The Southern Campaign of the American Revolution: A Complete History from Savannah to Yorktown—and After

The Southern Campaign Collection · The Lake Norman Brief

Explore the complete Southern Campaign collection

The Southern Campaign was not one march, one army or one tidy sequence of famous battles. It was a fight over ports and ferries, roads and crops, intelligence and allegiance. It crossed Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, drew in French fleets and soldiers, divided neighbors, and turned the river country now under Lake Norman into a military corridor.

Why Britain turned south

By 1778 the war in the North had settled into stalemate, and France had entered the conflict on the American side. British planners looked to Georgia and the Carolinas. They believed large numbers of Loyalists would rise once royal troops arrived. Take the ports, restore royal government, raise local militia to hold the countryside, and move north colony by colony: that was the plan.

The plan rested on an assumption about allegiance. Where it held, Britain gained ground. Where it failed, every garrison had to be supplied along roads and rivers that partisans could cut.

Phase I: Georgia and the coast, 1778–1779

British troops took Savannah on December 29, 1778, and soon occupied Augusta. The capture of Savannah gave the Crown a base for restoring royal government in Georgia. Patriot militia under Andrew Pickens and Elijah Clarke answered at Kettle Creek on February 14, 1779, breaking up a Loyalist column. Three weeks later, on March 3, a British flanking march routed General John Ashe’s force at Brier Creek.

Neither side yet controlled the coast. William Moultrie beat back a British landing at Port Royal Island on February 3, 1779. In May, General Augustine Prevost marched on Charleston and withdrew as Benjamin Lincoln’s army approached. The rear-guard fight at Stono Ferry on June 20 settled nothing. That fall, a combined French and American siege of Savannah (September 16 to October 18, 1779) ended in a bloody failed assault on October 9. The allies learned what poor coordination costs, a lesson they applied at Yorktown two years later.

Phase II: Charleston falls and the backcountry ignites, 1780

Clinton returned in force in 1780. Tarleton’s cavalry scattered American horsemen at Monck’s Corner (April 14) and Lenud’s Ferry (May 6), closing the ring around the city. On May 12, Lincoln surrendered Charleston and an army the American Battlefield Trust puts at roughly 5,000 men. It was the largest American surrender of the war. Read the full account in The Siege of Charleston (1780).

Military conquest quickly turned into civil war. At the Waxhaws on May 29, Tarleton’s Legion cut down Abraham Buford’s Virginians after resistance collapsed, and “Tarleton’s Quarter” became a Patriot rallying cry. British demands that paroled men take up arms for the Crown pushed many neutrals back toward rebellion. Resistance surfaced at Ramsour’s Mill (June 20), Huck’s Defeat (July 12), Rocky Mount (July 30) and Hanging Rock (August 6).

Then came disaster. On August 16, Cornwallis destroyed Horatio Gates’s army at Camden, and two days later Tarleton surprised Sumter’s camp at Fishing Creek. Yet the partisan war did not end. Musgrove Mill, Francis Marion’s raids at Great Savannah, Blue Savannah and Black Mingo, and William R. Davie’s strike at Wahab’s Plantation kept the British off balance.

On October 7, 1780, frontier and Carolina militia surrounded Patrick Ferguson on Kings Mountain. Ferguson was killed and his force of roughly 1,000 Loyalists was killed, wounded or captured. Cornwallis, who had occupied Charlotte in late September, fell back to Winnsboro, South Carolina. The invasion of North Carolina was postponed.

Phase III: Greene, Morgan and the rivers, 1780–1781

Nathanael Greene took command of the Southern Department in December 1780 with a small, hungry army. He chose not to defend every place. Instead he split his force, sending Daniel Morgan west and forcing Cornwallis to divide his own. Sumter held off Tarleton at Blackstock’s Plantation (November 20), and William Washington’s dragoons struck Loyalists at Hammond’s Store (December 30).

On January 17, 1781, Morgan met Tarleton at Cowpens. He placed riflemen, militia and Continentals in successive lines and kept cavalry in reserve. Tarleton’s command was nearly destroyed. Cornwallis burned his own baggage and chased Greene north in what became the Race to the Dan.

