The British Caught by Surprise

The British Caught by Surprise. Battle of Eutaw Springs. , On September 8, 1781, British Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Stewart and his force of approximately 2,000 men were camped here at Eutaw Springs. Stewart commanded the British tactical army in the Carolinas. Just six months earlier, British Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis had defeated Major General Nathanael Greene’s Patriots in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Now Cornwallis was in Virginia with a substantially weakened army and Greene was conducting a campaign of reconquest in South Carolina, attacking rural British military outposts in an often successful attempt to drive Royal and Loyalist forces from the Backcountry. Stewart’s location at Eutaw Springs compelled Greene to march his troops, which numbered about 2,100, from Burdell’s Plantation, seven miles away, to assault the British camp., The Patriots started their march from Burdell’s at 4:00 a.m., before the heat of the sun beat down on the dusty road. By about 8:00 a.m., Greene’s troops had assembled on what is now Moncks Corner Road, approximately half a mile west of where you now stand. Imagine the anxious soldiers and eager commanders gazing ahead toward their unknown fate. Meanwhile, the men in Stewart’s camp were going about their morning routine when Stewart, acting on a tip from Patriot deserters, realized Greene’s forces were close by. In the following hours, this rural landscape became the scene of horrific violence. The Battle of Eutaw Springs would prove to be the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War to be fought in the South. The Patriot effort here freed South Carolina of her British occupiers and brought America closer to earning independence.,

"I was attacked by the rebel General Greene with all the force he could collect in this province...." , -British Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Stewart

, [Captions:] , Patriot Council of War , The evening before the Battle of Eutaw Springs, Major General Nathanael Greene gathered with his officers at Burdell’s Tavern to plan their surprise attack on the British camp. Illustrated, left to right, are Francis Marion, Andrew Pickens, William Henderson, Nathanael Greene, Henry Lee, Jethro Sumner, Otho Holland Williams, and William Washington., Southern Battle Sites, March-September 1781 , After the British victory at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781, the Patriots were again defeated at Hobkirk Hill and Ninety Six. Patriot troops forced British surrenders at Fort Watson in April and Augusta in June. In September, the Battle of Eutaw Springs offered Major General Nathanael Greene another opportunity to drive the enemy from the Backcountry once and for all.