59. The Race to the Dan

Morgan, however, was not yet safe, for Cornwallis was coming north with his main army to catch and crush him. Caught between two courses of action—abandonment of the North Carolina plan and a swift march north to King’s Mountain to intercept Morgan (which Tarleton had urged)—Cornwallis did neither, and thus had fallen between two stools. His advance northward was slow, and he lost his chance to block Morgan’s path of retreat. He was in his camp at Turtle Creek, 25 miles east of Cowpens when he heard of the disastrous results. He should have abandoned the entire North Carolina scheme as he had done after King’s Mountain the previous year, but he was completely committed to the advance. He set after Morgan with 3,000 men, sending 700 under Lord Rawdon to Camden to assist Leslie against Greene. But delays and forays in the wrong direction lost precious time, and Cornwallis found, when he reached the anticipated point of interception at Ramsour’s Mill, that Morgan, who had been marching away into North Carolina at remarkable speed, covering one hundred miles over difficult terrain in less than five days, was already two days’ march away. Cornwallis, ever inclined to be rash and impetuous, now so embroiled himself in the task of invasion and of catching Morgan that he overlooked more strategic, long-run considerations: for the sake of speed in the race with Morgan, he jettisoned all of his stores and baggage. This desperate destruction led 250 Hessians to desert.

When Nathanael Greene, at Cheraw Hill, heard of Morgan’s victory, he did not let his joy becloud his realization of the immediate danger to Morgan. He ordered General Huger to march his men north to and beyond Salisbury, North Carolina, for a link-up with Morgan’s force, while Greene himself raced heroically all the way to Morgan’s camp on the Catawba River. Here the two generals disagreed over strategy. Morgan counselled a rapid retreat into the western mountains—certainly a prudent course which would have insured that Cornwallis could not follow. But Greene, a man of broader strategic visions, saw that Cornwallis’ reckless destruction of his supplies could bring about his defeat. He therefore overruled Morgan, even though he failed to rouse rebel militia to his aid, and he ordered his force to march northeast through Salisbury and across the Yadkin River to join with Huger’s troop marching northward.*

As he retreated, Greene kept just close enough to Cornwallis to keep him advancing in furious pursuit, meanwhile luring him ever further from his supply base and ever closer to Greene’s own supply lines from Virginia and the North.

When Huger’s army was held up by heavy rains and bad roads, Greene changed the junction point from Salisbury to Guilford Courthouse, in northern North Carolina directly north of Cheraw. It was now evident to both parties that the safe sanctuary for the American army would be north of the swollen Dan River, in Virginia, where supplies would be available to them. The Dan could be crossed either at the upper fords or in its lower stretches by boats. At Salisbury, Cornwallis, not knowing that Greene’s foresight had arranged for sufficient boats on the lower Dan, abandoned hope of catching up with Morgan and Greene before their link-up with Huger, and instead swung north to intercept the united American army before it reached the upper fords. Greene and Morgan raced northeast and effected a junction with Huger’s force at Guilford Courthouse on February 9. The American army of the South was once more united, and Cornwallis was twenty-five miles due west at Salem.

Greene was by no means committed to retreat behind the Dan; his cherished goal was to turn upon his supply-depleted pursuer and smash him decisively. He called for, and expected to receive, additional forces from Virginia and local militia; but no Virginia troops arrived and the militia were disappointing. His army totalled only 2,000 men against nearly 3,000 for Cornwallis. His council of war unanimously urged him to press on to the Dan on February 10. The race for the Dan, 70 miles away, had begun, but it had to begin without Morgan, whose ill health, perhaps aggravated by his opposition to what he considered a reckless course, led him to retire permanently from the fray.

Of America’s top generals, only Greene was left in the field; but he would be enough. He detached 700 picked men under Col. Otho Williams to move west and then to the north to harass the British advance, and to fool the British into believing that the Americans were making for the upper fords. Cornwallis was fooled, and he began to race north toward the upper Dan. Both Cornwallis and Williams sped through wretched winter weather, sometimes covering thirty miles a day, with Williams’ men getting little or no food or sleep. On February 13, Tarleton saw through Greene’s plans, and at his urging, Cornwallis shifted east toward Greene, with Williams racing to keep ahead and following Greene’s route to the crossing at Irwin’s Ferry. Cornwallis followed in hot pursuit, but Colonel Washington’s and Harry Lee’s cavalry were more than a match for Tarleton’s attempts to rush the Americans fording streams. Marching night and day, Williams was able to follow Greene across the Dan River on February 15, just in time to elude Cornwallis. The American army had reached sanctuary.

*It must be noted that the Americans were greatly aided in all these maneuvers by Greene’s precaution of assembling small boats in advance to help in crossing the swollen rivers.