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Charleston map showing the distribution of British forces during the siege Siege of Charleston map 1780 A sketch of the operations before Charlestown, the capital of South Carolina 1780 Siege. Cutting the city off from relief, Clinton began a siege on 1 April, 800 yards from the American fortifications located at today's Marion Square.
After the siege of Charleston and the destruction of Abraham Buford's Virginia regiments at Waxhaw, Clinton returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis in command in the south. [30] [31] The relationship between Clinton and Cornwallis had noticeably soured during the Charleston campaign, and they were barely on speaking terms when Clinton left. [32]
At the end of 1779, Clinton and Cornwallis transported a large force south and initiated the second siege of Charleston during the spring of 1780, which resulted in the surrender of the Continental forces under Benjamin Lincoln. [42] Cornwallis and Clinton at first worked closely together during the siege, but their relationship deteriorated. [43]
Major operations in the South during 1780. Clinton moved against Charleston in 1780, blockading the harbor in March and building up about 10,000 troops in the area. His advance on the city was uncontested; the American naval commander, Commodore Abraham Whipple, scuttled five of his eight frigates in the harbor to make a boom for its defense. [29]
Clinton began to assemble a force an expedition to take Charleston, withdrawing the forces from Newport for the purpose. Clinton took personal command of this campaign, and the task force with 14,000 men sailed south from New York at the end of the year. By early 1780, Clinton had brought Charleston under siege. In May, working together with ...
In a night attack on April 14, 1780, Tarleton took Monck's Corner, South Carolina, a strategic victory which helped seal off the Patriot garrison of Charleston from help or escape. Charleston's surrender to the British on May 12, 1780 was a disaster to the revolutionary cause.
Control of Georgia was formally returned to its royal governor, James Wright, in July 1779, but the backcountry would not come under British control until after the 1780 Siege of Charleston. [82] Patriot forces recovered Augusta by siege in 1781, but Savannah remained in British hands until 1782. [83]
The history of Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the longest and most diverse of any community in the United States, spanning hundreds of years of physical settlement beginning in 1670. Charleston was one of leading cities in the South from the colonial era to the Civil War in the 1860s.