[Pioneers of the Old Southwest by Constance Lindsay Skinner]@TWC D-Link book
Pioneers of the Old Southwest

CHAPTER IX
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Greene's genius met the rising tide of the Patriots' courage and hope and took it at the flood.

His strategy, in dividing his army and thereby compelling the division of Cornwallis's force, led to Daniel Morgan's victory at the Cowpens, in the Back Country of South Carolina, on January 17, 1781--another frontiersmen's triumph.

Though the British won the next engagement between Greene and Cornwallis--the battle of Guilford Court House in the North Carolina Back Country, on the 15th of March--Greene made them pay so dearly for their victory that Tarleton called it "the pledge of ultimate defeat"; and, three days later, Cornwallis was retreating towards Wilmington.

In a sense, then, King's Mountain was the pivot of the war's revolving stage, which swung the British from their succession of victories towards the surrender at Yorktown.
Shelby, Campbell, and Cleveland escorted the prisoners to Virginia.
Sevier, with his men, rode home to Watauga.

When the prisoners had been delivered to the authorities in Virginia, the Holston men also turned homeward through the hills.


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