Battle of Green Spring

Battle of Green Spring. July 6, 1781. "The General is happy in acknowledging the spirit of the detachment...he happened to be an eye-witness." , General Orders , Marquis de Lafayette , July 8, 1781, The Revolutionary War Battle of Green Spring took place in the open fields and woods that lie before you to the northwest on the afternoon of July 6, 1781. Church on the Main was the southern edge of the battlefield, where British forces under General Charles Cornwallis were encamped. The church marked the northern end of the camp, which extended from here to the Jamestown Island vicinity., Prior to the battle, the Marquis de Lafayette, leading a small force of Americans, had followed the much larger British army from the Richmond area to nearby Spencer's Ordinary, six miles to the north, where a skirmish occurred on June 26, 1781. A short time later, the Battle of Green Spring took place as a result of a deliberate move by Cornwallis to trap and destroy the American forces under Major General Lafayette. The attempt failed. The Americans successfully withdrew following a bold attack led by Brigadier General Anthony Wayne, which temporarily halted a British advance before nightfall. After the battle, Cornwallis continued his move across the James River to Portsmouth and later, to Yorktown, where most of the combatants met again 16 miles to the east. There, the British surrendered to the French and American allied army and naval forces under General George Washington on October 19, 1781., Church on the Main likely served as a field hospital for casualties from both sides and some soldiers may be buried in the surrounding church cemetery. Other casualties were interred where they fell by joint burial parties. The grave of one Patriot was found by archaeologists on the battlefield in 1978. He was reburied in this cemetery in 2016.