What was the British strategy during the revolution in the American South?

The Southern Campaign of the American Revolution has often been depicted in literature in a glamorous and romantic fashion with emphasis on the exploits of native-son militia in each colony. Granted, brave and daring militia leaders played a crucial role in the War for Independence, but they were part of a much larger and oft-neglected drama-a bloody civil war often pitting neighbor against neighbor -- evident in the South, especially in the Carolina backcountry. The lower South, a region more often associated with the American Civil War of 1860, was ravaged as no other section. The war in the South went far in deciding the final Patriot victory.

The Southern Campaign began with British concern over the course of the war in the North. Failure at Saratoga, fear of French intervention, and over-all failure to bring the rebels to heel persuaded British military strategists to turn their attention to the South. Some in Britain even suggested that New England, that hotbed of sedition, was a lost cause anyway and not worth the effort, temporarily or even permanently. The British did have some success in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but failed to consolidate their efforts. They appeared, in fact, to lack any over-all strategy to crush the rebels.

Early on, British military strategists saw the South as a Loyalist stronghold. There were the Highland Scots of the Cape Fear Region in North Carolina, strong Anglicans in coastal areas, those with grudges against colonial governments, Indian traders, mercantilists, late-arriving immigrants, and those running from the law - all having reason to remain loyal to the Crown. The South, however, was more sharply divided than British estimates. The strengthening of Loyalist sentiment and consequent Patriot hostility resurrected age-old animosities and loyalties as regions, individuals, or even families chose sides. Consequently, the war took on the nature of a violent civil war. Raids, murders, and reprisals became the order of the day. Even, at times, families were fractured as members differed over the war. Plantations were plundered and crops, destroyed. With civil government virtually collapsed, violence and hatred grew to the point of hope for victory as the only solution. Forced to choose between collaboration or rebellion, many Americans chose the latter. More and more, guerilla warfare replaced orthodox fighting.

From the beginning, the British were undaunted. With such perceived Loyalist support, British victory over the rebels was to be an easy one - a quick expedition south to restore the "King's Friends" to power over Patriots who had earlier wrested control from royal governors. With the Georgia and South Carolina under firm Loyalist control, red-coated British troops could then subdue North Carolina and Virginia. British General Henry Clinton, in his memoirs, The American Rebellion, stated that the British goal in the South "was to support the Loyalists and restore the authority of the King's government". Intense British political pressure emphasized Loyalist-related strategies as a means of victory. Additionally, some British strategists envisioned a "Chesapeake squeeze" in which British forces in the North would drive south toward Virginia, creating a pincers movement and trapping American forces. The Chesapeake, wrested from American control, would serve as a base for British naval operations.

The British had additional motives for the South. Southern agricultural products -- notably tobacco, rice, and indigo -- were important to British mercantile interests. British strategists saw the Carolinas, Georgia, East Florida, the Bahamas and Bermuda as an important post-war trade grouping and an integral part of the West Indies sugar trade. Savannah and, more importantly, Charleston would fit well into such a grouping. Charleston was coveted, especially, as the most important southern port and the fourth largest and richest city in North America.

The fall of Charleston on May 12, 1780, was perhaps the worst defeat Americans suffered during the entire Revolution. Subsequent British victories at the Waxhaws, Camden, and Fishing Creek eliminated much of the southern Continental army and made the British confident that the South was theirs. Events in the North and South led to a feeling of Patriot desperation by the summer of 1780.

The tide of battle was soon to turn, however, in a sequence of events. First, overmountain men defeated forces under Patrick Ferguson at Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780. General Cornwallis, in command in the South, abruptly stopped his push into North Carolina and fell back to South Carolina to protect its western borders. About the same time, George Washington selected General Nathanael Greene to salvage the situation in the South. Greene, against contemporary military wisdom, split his army so that they could move more widely throughout the Carolinas. Greene's decision to put Daniel Morgan in command of one division led to a Patriot victory at Cowpens, where British losses were staggering: 110 dead, over 200 wounded and 500 captured. Cowpens was followed by a stand-off at Guilford Courthouse where, it is estimated, the British lost one-third of their force and some of their best officers. Siege of the British fort at Ninety Six put additional pressure on the British. Subsequent Cornwallis blunders and British failure to provide naval superiority led to his entrapment and Patriot victory at Yorktown. The blow was decisive; the war was lost, and American forces in the South played a great part in the final victory. Additionally, historians point to numerous militia skirmishes in the backcountry and to Greene's long-term strategy of disrupting British logistics as crucial to final victory.

