10/14/2026
On October 14, 1780, General George Washington orders Major General Nathanael Greene to command the Southern Department of the Continental Army. This was the central theater of military operations in the second half of the American Revolutionary War from 1778–1781. It encompassed engagements primarily in Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
The Continental Army had suffered several devastating defeats in the South under the command of Benjamin Lincoln and Horatio Gates, leaving the United States at a major disadvantage in the Southern theater. On October 14, 1780, Washington appointed Greene as the new commander. By the time he took command, the British were in control of key portions of Georgia and South Carolina, and the governments of the Southern states were unable to provide much support to the Continental Army. Greene would face a 6,000-man British army led by General Charles Cornwallis and cavalry commander Banastre Tarleton, as well as numerous Loyalist militias that worked with the British. Outnumbered and under-supplied, Greene settled on a strategy of guerrilla warfare rather than pitched battles in order to prevent the advance of the British into North Carolina and Virginia. His strategy would heavily depend on riverboats and cavalry to outmaneuver and harass British forces. Among Greene's key subordinates in the Southern campaign were his second-in-command, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, cavalry commander Henry Lee, the Marquis de Lafayette, Daniel Morgan, and Francis Marion.
Greene proceeded to wear down his opponents in a series of skirmishes and military movements referred to as the "Race to the Dan" (so named because the Dan River flows close to the border between North Carolina and Virginia); each encounter resulted in a tactical victory for the British but gave them no strategic advantage, while attrition took its toll. Cornwallis knew that Greene had divided his forces and wanted to face either Morgan's or Greene's contingent before they could rejoin. He stripped his army of all excess baggage in an effort to keep up with the fast-moving Patriots. Cornwallis's lack of provisions as a consequence played a role in his later difficulties. Greene first engaged Cornwallis in the Battle of Cowan's Ford, where Greene had sent General William Lee Davidson with 900 men. When Davidson was killed in the river, the Americans retreated. Greene was weakened, but he continued his delaying tactics, fighting a dozen more skirmishes in South and North Carolina against Cornwallis's forces. About 2,000 British troops died in these engagements. Greene summed up his approach in a motto that would become famous: "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Cornwallis was quoted: "Greene is as dangerous as Washington. I never feel secure when encamped in his neighborhood. He is vigilant, enterprising, and full of resources."
