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Gen. Nathanael Greene (1742-86) served with distinction in two roles: as quartermaster general of the army after others had failed in the post, and as the strategist of the decisive Southern Campaign.

It was the worst American defeat of the war. The Continental Congress responded by sending south Gen. Horatio Gates, commander of the army that had beaten the British at Saratoga. Gates brought with him about 1,200 Maryland and Delaware Continentals and called on the militia of North Carolina and Virginia to support him. On August 16, 1780, outside the village of Camden, S.C., the Americans encountered an army commanded by Charles, Earl Cornwallis, the most aggressive British general in America. Cornwallis ordered a bayonet charge. The poorly armed, inexperienced militia panicked and fled. The Continentals fought desperately for a time but were soon surrounded and overwhelmed.

Both North and South Carolina now seemed prostrate. There was no patriot army in either state strong enough to resist the thousands of British regulars. Georgia had been conquered by a combined British naval and land force in late 1778 and early 1779. There were rumors that America’s allies, France and Spain, were tired of the war and ready to call a peace conference. Many persons thought that the Carolinas and Georgia would be abandoned at this conference. In the Continental Congress, some already considered them lost. “It is agreed on all hands the whole state of So. Carolina hath submitted to the British Government as well as Georgia,” a Rhode Island delegate wrote. “I shall not be surprised to hear N. Carolina hath followed their example.”