Tired, war-weary men under the direction of Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, make a hazardous, 70-mile trek to safety in Virginia.

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, July 8, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

After retreating more than 100 miles to Guilford Courthouse, N.C., America's ragged Southern Army was in no shape to wage war.

British Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis knew that he outnumbered the Americans and was better equipped; he pushed his force of more than 2,500 men toward Guilford Courthouse in hopes of forcing a fight.

On the American side Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene knew that he'd probably lose if he fought now, with only 2,000 worn-out men at his disposal, a quarter of them militia. If they fought, he wrote, we stand ten chances to one of getting defeated, & if defeated all the Southern states must fail.

Greene decided that his troops were going to have to make a run for the Dan River in Virginia, 70 miles north. If he could put the wide Dan or Roanoke River between his troops and Cornwallis', then he could buy time to recruit men and supplies from Virginia, one of the richer and more powerful states.

Though lesser known to history, the Race to the Dan River was at least as agonizing as the American Army's retreat across New Jersey in 1776.

Light-Horse Henry Lee remembered: "The shoes were generally worn out, the body clothes much tattered, and not more than a blanket for four men."

With Cornwallis pressing them so hard, Lee's legion dared not sleep without sentinels guarding against surprise: "each man, during the retreat, was entitled to but six hours' repose in forty-eight," Lee wrote. They slept fitfully without tents: "the heat of the fires was the only protection from rain and sometimes snow."

Every night the light troops marched at 3 a.m. "to gain such a distance in front as would secure breakfast . . . [the] only meal during this rapid and hazardous retreat." The meal was "always scanty, though good in quality and very nutritious being bacon and corn meal."

With their breakfast of bacon and meal, the light troops protecting Greene's flanks fared better than the main Army. Col. Benjamin Ford, who rode with Greene on the retreat, said that the main Army ate only "what we collected from the Inhabitants which was but a very bad supply[;] many Days elapsed without our getting anything."

Greene summed it up to Washington: The miserable situation of the troops for want of clothing has rendered the march the most painfull imaginable, several hundreds of the Soldiers tracking the ground with their bloody feet.

Col. Otho Williams, who commanded the light troops in Greene's rear, kept the general abreast of Cornwallis' rapid advance:

"7 oClock PM

"Tuesday 13th Feby 1781

". . . My D[ea]r General at Sun Down the Enemy were only 22 miles from you and may be in motion now or will [be] most probably by 3 oClock in the morning. Their intelligence is good. They . . . mov'd with great rapidity.

"Rely on it, my Dr Sir it is possible for you to be overtaken before you can cross the Dan even if you had 20 Boats. . . . I shall use every precaution but cannot help being uneasy."

About the time Williams was scratching out this letter, his troops spied campfires in front of them: fires lit by Greene's main army on the near side of the Dan River. As they rode toward the fires with Cornwallis close behind, Williams and his officers felt sick; it looked like they'd have to turn their troops toward Cornwallis for a suicidal fight in what would likely be a vain attempt to protect the ragged, barefoot, poorly armed men of America's Southern Army.

When they rode into the camp, Williams and Lee saw that the fires were unattended. Every man was gone. Greene's Army had already pushed on for Boyd's Ferry, 14 miles north. The race was not over, but the finish line was near.

Lee wrote: ". . . the fires were instantly kindled; the cold and wet, the cares and toils of the day, were soon forgotten in the enjoyment of repose."

The repose did not last long: at midnight Williams' light troops marched again, over roads deep and broken and sharpened with frost.

As light crept into the eastern sky a mounted messenger gave Williams a letter from Greene written at 4 a.m.. Greene said he had not slept four hours total since he'd last seen Williams four days previously. Now he was preparing for the worst.

Later that afternoon of Valentine's Day, 1781, Williams received a brighter letter from Greene: The greater part of our wagons are over, and the troops are crossing.

The crossing was slow with six smallish boats to ferry more than a thousand men across a wide, rain-swollen river. And Cornwallis' vanguard was still pressing down.

Around sunset, Williams reached the river, where he received a third letter, written by Greene at 1/2 past 5 o'clock: All our troops are over, and the stage is clear.

Williams and his light troops had covered 40 miles in 20 hours. Now, Greene was ready to give them a hearty welcome.

On Thursday morning, Feb. 15, 1781, the footsore, red-jacketed troops of Lord Cornwallis marched up to the banks of the Dan River, where they saw the campfires of the American Army burning on the other side. Nathanael Greene's army had taken every boat in the Roanoke Valley across the river with them, and there was nothing Cornwallis could do but stare.

"In the camp of Greene, joy beamed in every face," wrote Gen. Henry Lee.

Greene's aide, Ichabod Burnet, wrote that America's Southern Army was now "safe over the river and . . . laughing at the enemy who are on the opposite bank."

gcarbone@projo.com / (401) 277-7434

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources consulted for today's installment:

Conrad, Dennis M. ed. The Papers of Nathanael Greene, VIII. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1995.

Lee, Gen. Henry, Robert E. Lee ed. The Revolutionary War Memoirs of General Henry Lee. Da Capo Press: New York, 1998.

A continuing series.