Guilford Courthouse: 15 March 1781

On the afternoon of 15 March 1781, an army of about 1,900 British and Hessian regulars led by Lt. Gen. Earl Charles Cornwallis, assaulted a force of roughly 4,000 American Continental, state and militia troops commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene. arrayed for battle near Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina. The British victory proved to be pyrrhic, damaging its army so badly that Cornwallis had to withdraw to Wilmington, North Carolina. The British general ultimately abandoned the Carolinas to invade Virginia in mid-1781, leaving Greene’s army unhindered in attacking vulnerable British bases and supply lines. The army of Continentals and Patriot militiamen drove the British from all but the coastal areas around Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia by the end of 1781.