Forging the Vision : Nathanael Green
Greene requested to fill the void left by Arnold as the commander of West Point . Greene ’ s request was granted on October 14 , but it would be a shortlived assignment . 42
After Horatio Gates was routed at Camden on August 16 , 1780 , the Southern Department was in a desperate state . The militia had scattered : many of the Continentals were slaughtered , while just as many were captured , conscripted , or imprisoned by the British . The war in the South had been raging on in the background since the beginning of the war . However , its significance and intensity were amplified when Britain tried to use the South as a back door into the country starting with Savannah , GA on December 29 , 1778 . Britain quickly capitalized on its new strategy , seizing the whole of Georgia in late 1779 before moving up into the Carolinas .
Britain planned to use its Loyalist following in the Southern colonies to bolster their war effort . The intent was to employ a small force of British regulars to orchestrate and inspire the Loyalist militias ; however , the turnout of Loyalist fighters did not meet expectations . Nonetheless , it certainly aggravated the ongoing civil war between Whig and Tory partisans . While Britain planned to only supplement the militias in the South , Lord Charles Cornwallis was ultimately given about one-third of the British force to execute the strategy .
Greene was appointed as the commander of the Southern Department on October 14 , 1780 . Like the Quartermaster Department he inherited , the Southern Department was just as dire . Command of the department had changed hands four times since the beginning of the war , with little strategic success . When Greene arrived in North Carolina to replace Gates on December 2 , 1780 , he was met with what little remained of the department . Although officially authorized seventeen thousand troops , he had 2,307 on paper , 1,482 of whom were present for duty and of those , less than eight hundred who were properly fit and equipped for combat . 43
Greene believed that an offensive strategy was a failing endeavor and felt that establishing a defensive posture would provide the army the time and space required to build a formidable fighting force of regular troops . Greene believed that Britain ’ s offense-driven strategy in the North was flawed . He likened their efforts to a ship “ a ship plowing the Ocean .” He observed that as soon as the British had passed , the rebels reformed around and behind them . He figured that as long as the army could prove they could provide support to the people , the army could not be beaten . However , if the army were destroyed , the people would not rally . 44
Greene sensed the same dynamic in the Southern colonies . Much of what Greene had determined was shaped by the conclusions he had made regarding public opinion . Where he once would have justified the killing of Loyalists out of principle , he now understood that this would only exacerbate the problem . By considering public opinion he hoped to embolden Patriots and leverage neutrals while mitigating Tory upheavals . 45
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