The Path to VictoryCh. 7, Sec. 3

The Britishsurrender atYorktown

Britain Invades the South• Britain moved the war south for 3 main reasonsBelieved most Southerners were Loyalists – thought if they gained territory in the South, Southern Loyalists would hold it for them

Expected Southern slaves to join them – promised freedom

Britain’s West Indian colonies – Southern seaports were closer to these and the British had troops stationed there

Savannah and Charles Town• December 1778: capture the port of Savannah and useit as a base

• 1780: British led by General Henry Clinton trap the American forces in Charles Town. The Americans lost almost their entire Southern army afterwards. Worst American defeat of the war

Henry Clinton

General Horatio Gates• Assigned to form a new Southern army after the loss at Charles Town

Had about 2000 new & untrained militia

• Headed to SC to challenge the British army led by Lord Cornwallis

• The Swamp Fox: Francis Marion led a band of Patriots that joined Gates. Marion provided infoabout SC’s coastal swamplands & cut off British communication with Charles Town

• 1780: Gates & the British clash outside of Camden.Gates’s inexperienced militia panicked and fled Result: Ends his term as head of an army and American

spirits fall to a new all time low

Horatio Gates

The Tide Turns• Battle of Kings Mountain

One of the first British losses in the South. Americanssurrounded a force of Loyalist militia and British soldiers. The Americans slaughtered most of them as revenge for earlier Loyalist raids.

• Nathanael Greene: put in charge of the Southernarmy after Gates’s defeat The American army avoided full-scale battles and let the British

chase them around the countryside. Wore the British out, so when they did fight, the Americans tried to ensure that the British suffered heavy losses

• After 6 years of war, opposition in Britain grew

Nathanael Green

Battle of Kings Mountain

The End of the War• 1781: Most of the fighting took place in Virginia

• In July, British general Cornwallis set up his base at Yorktown Could receive supplies by ship from New York

• Golden opportunity for Washington A large French fleet blocked Chesapeake Bay, so the

British couldn’t get supplies or escape Washington traveled from the North to trap Cornwallis A large French force led by Rochambeau had joined

Washington’s army, so he had enough men for the operation

Charles Cornwallis

Battle of Yorktown• British ships tried to reach Cornwallis, but were driven back by French ships

• American and French troops bombarded the city with cannon fire, turning it to rubble.

• Cornwallis had no way out and surrendered his force of ~8000 on October 19, 1781

• Some fighting continued, but Yorktown was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War

• “It is all over!” – Lord North Many British leaders were forced to resign and new leaders began to negotiate a peace treaty