Battle of Guilford Court House

Background

Cowpens, on 17 January 1781, cost Cornwallis most of his light troops, but he still went after Greene's Southern Army. At Ramsour's Mill he burned most of his baggage to move faster, and the race to the Dan began. Greene united his army with Morgan's victors, and Henry Lee's Legion joined him at Guilford Court House on 7 February. On 9 February Greene had about 2,000 men against Cornwallis's 2,400 or so, and his council of war chose to keep retreating.

Rain had flooded the fords. Greene got across the Dan into Virginia by about 14 February with the boats on his side of the river, and Cornwallis, far from his base at Camden, fell back to Hillsborough to forage and rally Loyalists. Greene recrossed into North Carolina on 22 February, and for three weeks the armies manoeuvred and skirmished south of the Haw.

The chase had worn the British down. Desertion and skirmishing had cost Cornwallis almost 400 men, leaving him about 2,000; his men were short of food, some were barefoot, and they reportedly lived on 'green corn and carrion'. He needed a decisive battle. Greene, meanwhile, was joined about 10 March by North Carolina militia under Butler and Eaton and Virginia militia under Lawson, giving him a two-to-one advantage. On 12 March he marched about 4,400 men to Guilford Court House, a backcountry county seat, and offered battle. On the 13th Cornwallis, camped at the Quaker meeting house on the Deep River, heard that Greene was advancing, and resolved to attack.

The armies

Cornwallis's army was small but very good: about 1,900 to 2,100 veteran regulars. The Brigade of Guards under Charles O'Hara formed two battalions with grenadier and light infantry companies. Lieutenant-Colonel James Webster led the 23rd (Royal Welch Fusiliers) and the 33rd; Major-General Alexander Leslie led the 2nd Battalion of the 71st (Fraser's) Highlanders and the Hessian Regiment von Bose. There were jägers, Tarleton's British Legion cavalry and a few light guns of the Royal Artillery under Lieutenant John Macleod. The men were hungry and footsore after the chase.

Greene's army was more than twice the size and very mixed. Two North Carolina militia brigades under Butler and Eaton carried a medley of firearms; few had bayonets or the training to use them against regulars. Two Virginia militia brigades stood under Lawson and Stevens. The core was about 1,400 Continentals: Huger's Virginia brigade and Otho Williams's Maryland brigade. One Maryland regiment, the 2nd, was the only inexperienced unit in the line. On the flanks were Lynch's and Campbell's Virginia riflemen, Kirkwood's Delaware light infantry, William Washington's Continental dragoons and Lee's Legion of horse and foot. Greene had four six-pounders, two with the first line and two with the third.

The battle

The ground. The road from New Garden ran east through a mile of woods to the cleared ground around the courthouse. Greene placed his army in three lines astride it, a defence in depth on the Cowpens model. The North Carolina militia stood behind a rail fence where the road left the woods, with open fields in front, Singleton's two guns in the road and riflemen and light troops on each flank. The Virginia militia stood in thick woods some 350 to 400 yards behind. The Continentals held the high ground near the courthouse, another 400 to 550 yards back and to the right. Like Morgan, Greene asked the North Carolinians for two volleys before falling back.

New Garden, early morning. Lee's Legion and Campbell's riflemen clashed with Tarleton's advance guard near the New Garden Meeting House, about four miles west. Tarleton was hit in the right hand, and Lee was driven off when he ran into the Guards.

The cannonade, about 1.30 p.m. Cornwallis's column came up the road and deployed under fire from Singleton's guns, which Macleod's guns answered for about half an hour. Leslie formed on the right, south of the road, with the 71st and von Bose and the 1st Guards in support; Webster on the left with the 23rd and 33rd, backed by O'Hara's grenadiers and 2nd Guards. Cornwallis did not reconnoitre. The line advanced across the open fields.

The first line. The militia held their fire until the British were close and fired a volley; a Highland officer later claimed it dropped half his men. The British replied and charged, and most of the North Carolinians fled through the woods behind them.

