THE COWPENS-GUILFORD COURTHOUSE CAMPAIGN

Although the American Revolutionary War was finally decided in the South, the fact is sometimes forgotten in the glamour that surrounds Washington; here an authority on the conflict writes in vivid and accurate detail of the war in the Carolina backwoods in 1781. In 1780 Cornwallis, determined to end the war, invaded the vulnerable South with a fine army led by the ruthless and brilliant General Tarleton; retreating before Tarleton was a poorly equipped, hungry American force, largely militia given to desertion, under the Quaker general, Nathanael Greene, a master of tactics, the stubborn and arthritic ""Waggoner"", General Daniel Morgan, and others. On Jan. 16, 1781, Morgan faced the British at the Cowpens, a South Carolina drovers' camp, saying he would ""whip them here or lay down my bones"". Whip them he did, completely, but again was forced to retreat; soon afterwards he retired, too crippled to sit a horse. In his place Greene led the British in a long guerrilla retreat through forests and across streams, to fight them again at Guilford's Courthouse on March 15 in a battle that was technically a defeat but in effect an American victory the British retreated, the Americans won their campaign, ended British aggression in the South, and opened the way to Yorktown. An excellent addition to the many incomplete histories of the Revolution, this compact and readable book will appeal alike to armchair and professional historians of the war and should find a place in school, college and public libraries.