The Reign of George III. - (Continued.) page 13

An active warfare had been going on at the same time in North Carolina. Lord Cornwallis had received a reinforcement of between two and three thousand men under general Leslie, and, owing to the climate, was enabled to prosecute the campaign in the middle of winter. He had, however, no longer to compete with the inefficient Gates, but with general Greene, a much more vigorous man. Gates had been called before a court-martial for his defeat at Camden, and Greene sent in his place. Greene, singularly enough, had been born a quaker - his father being a minister in that society - and brought up as a blacksmith. He had enlisted as a private in the brigade of his little native state of Rhode Island, and soon rose to the command of its small force, with the rank of major-general. He had served near the commander-in-chief in many of, the principal transactions of the war, but this was his first' separate command. He found the army, as left by Gates, a mere skeleton, destitute of everything, not excepting discipline, and " as ragged," he wrote to Washington, " and naked as Virginian slaves."

On the 17th of January, colonel Tarleton, who had been dispatched with a thousand men, horse and foot, to attack a body of Americans under general Morgan, came up with them at a place called Cowpens. The forces on both sides were nearly equal. Morgan had the greater number, but many of his men were South Carolina militia, under general Pickens, and these Morgan drew up in a line in front. His continentals, on whom he chiefly depended, were stationed in an open wood, and the cavalry, as a reserve, on the slope in the rear. Tarleton's troops were worn out by their long march, but that impetuous officer gave them no time to rest themselves, but fell on the enemy with loud shouts. The militia fled at once, and the advance of the English endangered the flanks of the continentals, and it became necessary to make a retrograde movement. This Tarleton mistook for a retreat, so accustomed was he to carry all before him, and his men were rushing on without regard to order, when the Americans suddenly faced about, poured a deadly fire into the British at thirty yards' distance, and then, briskly charging, broke their already disorderly line. The English cavalry, instead of being at hand to support them, were chasing the militia, and the American horse now dashed in upon the English infantry, and they were entirely routed. Being closely pursued, they lost, in killed and wounded, upwards of five hundred men. The Americans boasted to have lost only eighty.

On hearing of the defeat of Tarleton, Cornwallis advanced rapidly, in order, if possible, to intercept Morgan and his English prisoners at the fords of Catawba. A rise of the water from the rains prevented his crossing that river so soon as he expected, and Morgan joined Greene, both generals, however, retreating behind the Yadkin. The swollen state of the river and the want of boats also detained lord Cornwallis at the Yadkin, but he finally succeeded in crossing, and throwing himself between Greene and the frontiers of Virginia, from which Greene looked for his supplies and reinforcements. Greene continued to retreat till he had also placed the Dan betwixt himself and Cornwallis; but his militia had deserted so rapidly on his flight, that, on reaching the Dan, he had not more than eighty of that body with him. Greene now had the way open to him for retreat into Virginia, and, Cornwallis giving up the chase, marched leisurely to Hillsborough, in North Carolina, where he invited the royalists to join his standard.

Such was his success - numbers of royalists flocking in to serve with Tarleton's legion - that Greene, alarmed at the consequences of this movement, turned back for the purpose of cutting off all possible reinforcements of this kind, yet avoiding a general engagement. Lieutenant-colonel Lee, with the advanced division of the Americans, crossed the Dan on the 21st of February, Greene following at a short interval. Lee suddenly encountered a body of two hundred North Carolina royalists marching to join lord Cornwallis, and already near the quarters of Tarleton. They were cooped up in a hollow lane, and, mistaking the Americans for British, raised cries of recognition; but the Americans perceived in a moment what they were by a badge of red cloth in their hats, and, sending a detachment to their rear, completely surrounded them in the lane, and commenced a massacre of them. The unhappy men cried out that they were " the very best friends of the king!" but soon after discovering their mistake, they began to cry for quarter. None was granted them, and they were all deliberately cut to pieces in cold blood! This rancorous butchery had the effect of terrifying the tories from joining the English standard.

