Enraged at these reverses, Cornwallis took the field and hurried to attack Greene, who, too weak to fight him, began a masterly retreat of 200 miles across Carolina to Guilford Courthouse, where he turned about and fought.  He was defeated, but Cornwallis was unable to go further, and retreated to Wilmington, N.C., with Greene in hot pursuit.  Leaving the enemy at Wilmington, Greene went back to South Carolina, and by September, 1781, had driven the British into Charleston and Savannah.

Cornwallis, as soon as Greene left him, hurried to Petersburg, Va.  A British force during the winter and spring had been plundering and ravaging in Virginia, under the traitor Arnold.  Cornwallis took command of this, sent Arnold to New York, and had begun a campaign against Lafayette, when orders reached him to seize and fortify some Virginian seaport.

%157.  Surrender of Cornwallis.%—­Thus instructed, Cornwallis selected Yorktown, and began to fortify it strongly.  This was early in August, 1781.  On the 14th Washington heard with delight that a French fleet was on its way to the Chesapeake, and at once decided to hurry to Virginia, and surround Cornwallis by land while the French cut him off by sea.  Preparations were made with such secrecy and haste that Washington had reached Philadelphia while Clinton supposed he was about to attack New York.  Clinton then sent Arnold on a raid into Connecticut to burn New London, in the hope of forcing Washington to return.  But Washington kept straight on, hemmed Cornwallis in by land and sea, and October 19, 1781, forced the British general to surrender.

%158.  The War on the Sea.%—­The first step towards the foundation of an American navy was taken on October 13, 1775.  Congress, hearing that two British ships laden with powder and guns were on their way from England to Quebec, ordered two swift sailing vessels to be fitted out for the purpose of capturing them.  Two months later Congress ordered thirteen cruisers to be built, and named the officers to command them.

Meantime some merchant ships were purchased and collected at Philadelphia, from which city, one morning in January, 1776, a fleet of eight vessels set sail.  As they were about to weigh anchor, John Paul Jones, a lieutenant on the flagship, flung to the breeze a yellow silk flag on which were a pine tree and a coiled rattlesnake, with this motto:  “Don’t tread on me.”  This was the first flag ever hoisted on an American man-of-war.

Ice in the Delaware kept the fleet in the river till the middle of February, when it went to sea, sailed southward to New Providence in the Bahamas, captured the town, brought off the governor, some powder and cannon, and after taking several prizes got safely back to New London.

Soon after the squadron had left the Delaware, the Lexington, Captain John Barry in command, while cruising off the Virginia coast, fell in with the Edward, a British vessel, and after a spirited action captured her.  This was the first prize brought in by a commissioned officer of the American navy.[1]