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Example research essay topic: Sir Henry North Carolina - 1,558 words

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... pine woods. Out of approximately 3000 Americans engaged, only about 700 escaped. Immediately afterward Cornwallis sent his favorite cavalry officer, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, to deal with Thomas Sumter's little army of 1000.

Tarleton dealt in spades; he caught Sumter literally napping on Fishing Creek, and destroyed or scattered his entire force. With all effective resistance crushed, Cornwallis began a rather leisurely invasion of North Carolina late in September, establishing a base of operations in Charlotte. Almost immediately, things began to go wrong. Patriot resistance was proving more stubborn than expected, and Tory cooperation had turned out to be less than hoped. The British high command had never understood how to make use of their American allies, a deficiency never more glaring than in the south. A capable British officer, Major Patrick Ferguson, was appointed to recruit and train the Tory militia and bring them under Cornwallis's command.

But almost soon as he had raised a force of about 1000, Ferguson managed to get them wiped out (and himself with them) at the Battle of King's Mountain on the border between North and South Carolina. Ferguson's defeat so demoralized the local Tories that Cornwallis was convinced he could expect no support from them. Accordingly, after occupying Charlotte for only three weeks, he pulled his troops in mid-October and established winter quarters in Winnsboro, South Carolina. For the next few months his hands were full keeping supply lines open and putting down the guerilla bands that seemed to be popping up everywhere. For this he relied extensively on Col. Tarleton, who was young, brave, swift, and ruthless.

But not even Tarleton could subdue such resourceful fighters as Francis Marion (the "Swamp Fox") or Thomas Sumter, who had gathered another band of volunteers and was making life miserable for British details and foragers. All these little engagements were endlessly frustrating to Cornwallis, who longed for a decisive battle to bring the conflict to a head. In December certain developments seemed to offer him the opportunity he had been waiting for, when General Nathanael Greene arrived to take command of the American army in the south. Only about two weeks later Greene divided his troops, which numbered a mere 2000.

Roughly half the army marched west under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, a hero of the revolution and a formidable foe. The other half moved east to a camp at Cheraw, South Carolina. Although he hardly knew what to make of Greene's unorthodox maneuver, Cornwallis worked out a plan to deal with it: Colonel Tarleton, with his own cavalry plus two regiments of light infantry, would chase Morgan eastward and either destroy the Americans or run them into the main British command under Cornwallis. With Morgan's army out of the way, they would then be in a position to deal with Greene's.

It sounded wonderful, but in his enthusiasm for the boy colonel, Cornwallis forgot that Tarleton was still very young, reckless, and relatively inexperienced. Daniel Morgan decidedly out-maneuvered him at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, with the result that Tarleton lost almost all of his superior's light troops. Nathanael Greene soon reunited the American army and began a strategic retreat across North Carolina. Almost frantic to get his light troops back, the Earl piled up all superfluous supplies -- such as tents, extra blankets, and rum -- and burned them so that his own army could travel faster in pursuit. Thus began the "race to the Dan" (i. e. , the Dan River, which marked the border between North Carolina and Virginia), an exciting chase undertaken in the near-steady rains of February, through innumerable flooded creeks and rivers under conditions as miserable for the British as they were for the Americans.

Cornwallis has been criticized for burning his supply wagons, because he sacrificed everything that makes a soldier's life bearable and ultimately gained nothing by it. But he almost caught his prey; at times the American rear guard and the British vanguard were less than a mile apart. If he had succeeded in crushing Greene's army, the judgment of history would doubtless be much kinder to the Earl. But the desperate gamble failed.

