The Battle of Guilford Courthouse

In 1781, British forces shifted their efforts in the American Revolutionary War to the southern states. Major General Nathaniel Greene and his troops went up against Charles Cornwallis in a battle that was won on a technicality.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from house
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Tracy V. Wilson. I'm Holly Frying, and they we have
another wedding episode that is once again not about dresses

(00:22):
or cakes or flowers or any other stereotypically wedding the thing.
Uh So, a big chunk of my wedding guest list
is going to be traveling to where the wedding is
happening from out of states. I was putting the other
a list of things to do and places to see
in the surrounding area so that folks don't have to
sort of show up for a wedding and then fly
back home again after doing nothing else. And one of

(00:45):
the places on the list was Guilford Courthouse National Military Park.
So to be totally clear, I have been to Guilford
Courthouse National Military Park, although growing up, people from around
they're just called it the guild Bard Battleground. And I
know for sure that my grandfather took me there at
least one time when I was a child, and I

(01:06):
may also have gone there on school field trips. My
grandparents spent the last years of their lives living in
a condo that was literally across the street. But my
brain had jettisoned literally everything about it except for the
fact that there's a big statue of Brigadier General Nathaniel
Green on horseback, which when you're a small child is
extremely imposing. I was like, I have no idea what

(01:29):
even wore this battle was from, which is very embarrassing
to admit, having grown up within, you know, forty five
minutes of it and been to it before. Um. I
don't know if you experience this also, Holly, But we
talked about so many different things in the in the
podcast that it's like it's like a new wave of
history comes into my brain and just forces the old
wave out the back. Oh for sure. And I say,

(01:51):
when it's an area you've grown up with, sometimes there's
just this sort of weird familiarity blinders that happened where
you stop seeing it, you know what I mean, Like
you don't think about it so much. That's the place
you turn right to go to the thing it's not.
You forget that it actually has its own significance. Yes,
So to refresh my own memory and to you know,

(02:14):
tell everybody else on what was actually a really pivotal
battle in the Revolutionary War. We are going to talk
about the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, which took place on
March fifteenth of seventeen eighty one. For those not already
steeped in American Revolutionary War history, or maybe you have
just forgotten it, no shame in that. We're all taking
in lots of information. Uh. The Revolutionary War started in

(02:35):
April of seventeen seventy five, after a prolonged period of
increasing tensions between Great Britain and its American colonies. There
were a lot of factors that went into it. The
colonies were paying taxes but not being represented in the government.
The taxes themselves were also quite unpopular. Colonists were required
to house and feed British troops, which they did not like.

(02:58):
It went on and on and on one and if
none of this sounds familiar to you, you can go
listen to our past episode thirteen Reasons for the American Revolution,
and you will get all of the details. So, when
the war actually started, on one side was Great Britain
and the colonists who were loyal to the crown. And
we're going to call there's the loyalists on the other

(03:18):
side were a colonists who supported supported the idea of
being independent from Britain, also known as the Patriots. The
Patriots established the Continental Army, which really was more like
a collection of all the individual colonies armies at the
Second Continental Congress in seventeen seventy five, and George Washington
was its commander in chief. Allied with the Patriots in

(03:39):
North America were France, a few Native American tribes and
enslaved Africans, many of whom had been promised their freedom
in exchange for fighting, and the loyalist forces included hired
troops from Germany colloquially known as the Hessians, uh many,
more Native American tribes and other enslaved Africans who had
similarly been promised their freedom. People who had been previously

(04:02):
enslaved also fought on both sides. So even though Pettants
will insist that everyone was British at this point, so
this episode will be easy for listeners to follow and
not super repetitive. We are going to call the Patriots
and their allies Americans from time to time, while also
calling the Loyalists and their allies the British, so everybody

(04:24):
is on the same page. We're also not going to
get into the labels of Whig and Tory, because those
have entirely different meetings in places that aren't the United States.
The region of what's now the United States that most
often comes to mind in Revolutionary War history is New England,
the Sons of Liberty through Tea overboard in Boston. The