The Battle of Cowpens, in context of the Southern Campaign, was the turning point of the war in the South. Moreover, it contained the tactical masterpiece of the entire war—Morgan's unique deployment of troops, including effective use of the militia and maximization of their strengths. Like Kings Mountain before, the victory at Cowpens was decisive and complete. But there was a difference: Kings Mountain had been an important victory over Tories; Cowpens was a victory over crack British regulars. Kings Mountain and Cowpens had both been political and psychological victories for the hearts and minds of the population, in effect blunting recruitment of Loyalists. The Cowpens victory also boosted northern morale, resulting in additional and greatly deserved military assistance for General Greene. These battles stopped a long string of retreats by American forces and initiated a chain of events leading to eventual Patriot victory at Yorktown. In truth, the Revolution was won in the South, and Cowpens played a major role in the victory.

To get a better understanding of the events of the Revolutionary War, it is helpful to evaluate the strategies of the Continental army and the British army in the war and how they both planned to win.

The battles and events that took place were often strategically planned with the hopes of gaining more control over a region, getting access to supplies and outmaneuvering the enemy all while trying to avoid as many casualties and military defeats as possible.

These strategies were also influenced by the geography of the region, which often affected the outcome of the battles.

Both sides had their own ideas on how to accomplish these goals and the strategies they used have been widely studied, scrutinized and even recreated.

In fact, numerous Revolutionary War strategy games are based on these very strategies and some types of battle reenactments, such as tactical battles or tactical events, use these strategies to try to defeat their opponents in recreations of the Revolutionary War battles.

The following is an overview of the strategies used in the Revolutionary War:

British Strategy:

British strategy changed throughout the course of the war as the British came up against more obstacles and challenges than they anticipated.

The British strategy at the beginning of the war was simply to contain the American Revolution in Massachusetts and prevent it from spreading.

This proved difficult though when the British suffered devastating casualties at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June of 1775 during the Siege of Boston.

After the Americans captured Fort Ticonderoga in New York, they brought the fort’s cannons to Cambridge, where they arrived on January 24, 1776, and planned to fortify the hills overlooking Boston harbor in an attempt to break the siege.

When powder for the cannons finally arrived on March 2, the Americans began firing on Boston. On March 4,  they mounted the largest cannons on Dorchester Heights. When the British saw the cannons on Dorchester Heights, they made an attempt to attack the heights but were thwarted by a storm. The British then decided to abandon Boston altogether and flee for Nova Scotia, Canada on March 17, 1776.

The new British strategy at this point was to capture New York City and use it as a base of operations. The British successfully captured New York on September 15, 1776 and launched the next phase of the plan in 1777.

This plan was to isolate New England, which was the heart of the rebellion, from the rest of the colonies by marching three British armies simultaneously from New York City, Montreal and Fort Oswego to meet in Albany and take control of the Hudson River, which formed a natural barrier along the western edge of New England.

Map of the Hudson River

After doing so, the British would then move South and defeat the Southern colonies, according to an article by Tal Tovy in the Michigan War Studies Review journal:

“In practical terms, the British planned to seize control of the Hudson River and cordon off the New England colonies, and only then to move south and, with the help of settlers loyal to the Crown (the ‘Loyalists’), conquer the southern colonies. But the defeat at Saratoga and the entry of France into the war early in 1778 led to a changed strategy of increasing reliance on Crown supporters in the colonies.”

General William Howe was to lead the troops from New York City while General John Burgoyne led the troops south from Canada and General Barry St. Leger led troops down from the Mohawk Valley to upstate New York.

This idea failed though because it wasn’t executed according to plan. It all went awry when General Howe, for reasons unknown, decided to take a detour and led his troops to Philadelphia instead, where the seat of the Continental Congress was located, and captured the city.

Realizing that a battle was brewing, Washington sent troops north and called for the militia to join them, which resulted in a large contingent of American troops and militia in the Saratoga area.

This resulted in the Battle of Saratoga on September 19, 1777 which was a devastating loss for the British, who lost two soldiers for every one on the American side.

A second battle, the Battle of Bernis Heights, took place on October 7 when Burgoyne tried to break free from the colonial forces surrounding them but was defeated. The defeat forced Burgoyne to withdraw his troops and surrender on October 17, 1777.

Many historians consider these battles to be a major turning point in the Revolutionary War because these American military victories prompted France to join the war and support the patriot cause, which turned the conflict into a global war rather than a colonial rebellion.

Yet, an article by John Ferling, in Smithsonian Magazine, argues that Saratoga wasn’t the only defining moment in the Revolutionary War, stating that protracted wars “are seldom defined by a single decisive event” but was instead one of five important moments, which include: the American victories at Concord and Bunker Hill in 1775 and at Trenton in 1776, the establishment of the Continental Army in June of 1775 and the British failure in their Southern Campaign in 1778-1783.

As a result of their military losses and the French joining the conflict, the British decided to revisit the plan they had proposed earlier in the war, which was to focus their efforts on the loyalists in the Southern colonies in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

After turning their attention to the South, the British soon had a number of military successes, such as their occupation of Savannah, Georgia in late 1778 and Charleston, South Carolina in May of 1779 and their victory at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780.

