Nathanael Greene

Recorded sideUnited States (Continental Army)

Recorded resultDecisive victory

American victory

Washington's night crossing of the ice-choked Delaware and a dawn assault in a snowstorm achieved total surprise against a garrison recovering from Christmas; two columns (one under Greene) enveloped the town before the Hessians could form.

What followed

The victory revived the collapsing American cause, re-energized enlistments, and restored faith in Washington after a string of defeats.

Recorded sideUnited States (Continental and militia)

Recorded resultWithdrew from the field, but inflicted crippling losses

A Pyrrhic British victory. Nathanael Greene deployed his army in three lines, made Cornwallis pay for each, and withdrew in good order. Cornwallis held the field but lost roughly a quarter of his army.

Greene did not need to win the field - he needed to bleed Cornwallis. Borrowing Daniel Morgan's layered defense from Cowpens, he placed militia forward to fire and fall back and held his Continentals in the rear line, trading ground for British casualties. Cornwallis even fired grapeshot into his own melee to break the American line, a measure of how costly the fight had become.

What followed

The clearest single expression of Greene's Southern Campaign: lose the battle, win the war. So gutted was Cornwallis that he abandoned the Carolinas interior and marched to Virginia - and to Yorktown, where the war effectively ended that autumn.

Recorded sideUnited States (Continental and militia)

Recorded resultWithdrew after early success

A hard-fought, bloody draw scored as a British field victory. Greene's attack broke the British line, but his troops lost cohesion looting the enemy camp and stalled at a fortified brick house; both sides took heavy losses and the British held on before retreating toward Charleston.

For the British, a well-anchored defense around the brick house and a timely counterattack recovered a battle that had nearly been lost. For Greene, even an unfinished attack served the strategy: the British were bled again and, unable to sustain the field, pulled back toward the coast.

What followed

The last major battle of the Carolinas campaign. Tactically a British field win, but strategically it completed Greene's work - the British were confined to Charleston and the coast, having lost the interior of the South for good.

Recorded sideUnited States (Continental and militia)

Recorded resultWithdrew from the field

A British tactical victory. Lord Rawdon surprised Greene's position north of Camden; a confused Continental withdrawal cost Greene the field, but Rawdon's isolated post was left more exposed than before and the British soon abandoned Camden.

Rawdon attacked boldly on a narrow front and caught Greene mid-deployment; a misunderstanding in the Continental line turned a promising American position into a retreat. Yet the win did nothing for British strategy - Rawdon could not hold Camden against Greene's continued pressure and pulled back within weeks.

What followed

Another British battlefield win that changed nothing strategically. Camden was abandoned soon after, and the pattern held: the British kept winning fields they could not afford and losing the countryside that decided the war.

British army surrenders; effective end of major combat operations

Admiral de Grasse's French fleet defeated the Royal Navy at the Battle of the Chesapeake (5 Sept 1781), sealing the bay and denying Cornwallis any seaborne rescue or escape. Spanish support was pivotal indirectly: Bernardo de Galvez's Gulf campaign tied down British forces, and Spanish funds raised in Havana helped finance de Grasse's fleet. With the sea closed, a textbook Franco-American siege reduced the British works.

What followed

The loss of a second British field army broke London's will to continue the war and led directly to peace negotiations and American independence.