(04:44):
first battles were also in Massachusetts in April of seventeen
seventy five. Northern resistance leading up to the war and
northern battlegrounds usually get a lot of attention in history
classes on our side of the pond. Even the final
battle and surrendering Yorktown are towards the northern part of
the American South, and a lot of the action before
seventeen seventy eight really did take place in the Northern Colonies,

(05:07):
along with parts of what's now Canada. But in the
autumn of seventeen seventy eight, the situation in the Northern
colonies had become something of a stalemate. So you know,
at that point the war had been going on for
about three years. The British started turning their attention to
the South. The idea was that they would take the South,

(05:27):
rally the support of Southerners who were loyal to the monarchy,
along with as many enslaved Africans as they could find
and free and then recruit, and then they would retake
the North and end the war with the remaining with
the colonies remaining part of British territory to then end.
Britain captured the port cities of Savannah, Georgia, on December
twenty nine, seventeen seventy eight, and, after several other battles

(05:50):
in the South, the port of Charleston, South Carolina in
the spring of seventeen eighty. The siege at Charleston in
particular was devastating to the American forces in the Outh,
with the British forces capturing three thousand men and incurring
a loss of only about two hundred and fifty killed
and wounded from within their own ranks. So the Patriots,
particularly the Southern Patriots, were really reeling and the loyalists

(06:15):
really wanted to finish the job. So to talk about
where this led the two sides from this point, we're
going to talk for a moment about who was leading
both of these armies. In command of the army on
the Patriot side was Major General Nathaniel Green. He was
born in Rhode Island in seventeen forty two, and he
had grown up a member of the religious Society of Friends,

(06:37):
also known as the Quakers. Before becoming part of the military,
he served in the Rhode Island Legislature, where he advocated
for independence from Britain. Although pacifism is really closely associated
with Quaker beliefs, Green had been interested in military strategy
and tactics from a very early age, and he actually
wound up being expelled from a Quaker meeting after attending

(06:59):
a military parade. In the fall of seventeen seventy four,
when he was thirty two and the threat of war
with Britain was really looming, he helped to organize a
militia in Rhode Island, which was called the Kentish Guards.
Because he had always walked with a limp, he wasn't
considered to be officer material, and he was made a private.

(07:19):
Green eventually worked his way up to becoming a brigadier
general in the Continental Army. He played a part in
several Revolutionary War battles, including the Battle of Trenton, which
we talk about in our previous episode. On the Hessians.
His strategic skills and performance in battle led to his
becoming one of George Washington's most trusted officers. So when
Washington needed someone to secure the South after the fall

(07:42):
of Charleston in eighteen eighty, General Green was the man
he sent to do it. Leading the British forces in
the South was Charles Cornwallis, who was born in London,
England in seventeen thirty eight. Uh. He had many other
titles which I was originally going to read out, but
let's just say he was an obvious member of the
British aristocracy, and although he wound up leading British forces

(08:07):
against the Americans, he actually had a lot of sympathies
for the colonists and their frustrations with the British government.
He was, for example, one of only five peers to
vote against the Stamp Act, which was a tax act
that the colonists pretty strenuously objected to. All told, he
was also a more experienced military man than Green was,

(08:29):
having become an ensign at age eighteen, served as captain
in the Seven Years War, and spent three years serving
in Germany before being promoted to lieutenant colonel Cornwallis was
summoned to North America and promoted to major general in
seventeen seventy five. Once he was in North America, he
also was part of several of the Revolutionary War's most

(08:50):
well known battles, including Trenton Brandywine and the capture of
Charleston in seventeen eighty. He was actually second in command
at that last battle and after and he was left
in command of all the forces in the South. And
this kind of brings us up to the run up
to the Battle of Guilford court House itself, and we
are going to talk about that, but first, if Racy
is cool with it, we will have a brief word

(09:12):
from one of the sponsors that keeps this show going.
So General Green's task in defending the South from the
British was enormous. The Continental Army and the various state
and local militias that fed into it were essentially brand new,
and a lot of the men had no military experience
at all, although there had been plenty of other armed
conflicts in North America before this point. Along with the

