis retreats to Yorktown

Virginia • Washington, Lafayette, and von Steuben

move to Virginia • Nathaniel Green brings his army in pursuit

THE STAGE IS SET FOR AN EPIC BATTLE

Yorktown

• British trapped by combined force of Washington, and Green along with French Navy

• General Cornwallis surrenders 10/19/1781• Loss proves to the British that the war is

too costly to win

Treaty of Paris 1783

• Recognizes independence of the US• Gives the United States all the land East

of the Mississippi, south of Canada, and north of Spanish Florida

• All Loyalist property must be restored

How the Americans Won

• Homeland Advantage• Guerilla Warfare• foreign aid• George Washington