Guilford Courthouse National Historic Site
Guilford Courthouse NHS | Driving from NC to IA Day 1 | November 2022
On our last Friday in Wilmington, I texted Jess in the morning and indicated that there was a good chance that I would be done with class before noon. And while staying in a nice hotel on someone else’s dime was enjoyable, we also wanted to take our time driving back home. So we turned our plans of driving straight home over 2 days into two and a half days of driving with a few fun stops thrown in.
Since we didn’t have a full day to drive, we looked for places to camp along the NC/VA border. Two places stood out: Hanging Rock State Park and Pilot Mountain State Park, both Northwest of Greensboro and about 4 hours away. We ultimately booked a campsite at Hanging Rock State Park and a plan for the afternoon fell into place.
After I came back to the hotel, we packed everything back into our car, checked out, grabbed food for all of our meals, and then headed North. We took new roads in interest of getting counties, but also tried to avoid Raleigh-Durham.
Our first and only stop for the day was at Guildford Courthouse NHS in the Northern outskirts of Greensboro. We arrived just before the visitor center closed to get our passport stamps, but were disappointed to learn that they didn’t carry any of the Veteran’s Passes – Strike two. The sun was rapidly setting, but we felt like we had plenty of time to walk to some of the Park’s highlights and complete the loop drive.
Guilford Courthouse is the location of one of the most important battles in the Revolutionary War, and the final battle in the British Carolina campaign (and most of the rest of this post is history and links to all the other Revolutionary War places we’ve been).
After the Loyalist’s loss at Moores Creek and the failed attempt to capture Charleston during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, the British Commander changed the focus of the War to New York and the surrounding states. But after 4 years along the Hudson, and no end in site, General Clinton changed focus again and launched the invasion of the Carolina’s. Starting with the capture of Charleston in May, 1780, the British forces, under the command of General Cornwallis, quickly moved through the heart of South Carolina meeting only irregular and ill organized militia under the command of the likes as Generals Marion, Pickens, and Sumter. After the humiliating defeat of US General Gates in August at the Battle of Camden, it appeared that the British would have free reign of the Carolinas. But then came a cascade of American and Patriot victories. First at King’s Mountain in October and then at Cowpens in January. The American forces were soon well organized under the command of Washington’s number two man, General Greene. And so began the ‘Race for the Dan’.
Cornwallis, having crossed into North Carolina, was determined to make it to the Dan River, and beyond, the untouched Virginia Country. If Cornwallis could get past Greene and bring the war to the Virginians, the consensus was that the rest of the colonies would falter. Greene divided his command into two smaller forces, one under command of himself, the other under General Daniel Morgan, and both were able to move quickly across the North Carolina country. In order to match their pace, Cornwallis left most of his baggage and supplies behind and traveled as light as he could.
From February until March, 1781 Greene and Cornwallis fought in small skirmishes going North from the NC/SC border. And while the British were the tactical victor in all 12 of those skirmishes, they gained little strategic advantage. Cornwallis lost men and lost supplies and was fighting a battle of attrition. At one point, Greene is quoted as having said “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again” to describe his tactics.
By mid-March, Cornwallis’ men were starving, forced to pillage the local farmers, and suffering desertions. If he was going to make it to Virginia, he had to defeat Greene completely. On 15 March, Cornwallis got his battle, but the battlefield and deployment were chosen by Greene. Along the road connecting New Garden and Guilford Courthouse (both villages now swallowed up by Greensboro) Greene deployed his forces in three lines. Cornwallis assaulted the front of the lines, but the continentals and militias stood their ground as best they could, giving an orderly retreat to the second and the third line. Cornwallis would not get his rout, and the only way he was able to force the main body of Greene’s army to retreat was to shoot grapeshot into both the British and Continental Armies. Cornwallis had won the battle, out numbered almost 2:1, but at significant loss. Cornwallis, with less then 1500 effectives ready for battle, a supply base 150 miles to his rear in Camden, and an enemy force regrouping nearby, faced the facts and made a tactical retreat to Wilmington to reorganize.
From Wilmington, Cornwallis made the decision to invade Virginia again, but this time from the coast and embarked for the Yorktown campaign. This decision was ill fated in multiple regards, not the least of which was that Cornwallis would ultimately be defeated at Yorktown thus ending the War. It was also a decision that opened up the Carolinas to Greene; though still defended at frontier outposts like Ninety-Six, the Carolina’s did not have a standing Army capable of holding what they had taken and by the end of 1781 Greene had reclaimed all of the Carolinas.
These latter reasons are why Guilford Courthouse is such an important engagement, yet despite this, the battle ground and the town of Guilford Courthouse were swallowed up by nature for over 100 years. In 1886 a private business man decided to rectify this and purchased the land with the intent of making a historic monument both to the battle and to North Carolinian patriots including a very impressive equestrian statue to General Greene.
We enjoyed our walk among the larger monuments and then, as the sun was setting, we drove the loop around the battlefield, reading signs as we went.
With the light now gone, we continued North out of Greensboro and to our campsite. We set up, walked Char around, and made dinner in the dark. The temperature dropped into the 30’s making us question our decision to leave the nice warm hotel early, but we were sure we’d be thankful for that decision tomorrow when we would have less driving to do!