(09:35):
fact that a lot of people just needed to defend
themselves from various things using firearms, uh this was essentially
a brand new nation's very first attempt at waging an
all out war. George Washington himself had never even been
in command of a large army in this way, and
the Patriots themselves were very poorly equipped with uniforms that

(09:56):
were cobbled together if they existed at all, and the
hilarious where of British battles dot com. The Americans dressed
as best they could. That's such a bless their hearts moment.
It's got all this detail about all of the various
types of uniforms that the various British forces were, depending

(10:16):
on where they were from what they were doing. And
then it's like the Americans had bluecoats on and a
bunch of other rubbish. It doesn't actually say rubbish they tried.
On top of all of that, since the Patriots had
lost Georgia and South Carolina and losses had been heavy
at a number of British victories, there were just not
all that many men left. So general Green strategy was this,

(10:41):
rather than fortifying some location and waiting at it to
defend it, or rather than just going to meet the
British and a poorlonged battle, he kept moving his forces
perpetually northward northward, and he would fight these brief battles
before strategically moving back. So the Continental Army and the
militias supporting them weren't really used to fighting in this way.

(11:02):
They were not used to having to just keep up
this relentless, fast paced migration basically, so it forced the
British to abandon some of their munitions and it basically
wore them out in order to try to keep up.
In March of seventeen eighteen, Green stopped at the out
of the way location of Guilford Courthouse and prepared to battle.

(11:22):
The courthouse was situated in rolling hills and surrounded by
a combination of fields and woods, and this gave Green
several potential vantage points on which to arrange his men.
At this point in history, battles were largely being fought
with the opposing soldiers stretched out in lines, and this
was for two main reasons. One was that some of
the men were armed with smooth bore rifles, which were

(11:45):
not very accurate, so having lots of men in a
line with each other fire at the same time made
it more likely that they were going to hit something
in front of them. The other reason is that it
was much much easier for a line of men tightly
packed together and armed with and it's to resist the cavalry.
So soldiers on horseback could very easily cut down soldiers

(12:05):
who were by themselves. They're in small groups, but horses
were not really eager to charge that line, a big,
thick line of bayonet bearing men. So Green organized his
four thousand, four hundred men into three lines. The first
that the British Wood encounter was about one thousand men,
primarily North Carolina militia, arranged behind the split rail fence.

(12:28):
The fence made a convenient support that they could use
to steady their weapons so that they could aim better.
Dragoons and riflemen flanked the first line, with orders to
fall back as the fight progressed so that they could
defend the other lines. The second line was about three
and fifty yards behind that and was primarily manned with
about eight hundred and fifty Virginia militia. Another four hundred

(12:49):
or so yards behind the Virginia militia was General Green himself,
along with the regular Continental Army. And we're going to
talk about this battle in terms of these three lines,
but there were much smaller, ongoing clashes and skirmishes in
between the lines that went on through the whole day.
General Cornwallis's men had been on the march, and they

(13:09):
were tired, and they were hungry. General Green had actually
considered attacking them while they were en route, but that
had gone poorly for the Patriots in other battles, so
he decided against that plan, and rather than allowing his
forces to rest up before the battle, Cornwallis pressed on
to attack Green once he heard Continental forces were at
the courthouse, skirmishing with Patriots at various points along the way.

(13:33):
As Generals Cornwallis and Green really had very different strategies.
Cornwallis was kind of like a bulldozer and would just
perpetually advanced. Green, on the other hand, would attack, and
then he would fall back and regroup, and then he
would attack again, and sometimes just strategically retreat to preserve
his army. And in this battle in particular, Green used
this difference in their strategy to a huge advantage. As

(13:56):
the British moved into a clearing, both sides fired our
hillary volleys. Then the first line of North Carolina militia
opened fire. Their first volley was extremely effective, thanks him
part to their use of that fence rail that we
mentioned to steady their aim. As the British pressed forward
with bayonets, some of the militia did fire a second shot,
but others fled and didn't return to the battle. A