Still seeking a decisive battle, Cornwallis retreated to Hillsboro, North Carolina and rested his exhausted troops. A few weeks after making his escape, Nathanael Greene felt his own army sufficiently strong to meet Cornwallis in a pitched battle, so he crossed the border again and established a position at Guilford Court House, about 25 miles west of Hillsboro. Obligingly Cornwallis marched to meet him. The resulting Battle of Guilford Court House is considered by some to be the hardest-fought of the entire war; "I never saw such fighting, " Cornwallis later declared, "since God made me. " The Earl displayed his courage and tenacity as a combat commander (at one point, he ordered the artillery to shell the lines his own men were fighting in) but also his deficiencies as a strategist. Though he won the battle, the victory gave him no advantage. After lingering in the area for several days, he marched his army to the North Carolina coast and spent the month of April in Wilmington.

General Clinton in New York declined to give his subordinate any clear orders, which Cornwallis failed to solicit anyway; thus developed a fatal lack of communication that would bear bitter fruit in time. At the end of April, Cornwallis determined to take ship for Virginia and continue the war there; precisely where he got this notion and what he expected to accomplish thereby is not clear. But his experience in the Carolinas was so miserable he was ready to give them up as a lost cause. If this war could be won at all, it would have to be won by engaging the Continental army under Washington himself. Throughout the summer, Cornwallis skirmished through eastern Virginia in engagements with the Marquis de LaFayette. In July he almost captured the Marquis' army at Green Spring Farm, but nightfall intervened and allowed the Americans to escape.

Late in the summer he was ordered by Sir Henry Clinton to select and fortify a post along the coastline that could be used as a supply base for the Royal Navy. His scouts located a promising location: a smallish town at the headwaters of the York River, ten miles east of Williamsburg. It was called Yorktown. The main American army was still encamped in New Jersey, where Washington was trying to put together a coalition of French and American field troops to recapture New York City.

In August, however, Washington learned that the French navy was now available for a bottling-up operation. Once it was discovered that Cornwallis was digging fortifications at Yorktown, opportunity knocked loud and clear. Washington slipped around New York City and was well on the way to Virginia before Clinton realized his objective. Throughout the month of September, communications between Clinton and Cornwallis were vague and vacillating; the commander-in-chief delayed reinforcements or even the promise of them until late in September.

Then, on the basis of a pledge that Clinton himself would be sailing south with the British fleet, Cornwallis decided to stay where he was. It was a fatal decision, for contrary winds and Clinton's own contrary nature delayed him. By the time Cornwallis understood this, it was too late to do anything about it; he was blocked off by land and soon by sea, once the French fleet had arrived. The bombardment of Yorktown began on October 9, with terrible destruction to the British lines. A last-ditch attempt to escape over the York River to the British post at Gloucester Point was thwarted by a storm, and by October 17, Cornwallis knew it was all over. His surrender on that day effectively brought an end to the war, though it would be two years before an official agreement was signed.

Cornwallis was so mortified that he claimed to be ill and sent his second-in-command, Brigadier General Charles O'Hara, to hand over his sword to the enemy. Only later did the Earl discover that on that same day, Sir Henry Clinton had finally sailed out of New York harbor with the promised reinforcements. The first few years after cessation of hostilities were marred by a public squabble with Clinton over who was responsible for the humiliating defeat, but Cornwallis soon began to recover his damaged reputation. In 1786 he accepted the difficult post of Governor General of India, where, he reformed the administrative system and set about untangling the impossible web of Indian politics. He also proved he'd had learned something about tactics in his American adventure, when he effectively put down a rebellion by Sultan Tippoo Sahib against the Rajah of Travancore, an ally of the King. The grateful British government sent him to Ireland in 1798 to quell yet another rebellion there; he served with admirable restraint and diplomacy.

A few years later, dutiful as always, he returned to India at the age of 67, with the unenviable task of putting an end to "this most unprofitable and ruinous warfare" against rival native factions. He had hardly begun the task when he was stricken by fever. On October 5, 1805, Lord Cornwallis died at Ghazipore on the Ganges River. His grave and monument there are maintained by the Indian government to this day. Bibliography:


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Research essay sample on Sir Henry North Carolina

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