Costly Victory

Costly Victory. Guilford Courthouse National Military Park. , Another such victory would ruin the British army. , Charles James Fox, addressing the House of Commons after news of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse reached London., Fighting along the third line swayed back and forth. From Continental positions here, the Third Line Trail crosses the contested terrain of the stream valley below to the British position on the other side., Here on the high ground overlooking the stream valley stood the American third line, a mix of seasoned Continentals and new recruits. They waited tensely for the enemy, who had momentum after overrunning the first and second lines. When the British Guards emerged from the woods below, the fiercest fighting of the day ensued., Just as the British overwhelmed this left flank, Lt. Col. William Washington’s cavalry slashed in from the right and inflicted heavy casualties. Cornwallis then ordered British Royal Artillery to fire canister and grapeshot into the melee, driving back the American cavalry and Maryland Continentals. The end of the battle was an anticlimax. When the British regrouped ad began to outflank this line, Greene directed an orderly retreat., The British had gained the field and won a tactical victory, but at crippling cost. A quarter of Cornwallis’s army – 500 of the finest British troops in America – were killed or wounded in these fields and thickets. Seven months later came the surrender at Yorktown.