[Illustration:  GENERAL MORGAN THE HERO OF COWPENS.]

[Sidenote:  Greene’s retreat.]

[Sidenote:  The Battle of Guilford, 1781.]

161.  The Guilford Campaign, 1781.—­Cornwallis now made a desperate attempt to capture the Americans, but Greene and Morgan joined forces and marched diagonally across North Carolina.  Cornwallis followed so closely that frequently the two armies seemed to be one.  When, however, the river Dan was reached, there was an end of marching, for Greene had caused all the boats to be collected at one spot.  His men crossed and kept the boats on their side of the river.  Soon Greene found himself strong enough to cross the river again to North Carolina.  He took up a very strong position near Guilford Court House.  Cornwallis attacked.  The Americans made a splendid defense before Greene ordered a retreat, and the British won the battle of Guilford.  But their loss was so great that another victory of the same kind would have destroyed the British army.  As it was, Greene had dealt it such a blow that Cornwallis left his wounded at Guilford and set out as fast as he could for the seacoast.  Greene pursued him for some distance and then marched southward to Camden.

[Sidenote:  Greene’s later campaigns, 1871-83.]

162.  Greene’s Later Campaigns.—­At Hobkirk’s Hill, near Camden, the British soldiers who had been left behind by Cornwallis attacked Greene.  But he beat them off and began the siege of a fort on the frontier of South Carolina.  The British then marched up from Charleston, and Greene had to fall back.  Then the British marched back to Charleston and abandoned the interior of South Carolina to the Americans.  There was only one more battle in the South—­at Eutaw Springs.  Greene was defeated there, too, but the British abandoned the rest of the Carolinas and Georgia with the exception of Savannah and Charleston.  In these wonderful campaigns with a few good soldiers Greene had forced the British from the Southern states.  He had lost every battle.  He had won every campaign.

[Sidenote:  Lafayette and Cornwallis, 1781.]

163.  Cornwallis in Virginia, 1781.—­There were already two small armies in Virginia,—­the British under Arnold, the Americans under Lafayette.  Cornwallis now marched northward from Wilmington and added the troops in Virginia to his own force; Arnold he sent to New York.  Cornwallis then set out to capture Lafayette and his men.  Together they marched from salt water across Virginia to the mountains—­and then they marched back to salt water again.  Cornwallis had called Lafayette “the boy” and had declared that “the boy should not escape him.”  Finally Cornwallis fortified Yorktown, and Lafayette settled down at Williamsburg.  And there they still were in September, 1781.

[Sidenote:  The French at Newport, 1780.]

[Sidenote:  Plans of the allies, 1781.]