(14:20):
side note, there are lots of different stories about how
North Carolina got the nickname of the tar heel State,
and one of them was that the North Carolina fighting
force was so dedicated to battle that it was like
they had tar on their heels. Was not this one
because some of the guys who fled did not come back.
The fence proved, not surprisingly to be an obstacle for

(14:43):
the advancing British troops, as did the cavalry units that
have been flanking that first line. The surviving first wave
of British troops split off to deal with the cavalry
while reinforcements moved in through the center and cleared the
fence line. Once they did, they found the second line
of Virginia Alicia waiting for them in the trees along
a ridge. There was a heavy firefight between the British

(15:06):
troops and the second line before that second line fell
back to reinforce The Continental Army, like the Virginia Militia
had been, The Continental Army was arranged on a ridge
was also reinforced with cannons. The British had to approach
this advantage point from across an open field, which is
basically just a killing field. So once again the Loyalists
took very heavy losses as they fought their way towards

(15:29):
the Continental Army on this ridge. As the British got
into hand to hand combat with the Continental Army, the
Continental cavalry came in, taking advantage of every opportunity to
cut them down. Eventually, General Cornwallis fired grape shot from
his cannons to stop the cavalry charge, even though that
meant losses to his own side as well. At this point,

(15:50):
General Greene removed all of the remaining Patriot forces from
the field and retreated to Troublesome Iron Works, which is
the best name I have ever heard, and camped there.
This retreat meant that, according to the conventions of war
at that time, General Cornwallis was the winner of this battle.
But General Cornwallis had lost more than a quarter of

(16:11):
his army along with more than half of his officers,
while the Patriots on the other hand, had only lost
about six percent of theirs. So while the Battle of
Guilford courthouses on the books as a British win, it
came at a great cost. The battle was really a
turning point in the American Revolution. General Cornwallis fell back
to Wilmington's and when faced with the choice of either

(16:33):
retreating to British held Charleston or pressing ahead, he took
his troops to Virginia. He wasn't ever really able to
recover his forces from the casualties at Guilford Courthouse in Yorktown, Virginia.
Cornwallis ultimately surrendered on October nineteenth of seventeen eighty one.
We're going to talk briefly about the aftermath of all this,
and also about how this battleground became a National park.

(16:57):
After another brief word from one of the awesome spats,
there's who keep us going. So in the end, the
Patriots won the Revolutionary War and the former British colonies
in North America became the United States. Well, today this
is definitely framed as a victory in the United States.
At the time, not everyone was actually happy about it.
There were lots of people in the colonies who didn't

(17:19):
want to be independent in the first place, as well
as some who were on the fence and came to
support the British after their own lives and livelihood were
affected by the war. Many of the enslaved Africans who
had fought in the war after being promised their freedom
for doing so, were ultimately re enslaved, and some of
them were then sent on to work on plantations in

(17:39):
the Caribbean. This included many of those who had fought
for the British, who the Americans expected to be quote
returned as their quote property. Overall, not many people who
were promised their freedom actually wound up being freed after
the war was over, and this continues to be a
huge paradox in terms of the revolution. In the philosophies

(18:01):
driving the patriots were about equality and liberty, and the
Declaration of Independence itself has the whole bit about it
being self evident that all men are created equal. However,
not even enslaved Africans who had risked their own lives
fighting for this cause were considered citizens rather than property
after the whole thing had blown over. Native American tribes

(18:22):
were also dramatically affected by the Revolutionary War. There were
a lot of different tribes and what would become the
United States, and these encompassed a huge range of cultures
and languages and beliefs and priorities. Really, many of them
had sided with the Loyalists, hoping that the British influence
would slow down western westward expansion in the colonies. Native

(18:43):
American casualties were particularly high in the war, in part
because they were often made explicit targets in the field
of battle. But in addition to that, alliances that had
existed between various Native peoples were broken afterward as their
members fought on opposite signs. The most prom on an
example was the Iroquois Confederacy. Four of its member tribes

