‘We Fight, Get Beat, Rise, and Fight Again’: The Story of How Americans Won Our Freedom

Throughout our history, Americans have repeatedly beaten long odds, inspiring generations by accomplishing the impossible.

American military history in particular offers countless examples of men standing firm against overwhelming enemies, triumphing when all logic tells us they should fail. We as a nation have largely forgotten too many of our heroes—most of us know nothing of Nicholas Biddle, Dan Daly, Littleton Waller, or Philip Kulbes, among many others.

These great men deserve to be remembered, and foremost among them stands Major-General Nathanael Greene, a little-remembered leader of the American Revolution. Greene, always outnumbered and continually out of supply, spent a year fighting General Cornwallis and lost every battle. But every American loss, carefully planned and managed, drained the British of irreplaceable men and materiel—a strategy Greene summarized as “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again”—and ultimately forced Cornwallis to retreat to Yorktown.

By the summer of 1780, the Americans faced a very bleak military situation. The British held New York, Savannah, and Charleston. Major-General Sir Henry Clinton had just invaded South Carolina, quickly capturing Georgetown, Cheraw, Camden, Ninety-Six, and Augusta, and defeating the Continentals at Waxhaws. And in the three years since Saratoga, the American army had not defeated British Regulars in any major battles.

In mid-August 1780, Major-General Charles Cornwallis sealed British dominance in the South with his crushing victory at the Battle of Camden. In this battle, 1,500 British Regulars and 600 Loyalist militia defeated a 4,000 man Continental army commanded by Major-General Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga. The Americans lost at least 240 killed, another 700 seriously wounded, hundreds of deserters, and lost a further thousand as prisoners, as well losing all their artillery, wagons, baggage, and horses. Washington relieved Gates of command, appointing Major-General Nathanael Greene to command the remnants of the American army in the Southern theater.

When Greene joined his army at the North–South Carolina border in December 1780, he found he had only about 1,500 men fit for duty, most of whom lacked ammunition and food. Cornwallis’ 6,000 man army, pursuing the shattered remnants of the American army, encamped just 60 miles south of the Americans. Washington had reinforcements marching to join Greene and the latter, recognizing he could not supply the few men he had, much less a larger body, made a bold move—he dispatched one-third of his army, commanded by Brigadier-General Daniel Morgan, to the southwest while Greene led the rest of the army to the southeast. Most of his contemporaries, both British and American, saw this decision as a major blunder—conventional military thinking warns never to divide your forces in the face of a numerically superior enemy.

Greene made this decision in part to relieve his own supply crisis. Though supplies might be on the way, it would be weeks before relief would arrive in meaningful volume, and the Americans had already exhausted all the locally available resources—they had to move on. By separating his force and keeping them in motion, Greene believed his two smaller forces might find enough food to sustain them day-by-day because they’d be making much smaller demands on the areas through which they marched.

But Greene chose to divide his army not simply to alleviate his own supply problems, but to exacerbate supply problems for Cornwallis. By dividing his command into two very small forces, Greene believed each could move far more quickly than the larger British army, and thus both of his small groups could stay ahead of any pursuing British force. If Cornwallis over-confidently divided his own army to chase both American forces, Greene would have the two elements of his army draw the British units ever further apart, extending Cornwallis’ supply lines through the hostile Carolina backcountry, where Patriot militias could continually harass British supply convoys, and Greene’s own forces would clear the area of all local supplies. If Cornwallis moved his entire force after either element of Greene’s divided army, the pursued wing would simply out-run the British while the other wing would devastate the long British supply lines.

Greene’s plan worked to perfection. On December 21, 1780, Morgan left Greene’s army at Charlotte, moving 6,000 men to the southwest. Two weeks later, on January 2, 1781, Cornwallis divided his command, dispatching Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton to pursue Morgan while he shadowed Greene. Over the next two weeks, Morgan repeatedly withdrew, always keeping rivers between his men and the pursuing British and drawing Tarleton ever further from Cornwallis. On January 17, Morgan decided to engage the British at Hannah’s Cowpens and destroyed Tarleton’s command.

Cornwallis turned what remained of his command west, racing to catch and destroy Morgan before Greene could intervene. The British burned their own wagons to speed their movement, but to no avail. Greene and Morgan re-united and withdrew into North Carolina, drawing Cornwallis ever further from his base of supplies. When Cornwallis followed the Americans into North Carolina, Greene once again divided his force, sending Colonel Otho Williams to harass the British, who now suffered from ever-increasing logistical problems. On February 22, facing critical supply problems, Cornwallis abandoned his pursuit and began again marching south towards British-controlled territories.

Greene responded by also marching south, drawing close enough to tempt Cornwallis into battle. On March 15, 1781, Cornwallis rose to the challenge, attacking the Americans at Guilford Courthouse. The British won a tactical victory, but lost men and supplies they could not replace. For the next few weeks, Greene shadowed Cornwallis’ army at a safe distance, threatening the fragile British supply lines. He lost more than a dozen battles as he drew the British out of the Carolinas, but weakened his enemies with every encounter, a strategy Greene summarized when we wrote, “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.”

By late April 1781, Cornwallis led his army out of the Carolinas on an urgent march north towards Yorktown, where he hoped finally to re-supply his battered army. And, as I suspect you know, Washington and de la Fayette trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown, where his lack of supplies finally compelled Cornwallis to surrender his army.

American armies actually lost most of the major engagements of the Revolutionary War—Bunker Hill, Quebec, Brooklyn, Kip’s Bay, White Plains, Germantown, Brandywine, Savannah, Charleston, and more.

But men like Nathanael Greene illustrate why the Americans ultimately succeeded, despite repeated failures. He recognized his central weakness—he commanded a small army constantly struggling to supply itself—and turned that weakness into a decisive strength. Greene’s dogged resilience typified the men who won the Revolution, in the process forging the new nation.

David Stewart currently serves as a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Military History and Strategy at Hillsdale College, where he has taught since 1993. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio State and has published on a variety of topics relating to eighteenth-century military history.