The second line. In the woods the battle broke up into firefights. The Virginians and the flank riflemen and dragoons cut up the British and broke their line into fragments that had to stop and re-form; Cornwallis had a horse shot under him. On the British right, Lee and Campbell drew von Bose and the 1st Guards away north-east into a separate backwoods fight about a mile from the main battle. In the centre the Virginians were finally pushed back.

The third line. The British reached the clearing piecemeal. Webster led the 33rd, the jägers and the Guards light infantry against the Continentals and was thrown back by a volley from the 1st Maryland and the Delawares. Then the 2nd Guards came out of the woods and broke the 2nd Maryland, taking Finley's two guns. The 1st Maryland turned on the Guards and Washington's dragoons rode through them twice, followed by a bayonet charge.

The guns, about 3 p.m. Here the accounts divide. In the traditional version Cornwallis ordered Macleod to fire grapeshot into the mêlée, killing his own men with the Americans and clearing the ground. Cornwallis's own report says only that 'a well-directed fire from two three pounders just brought up by lieutenant Macleod' repulsed the American cavalry; recent research rejects the story of Cornwallis firing on his own men, holding that the guns fired once American cavalry threatened them. Either way, O'Hara, wounded, rallied the Guards, the 23rd and 71st came up, and the attack resumed.

The withdrawal, about 3.30 p.m. Rather than risk his Continentals, Greene ordered a retreat, covered by the Virginia Continentals; with their horses dead, the gunners abandoned the guns. Tarleton's Legion and some Highlanders pursued briefly. Greene broke contact and marched to the ironworks on Troublesome Creek. On the right, Tarleton's cavalry helped von Bose and the Guards finish their separate fight.

Aftermath

Cornwallis lost 532 men, about 27% of his army: 93 killed, 413 wounded and 26 missing. The Guards lost more than half their strength and almost all their officers, and Webster died of his wounds about two weeks later. Greene's return showed 79 killed, 185 wounded and over 1,000 missing, most of them militia who had gone home; the battle had cost him about six per cent of his men, and his army got away intact. Greene called the fight 'long, obstinate and bloody'. Cornwallis called his victory 'very complete', but in the House of Commons Charles James Fox said that 'another such victory would ruin the British army.'

Cornwallis was too weak to pursue Greene or to hold North Carolina. He fell back by Ramsey's Mill to Wilmington to refit, then in late April marched north into Virginia, against the wishes of Sir Henry Clinton. Greene turned south towards Camden and Charleston and by the end of the year had recovered most of the Carolinas and Georgia. Seven months after Guilford, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.

The argument since is about the guns. The grapeshot story is in many accounts, but Babits and Howard's study of nearly a thousand pension records and memoirs has made it doubtful. Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, founded in 1917, was the first national park at a Revolutionary War site. A monument to Cornwallis's soldiers was added in 2016, and the site of the courthouse itself has still not been found.

Wargaming it

Guilford is the big brother of Cowpens: over 6,000 men, two hours of fighting, three lines and a road through a mile of woods. It works best at battalion level, with each company or detachment as a unit and turns of ten minutes or so; the separate fight on the British right can be played as a linked side game.

The terrain is the battle. Open fields lie in front of the first line's fence, then thick woods where formations break up and fire comes from the flanks, then the clearing below the courthouse where the Continentals wait on high ground. Rules need to slow and disorder formed troops in woods, let flank riflemen and light cavalry harass from cover, and allow militia to fire and fall back without spreading panic. Track British losses carefully: the British player wins by taking the ground, but at Guilford taking the ground was not enough. Victory conditions should weigh casualties.

The decisions are clear. Cornwallis can wait, reconnoitre or turn a flank instead of driving straight up the road. Greene must decide whether to counter-attack with his Continentals when the Guards are in trouble, or keep his army safe as he did. The what-ifs: the 2nd Maryland holds; the North Carolinians stand longer; Lee and Campbell fall back on the main body instead of drawing a large part of the British right into a sideshow. For the gun episode, let players choose the traditional or the revisionist version.

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