(19:04):
fought for the British and to fought for the Americans.
So there was a lot more going on in all
of this than just getting the right to self govern
in terms of the park. Eventually the city of Greensboro
was named for Nathaniel Greene. Then, in October of eighteen
eighty six, lawyer David Shank, who was fond of studying
the battlefield, decided he wanted to buy it. He formed

(19:25):
the Guildford Battleground Company which secured a state charter, and
then the Battleground Company got to work preserving the site
and building monuments to commemorate the battle and the war itself.
This continued over many years, and then on March second,
nineteen seventeen, the federal government pass legislation that named it
Guilford Courthouse National Military Park. It was the first such

(19:45):
park commemorating the Revolutionary War. This work building monuments and
doing preservation continued for many years, and then in March second,
nineteen seventeen, the federal government pass legislation that named it
Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, and this the first national
park commemorating the Revolutionary War in the United States. The
quote on the monument of Nathaniel Green, which were words

(20:07):
said by George Washington, is quote it is with a
pleasure which friendship alone is susceptible, that I congratulate you
on the glorious end you have put to hostilities in
the Southern States, and that's the Battle of Guilford court House. Fantastic.
I feel like maybe now my grandfather would be less
disappointed in me for forgetting literally everything he told me

(20:28):
about it on some trip when I probably really wanted
him to take me fishing instead or get candy. That's
always good. Do you have a bit of listener mail
for us as well? I do. This listener mail is
from Jillian and it is about our recent episode about
Calamity Jane, and she says, Dear Tracy and Holly, first,

(20:50):
let me thank you for your podcast. It's what I
listened to you while I will take my dog, Bruce
Wayne for our daily walks. I love listening to it,
but if I'm being honest, Bruce Wayne doesn't seem to
care in certain joke about old dogs learning new history. Here.
I've attached to photos of Bruce Wayne because he is adorable. Yes,
he's definitely adorable, and Bruce Wayne is a great name
for a dog. I'm all for the increase of episodes

(21:12):
about women. Please keep up the good work. I do
have a tiny note to add for your Calamity Jane episode.
I was an undergrad in South Dakota, and what I
learned from living in the state, as well as from
a few sociology classes, is that the preferred name for
the Native Americans in the area is the Oglala or Lakota, Dakota,
or Nakota nations, not the stux nation. Terms Sue comes

(21:32):
from slaying, combining Chippewa and French and has a derogatory
meaning of serpent. There's an article from the Lakota Country
Times about the history of the name here. Take what
I'm saying with a grain of salt. I'm white and
certainly not an expert, but especially when talking about current events,
more culturally sensitive to use the nation's dialectical name when
discussing these groups. A little more information can be found

(21:53):
from a North Dakota Studies article here. Uh. And then
finally she gives us two suggestions for future episod. There's
one of them is about the General Slocum, which is
a story that is very similar to a previous episode
about the sinking of the Sultana. So, Uh, Jillian, maybe
listen to this Altana want to kind of tide you

(22:13):
over because they are very similar stories. UM. I did
some digging after getting this email, because we try to
make sure that we are talking about people the way
they would like to be talked about. And I actually
found a huge, huge spectrum in terms of how various
UH tribes that would have once been called part of

(22:36):
the Great Sioux nation actually talk about themselves, and some
did use the words to and some did not. Um.
And it seems like from my similarly non expert point
of view, even having like looked into things and read
a lot of personal accounts and tried to get people's
personal perspectives on it, um that when it comes to

(22:57):
like the giant umbrella of all of these tribes, there
is a lot of discussion about like the sue nation
as a huge thing, but when when we're talking about
individual tribes, it's definitely a lot better to talk about
their individual names rather than the sort of sue umbrella
that was applied and then used in government uh government
negotiations with the tribal people's Um. It's definitely not a

(23:22):
case where we could have just not used the term
sue at all, because that was the term that was
part of Supreme Court cases and stuff like that. So yeah,
this is a case where they're just seems there seems
to be a lot of different perspectives and points of view,
and a lot of them are very dear to people obviously.
So if you would like to write so us, We're

(23:43):
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(24:05):
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(24:26):
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