"Nathanael Greene’s Steeplechase in the Carolinas, 1781" Topic

"ON JUNE 2, 1791, AN IMPRESSIVE AMERICAN ARRIVED in Martinville, North Carolina, site of one of the Revolutionary War's most important battles. President George Washington was nearing the end of a three-month southern-states tour, during which he met veterans and visited sites where British and Americans had clashed. Slightly more than a decade earlier there had been a small administrative settlement in the area that gave this battle its name—Guilford Courthouse. Here, British troops had fought Americans led by Major General Nathanael Greene. M Washington was taken to a ridgeline overlooking fields cleared as they had been when the British had initially advanced. Despite enjoying a hindsight view of the battle's short- and long-term results, Washington had to admit, as he gazed across that natural killing field, that he would have fought the battle in a very different way.

For three months in early 1781 a high-stakes military campaign played out in the Carolinas. Nathanael Greene's Department of the South army and a British one under Lieutenant General Charles, 2nd Earl Cornwallis engaged in a series of marches and maneuvers with Georgia and the Carolinas as prize. Cornwallis needed a decisive victory that would sweep the Americans from the field and animate loyalist elements to flock to his standard. Greene had to maintain a firm American military presence to suppress royalist sentiment and encourage the patriots. Above all, he had been charged by Washington to preserve his core professional army, something his two predecessors had failed to do.

The 38-year-old Greene, manager of a family forge in prewar Rhode Island, had been Washington's pick for this challenging assignment. Starting out in 1775 as the Continental Army's youngest brigadier general, he had earned Washington's respect both as a man of arms and as a military administrator. By the time Greene was tapped for the Carolinas assignment he had acquired a remarkable skillset. He knew how an army operated, how it moved, how it lived from day to day, and how it fought. He understood the troublesome necessity of melding a small cadre of trained regulars with often prickly local militias. He had a knack for planning ahead and accepted the challenge of managing subordinates and allies whose commitment to the cause was often secondary to personal ambitions or regional animosities. Perhaps most important, he had found within himself the ability to analyze a situation and to generate a flexible plan of action firmly guided by strategic objectives but always open to short-term opportunities…"
Full text here
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Amicalement
Armand

Thankyou – fascinating account with unusual angle of how Washington would have done it.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Washington was taken to a ridgeline overlooking fields cleared as they had been when the British had initially advanced. Despite enjoying a hindsight view of the battle's short- and long-term results, Washington had to admit, as he gazed across that natural killing field, that he would have fought the battle in a very different way.

That's enigmatic. What was he implying, I wonder? That he'd have done better or worse at Guilford Courthouse than Greene (who, after all, did not actually manage to *beat* Cornwallis and hold the field). Greene was of course by now dead, so presumably Washington would have felt rather freer to critique his old lieutenant's performance.

Any observations?

The conclusion seems to give more light to this question:

WHEN PRESIDENT WASHINGTON VISITED the Guilford Courthouse battlefield, he never forgot the view down that cleared slope from the first line. While Greene had undertaken the battle to make a point, Washington would have fought it to win. He would have put his best troops and most powerful weapons in that opening position, confident that the attacking British "must have been torn all to pieces." Had he been in command, Washington told Thomas Jefferson, he "would have hardly let a single man get through that field."

It boils down to this: Washington wasn't anti-Greene. He was anti-militia. Washington had been let down by militia early in the war, and while he learned to use them strategically later on he never learned how to use them tactically.

Washington felt the way to have won Guilford Courthouse was to put the "regulars" in the front line. I think Washington was putting too much faith in the continental designation without understanding what the units were actually like. I think he also underestimated Cornwallis and his army. By the time Washington made his statement his standing was high enough that there wasn't anyone who was going to risk trying to correct him.

Greene knew the mettle of his men and used them accordingly.
He did pretty well for a guy who never won a battle.
Quite simply, without Greene the South is lost and the War may have ended differently. He was the important.

Washington was wrong. Placing the Regulars in the front lines would have been a disaster. If the Regulars got mauled were the militias going to stand and fight? Hardly.
The fct the the "Morgan alignment that Greene adapted allowed the Militia to have confidence that the Regulars were backing them. It allowed the Militia to reduce and weaken the British line and then retreat behind the Regulars.

Washington never understood how to effectively employ the Militia. Which is why he had no use for them.
And that was a shortcoming of his.

To be fair:

1. The militia at GCH really didn't do much anyway

2. Washington had 1776 and 1777 militia to work with – not as adept as some of them would become later

3. Conrwallis' army was tiny. The only similar sized forces Washington faced he roundly defeated at Trenton and Princeton