Battle of Guilford Court House

Today, Alex is gonna walk us through General Howe's amphibious flanking maneuver around the Sound, the fight through the fields of Pelham, and the myth versus reality of the battle casualties.

For those listening to the uncut version of this episode, we'll also cover how Glover's defense laid the tactical blueprint for later victories like Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse.

We'll also talk about one of America's first racially integrated military units and how the 18th-century fog of war created the enduring myth of thousands of dead Hessians.

If you wanna hear that full uncut version of the episode, use the link in the description below.

Maybe this is not a very significant moment, um, in the, the New York campaign.

But a third way to remember it, and it's the one I'm hoping that listeners will get from our podcast today, it's one that I've, I've worked on a lot i- in my forthcoming book on the Continental Army, um, is that Pell's Point is a very important battle in terms of the development of the Continental Army's tactics in the American War of Independence.

It's the first time that you see tactical techniques and procedures that the Americans will continue to pursue all throughout the Revolutionary War in famous battles like the Battle of Cowpens, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

In some ways, these American traditions of fighting the British start here at Pell's Point, um, as a result of the terrain and landscape, um, and become standard American tactical procedures, um, that American commanders can draw on, uh, for the re- rest of the war.

And then I ended up, I was the last person out.

Uh, the guy I was playing with, we played Guilford Courthouse.

Actually, Nathan Wagner, he'll be here at the-

Oh, great

... uh, at the assembly here, uh, later today.

Uh, he and I played Guilford Courthouse, and I, I took out all of my gaming frustrations out on him.

[laughs]

[laughs]

But Greene made him bleed for every mile.

At the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Greene allowed Cornwallis to attack him, then made him pay.

The British technically won the field, but at a staggering cost.

Over twenty-five percent of Cornwallis' army was gone, men who couldn't be replaced, officers who had no successors.

Fighting under General Nathanael Greene, he joined a series of brutal, small-unit engagements across the Carolinas.

Greene used Lee's cavalry like a scalpel, cutting supply lines, harassing enemy pickets, forcing the British to overextend.

At Guilford Courthouse, Lee's men were crucial.

At Eutaw Springs, they held the line when the infantry faltered.

It had a royal governor and there was battles across.

Anyway, he chased Greene up to Charlotte and then further on up into the state and landed here in Greensboro, where I live, for the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, which technically...

Greene lost because he left the field, abandoned the field, but it so mortally wounded Cornwallis' army, he had to limp down to the coast to wait for reinforcements.

And then, of course, he entered up to Virginia, Portsmouth area, and of course, the rest is history.

And then Green thought he had a chance to bag the British Army and Cornwallis.

And there was the next major battle called the Battle of Guildford Courthouse, which turned into a Pyrrhic British victory, as the war in many ways was.

And that's when Green said, well, we fight, we lose, and we rise to fight again.

And Cornwallis could not ever overcome that dynamic.