Once more Cornwallis advanced to chastise Greene, and once more Greene beat a retreat. This manoeuvring continued till the 15th of March, when Greene having been joined by fresh troops, thought himself strong enough to encounter the English general. He drew up his army on very strong ground near Guildford Court House, where Cornwallis boldly attacked him, and, after a stout battle, completely routed him. One of the American historians, Marshall, in his " Life of Washington," says: - " No battle in the course of the war reflects more honour on the courage of the British troops than this of Guildford. On no other occasion had they fought with such inferiority of numbers, or disadvantages of ground." And well may that be said, for lord Cornwallis, in his dispatch to Sir Henry Clinton, stated his own troops at one thousand six hundred, and the Americans at seven thousand. The Americans, who omit to reckon the first line, which fled without a blow, stated their troops actually engaged at three thousand two hundred; but Gordon, from examination of American documents, makes them really four thousand five hundred. The ground wras all against the English, and they had to drive the Americans out of two or three woods, where they, as usual, made deadly havoc from behind the trees with their rifles. The English lost ninety-three killed, had four hundred and thirteen wounded, and twenty-six missing. The number of British officers picked off by the American rifles was considerable. The hon. lieutenant-colonel Stuart, of the guards, and four other officers were killed; generals O'Hara and Howard, colonels Tarleton and Webster, were wounded; besides nine captains, four lieutenants, five ensigns, and two adjutants Greene left behind him all his artillery. He had upwards of thirty officers killed, wounded, and missing, and his large body of militia and backwoodsmen fled so completely - going off as fast as they could towards their homes - that, on drawing up behind Troublesome Creek, Greene found he had hardly a man, except his regular troops, with him.

The condition of lord Cornwallis's army - though left victorious on the field of battle - was deplorable in the extreme. One-third of his little force was disabled in the fight, and was destitute not only of provisions but of shelter. They were without tents, and there were not houses enough near to receive them. The night set in dark and stormy, the rain fell in torrents, and the sufferings of the soldiers, especially of the wounded, were terrible. It was not until the afternoon of the next day that they could procure a little flour and some lean beef for the exhausted men. Lord Cornwallis was therefore prevented from following Greene, and began his march back towards the coast. He left seventy of his wounded, who could not be removed, under a flag of truce in a quakers meeting house, and, on the third day, proceeded towards Cross Creek.

If the condition of the English was wretched, Stedman, the historian of the war, who was present, learned from one of the quakers that the condition of the country at large was still worse. Stedman remarked that " the royalists rode into the camp, shook the commander and the officers by the hand said they were glad to see them, and that they had beaten Greene, and then rode back again without offering to join them. The quakers replied that the general desire of the people was to be at peace and reunited to Britain; but that they had been so often deceived in promises of support, and the British had been so frequently obliged to relinquish posts, that the people were now afraid to join the army, lest they should leave the province altogether; in which case the resentment of the revolutionists would be exercised with more cruelty than ever, for, though the men might escape or go with the army, their families would be made to suffer; that the English did not know the cruelty of the republicans towards those who inclined towards the royal cause, or the sufferings of such; that some of these men had lived for two and even three years in the woods, without daring to go to their homes; that others, having walked out of their houses, under a promise of being safe, had been instantly shot, and others had been tied to trees and cruelly whipped; that, in fact, the people had experienced such distress, that they would submit to any government in the world for peace."

But the British were in no condition to take advantage of this state of American exhaustion. At a time when the ministry at home had obtained the most magnificent grants from parliament - grants for ninety thousand seamen, thirty thousand soldiers, and twenty-five millions of pounds to pay for them - there was scarcely a fleet on these coasts, and nothing which could be called an army. True, England had now France, Spain, and Holland upon her hands; she had her West India Islands, and Gibraltar, and Minorca to defend; but those places required ships rather than soldiers, and even in ships France, with finances in a most disastrous and hopeless state, could furnish more effective fleets than we could. Where the question was, the putting an end to a miserable war in our own colonies, where the revenues of these colonies were so utterly exhausted, and where the commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton, had learned by an intercepted mail that the Americans were informed that " this was the last campaign in which the States were to expect assistance of either ships or troops from France," the slightest effort on the part of the English government would have been decisive. When we call to mind, too, what stupendous power such a minister as Pitt could, a few years afterwards, put forth, and continue through a thirty years' war for the restoration of a foreign dynasty, we cannot have any plainer proof of the thoroughly incompetent ministry which thus persisted in flinging away a continent, and the incurable and dense obstinacy of the monarch who, in spite of their long and calamitous possession of power, still insisted on their retaining it. Nothing but ruin could result from such unparalleled imbecility, such sheer paralysis of mind and action in the national rulers, and it was on the point of being consummated.