But despite their modest success there, the British greatly overestimated loyalist sentiment in the South and their military presence there prompted many southern colonists who had been on the fence about the war to side with the patriots.

The British also struggled with getting access to their supply ships when they were fighting further inland. The patriots had easy access to their supplies and could also blend in among the general population.

An article by Major John A. Tokar, on the Army Logistics University website, states the British army’s lack of supplies and failure to gain and use support and aid from Loyalists ultimately doomed the British cause and forced the British to fight a type of war that the Americans excelled at:

“An analysis of how Britain supplied its army, both from home and in the colonies, demonstrates how the presence, or absence, of critical commodities affects military operations. Ultimately, the lack of sufficient reserve supplies, combined with cautious generalship, insufficient transportation, widespread corruption, and the lack of a coherent strategy to maximize the potential support of British loyalists in the colonies, ensured British failure. These factors forced the British Army to fight a guerilla war—the only kind of war that the upstart United States could hope to win.”

After the British lost the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia and British General Charles Cornwallis was forced to surrender more than 8,000 troops on October 19, 1781, British Prime Minister Lord North reportedly reacted to the news by exclaiming “O God! It is all over!”

These military failures coupled with the high cost of the war, a mounting national debt and a possible global war, proved to be too much for the British and prompted Parliament to vote to end the war in 1782, according to Francis D. Cogliano in his book Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A Political History:

“Yorktown need not have spelled the end of the British war effort in America. Britain still had considerable resource to bring to bear in America, and British forces still occupied Savannah, Charleston, and New York. Nonetheless, six years of war in America had yielded few benefits to the British. Although the British had won most of the major battles in the conflict, they had been unable to reassert parliamentary authority over the rebellious Americans…Faced with the war against the Americans, French, Spanish and Dutch, as well as mounting national debt to pay for the conflict, there was little enthusiasm for pursuing the American conflict in the wake of Cornwalli’s surrender. On February 27, 1782, Parliament voted to discontinue offensive operations in America.”

American Strategy:

The Americans didn’t develop a real strategy in the Revolutionary War until George Washington took control of the Continental Army on July 3, 1775, although many historians are divided on exactly how strategic of a military leader Washington actually was.

George Washington accepting command of the Continental Army, lithograph by Currier & Ives. circa 1876

Many 20th century historians praised Washington as a brilliant military leader who followed the Fabian strategy of avoiding decisive battles in order wear the enemy out, according to Dave Richard Palmer in the introduction of the 2012 edition of his book George Washington’s Military Genius:

“John Alden, writing in the late 1960s: ‘The Americans had only to keep the field until Britain should tire of the struggle.’ Douglas Southall Freeman: ‘Washington’s strategy had to be patiently defensive.’ From an edited volume published in 1965: ‘The plan of the Americans was the simple defensive – to oppose the British as best they could at every point, and to hold fast the line of the Hudson.’ North Carolina, in 1972: Americans ‘did not really win the war but Britain lost it mainly to circumstances rather the American enemy.’ James Thomas Flexner credited the patriots with creating an effective hit-and-run capability, but supported the typical view that their success sprang primarily from perseverance. Russell Weigley saw the American strategy as one of attrition of enemy forces, or, at best, erosion. Thomas Frothingham believed the necessary object of the Continental army was merely to conduct operations designed to bolster partisan fighters and to ‘hold in check the superior main forces of the British. In short, the mainstream of historical writing in the latter half of the twentieth century reflected the view that American strategy in the Revolutionary War was essentially one-dimensional-defensive.”

Yet, other historians, such as Marcus Cunliffe, Richard Ketchum, Russell Weigley, Douglas Southall Freeman and David McCullough, believed Washington was no great strategist and was instead merely lucky, persistent and opportunistic.

Another strategy the Americans used to their advantage was the use of guerrilla warfare, which many of them had learned as soldiers during the French and Indian War in the 1750s-60s, according to an NPR interview by Steve Inskeep with author Max Boot:

“INSKEEP: Now, the American revolutionaries eventually did form a regular army. But guerrilla tactics played a huge role in securing their independence. Max Boot sees modern lessons in that story, as told in ‘Invisible Armies,’ his new history of guerrilla warfare. What were the strategies that the American rebels used when they were rebels? BOOT: Well, it first of all, comes down to not coming out into the open where you could be annihilated by the superior firepower of the enemy. The British got a taste of how the Americans would fight on the very first day of the Revolution, with the shot heard around the world, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, where the British regulars marched through the Massachusetts countryside.

And the Americans did not mass in front of them but instead chose to slither on their bellies – these Yankees scoundrels, as the British called them – and fired from behind trees and stone walls. And not come out until the kind of open gentleman’s fight that the British expected, and instead, took a devastating toll on the British regiment.”