The chase ran through Lake Norman country. At Cowan’s Ford on February 1, 1781, General William Lee Davidson was killed trying to stop the British crossing of the Catawba. Tarleton scattered militia at Torrence’s Tavern near present-day Mooresville the same day or the next; sources differ. Greene crossed the Dan into Virginia on February 14, rebuilt his strength, and came back. After skirmishes at Clapp’s Mill and Weitzel’s Mill, he offered battle at Guilford Courthouse on March 15. Cornwallis held the field but, by the National Park Service’s count, lost 28 percent of his army. He limped to Wilmington and, in late April, marched into Virginia.

Phase IV: The interior posts collapse, April–June 1781

Greene did not follow Cornwallis. He turned south against the chain of British posts that held South Carolina’s interior. Marion and Henry Lee besieged Fort Watson from April 15 to 23, using a log rifle tower to force its surrender. Rawdon beat Greene at Hobkirk’s Hill on April 25 but evacuated Camden on May 10. Fort Motte fell on May 12, Fort Granby on May 15, and Augusta on June 5. Greene’s siege of Ninety Six (May 22 to June 19) failed when Rawdon arrived with reinforcements, yet the British abandoned that post too. Tactical wins could no longer save a failing system.

Phase V: The lowcountry contracts, July–September 1781

At Quinby Bridge on July 17, Sumter, Marion and Lee could not finish off a retreating British column. On September 8, Greene fought Alexander Stewart at Eutaw Springs, the last major battle in the Carolinas. Both sides took heavy losses. Stewart held the field, then fell back toward Charleston. British control of the interior was over.

Phase VI: Virginia, sea power and Yorktown

Cornwallis entered Virginia with a veteran but worn army. Lafayette shadowed him while Washington and Rochambeau marched south from New York. On September 5, 1781, the comte de Grasse’s fleet fought the British off the Virginia Capes. The NPS describes the result as an inconclusive exchange that left France in control of Chesapeake Bay. With no relief by sea, Cornwallis faced an allied siege that began on September 28. He surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.

Yorktown was not a purely American victory or a battlefield miracle. It came from French sea power, allied coordination, engineering and logistics, and from an army already weakened in the Carolinas.

After Yorktown: evacuations, peace and an unequal freedom

Yorktown ended major campaigning, not the war. Partisan fighting continued in South Carolina into 1782. The British left Wilmington in November 1781, Savannah on July 11, 1782, and Charleston on December 14, 1782. The NPS timeline records that the Charleston evacuation carried away about 3,800 Loyalists and 5,000 enslaved people. Some Black Loyalists gained freedom through evacuation; many other Black Southerners were carried off or returned to slavery.

Britain recognized American independence in the Treaty of Paris, signed September 3, 1783. The Carolinas then faced war debt, disputes over confiscated Loyalist property, veterans seeking pay and land, and continued pressure on Cherokee and Catawba lands. The new states celebrated liberty while rebuilding slavery.

Key dates

Five ways to read the campaign

• Logistics. Roads out of Charleston, the Santee and Congaree rivers, the Catawba fords, mills, ferries and forage set the limits of what any army could try.
• Civil war. Patriot and Loyalist often divided families and neighborhoods. Parole policy, retaliation and plain survival shaped allegiance.
• Coalition warfare. Savannah in 1779 showed the alliance failing. Yorktown showed it working. French participation was decisive.
• Unequal freedom. Black soldiers and refugees, Native nations and the labor of women belong in the main story, not a sidebar.
• Tactical versus strategic victory. Camden was both. Guilford Courthouse and Hobkirk’s Hill were British tactical wins with damaging strategic results.

Frequently asked questions

When did the Southern Campaign begin?

Definitions vary. Fighting in the South began in 1775 and 1776, including Moore’s Creek Bridge and the defense of Sullivan’s Island. This collection dates the sustained British Southern Strategy from the capture of Savannah on December 29, 1778, the same starting point the National Park Service timeline uses.

Did the campaign end at Yorktown?

Yorktown ended major British offensive operations and forced a political reckoning in London. Occupation, partisan fighting and evacuation continued through 1782, and the peace treaty was signed in 1783.

Why is Lake Norman part of this history?

Before the lake existed, the Catawba River crossings and the roads through Mecklenburg and Iredell counties were part of the campaign’s working landscape. Cowan’s Ford and Torrence’s Tavern tie the region directly to the Race to the Dan.

Who won the Southern Campaign?

The United States and France achieved the decisive strategic result. Britain won several major battles but failed to turn occupation into durable political control.

New to the subject? Start with What Was the Southern Campaign? A Beginner’s Guide.

Historical interpretation draws on the linked sources; surviving evidence and accounts may differ, and some dates in the campaign remain disputed.