Had lord Cornwallis been in possession of an adequate army, he would very speedily have cleared all the southern states. Wherever he came, even with his handful of men, he beat and drove the Americans before him. He now took up his head-quarters at Cross Creek, where he sought to rest his troops and recover his sick and wounded. He hoped there to establish a communication with major Craig, who had been successfully dispatched to take possession of Wilmington, at the mouth of Cape Fear River, but this was not very practicable, and as the country about Cross Creek was destitute of the necessary supplies, Cornwallis himself descended to Wilmington, which he reached on the 7th of April. Colonel Webster and others of his wounded officers died on the march. Green, with his fragment of an army, as badly provisioned as that of Cornwallis, followed them at a safe distance.

At Wilmington lord Cornwallis remained about three weeks, uncertain as to his plan of operations. His forces amounted to only about one thousand five hundred men; he therefore determined, at length, to march into Virginia, and join Phillips and Arnold. He commenced his march on the 25th of April, having ordered Phillips and Arnold to ascend the Chesapeake, and join him at Presburg. He made his march without encountering any opposition, reaching Presburg on the 20th of May, and had the sorrow to find that his friend, general Phillips, had died on arriving at that rendezvous a few days before. Arnold had, of course, been left again head of that force; but, on lord Cornwallis's arrival, he set sail for New York, to carry out a plan of his - which Sir Henry Clinton approved - for seizing on the port of West Point, which he had failed to betray when he came over to the English. The scheme ultimately came to nothing. Meantime, lord Cornwallis found himself at the head of a united force of seven thousand men. Sir Henry Clinton's effective troops at New York amounted only to ten thousand nine hundred and thirty-one men, and the little detachment under lord Rawdon only to nine hundred; the sum total of the British army, therefore, in America, was just eighteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-one men!

The very day that lord Cornwallis had marched from Wilmington, lord Rawdon was bravely fighting with Greene at Hobkirk's Hill, in South Carolina. Greene, with only about fifteen hundred regulars and some corps of new militia, making altogether about two thousand men, had not ventured to attack lord Cornwallis; but he thought he might, by diverting his course into South Carolina, induce him to follow, and thus leave exposed all North Carolina to Wayne and La Fayette, as well as all his important posts in the upper part of North Carolina. Greene failed to draw after him Cornwallis, but he sate down at Hobkirk's Hill, about two miles from the outposts of lord Rawdon's camp at Camden.

Lord Rawdon, hearing that Greene was waiting to be reinforced by troops under lieutenant-colonel Lee, and the active partisans, Sumpter and Marion, did not give him time for that. He marched out of Camden, at nine o'clock in the morning, on the 25th of April, and quietly making a circuit through some woods, he came upon Greene's flank, and drove in his pickets before he was perceived. Startled from his repose, Greene sought to return the surprise by sending colonel Washington, a nephew of the American commander-in-chief, with a body of cavalry, to fall on Rawdon's rear, as he was passing up the hill. But Rawdon was aware of this manoeuvre, and prevented it, still pressing up Hobkirk's Hill, in the face of the artillery, charged with grape-shot. Greene's militia fled with all speed, and Rawdon stood triumphant on the summit of the hill, in the centre of Greene's camp. Rawdon had not cavalry enough to warrant a pursuit, or the execution would have been infinitely greater. As it was, Greene lost, in killed and wounded, nearly three hundred men, and one hundred were made prisoners. Lord Rawdon's loss was equally severe for so small an engagement; his killed, wounded, and missing amounted to two hundred and fifty- eight, a serious diminution of his little knot of men. Greene retreated behind a creek, about twelve miles off, and sent out messengers on all sides to scour the country; but, in a private letter to Washington, he gave a very desponding view of the condition of things. " We fight, get beaten, and fight again. We have so much to do, and so little to do it with, that I am much afraid that these states must fall never to rise again; and, what is worse, I am persuaded they will lay a train to sap the foundation of all the rest."