[Cover photo] General Greene Monument
(Guilford Courthouse National Military Park)
T
he morning of March 15, 1781, was clear and cold. A light frost had disappeared under the first rays of the sun, but the ground underfoot was soft and spongy from long winter rains and snows. In the damp woods of what had been an isolated farming community in the Piedmont on a major east-west road through North Carolina, some 4,400 American troops, in various uniforms and country clothes, waited for battle.
This backwoods county seat of Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, was the site of a pivotal battle in the Revolutionary War's decisive Southern Campaign. The engagement set the stage for the region's liberation from enemy occupation and impelled British general Lord Charles Cornwallis to take the ill-fated road that led him to final defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, seven months later.
Read Full Article »