General Greene had a task before him that would have discouraged any man lacking in energy and resolution. The army, such as it was, wanted everything an army should have had. After the battle of Camden there was little left that could be called a military force, it being so utterly shattered that Gates himself was seen soon after the battle eighty miles from the battlefield and without a soldier. The scattered forces Greene found lacked discipline, clothing, arms, and spirit. Bad handling and defeat had taken the very life out of them, and their new general had a hard task in bringing them together and supplying them with the necessaries of life.

Congress had no money to give him for supplies, the term of service of most of the men was at an end, and the new forces he gathered were mostly raw militia, who knew nothing of drill or discipline and had never seen a gun fired on a battle-field. With this sorry shadow of an army General Greene set out to face the old and able troops under Cornwallis.

The story is told that, on one occasion during the campaign, Greene reached a tavern at Salisbury, North Carolina, after midnight, wet to the skin with the heavy rain. Steele, the landlord, who knew him, looked at him with surprise, and asked if he was alone.

"Yes," he said, in a disconsolate tone, "tired, hungry, alone, and penniless."

Mrs. Steele, who heard him, hastened to set before him a smoking hot meal. Then she drew from under her apron two bags of silver and held them out to her guest, saying, "Take these: you need them and we can do without them."

It was this spirit in the women of the Carolinas

that greatly helped the men in those times of stress and strain.

Greene gradually got together an army of about two thousand men, regulars and militia, half clad and half supplied. With these he faced the veterans of Cornwallis. With him were three excellent officers, Daniel Morgan, the famous rifleman, William Washington, cousin to the commander-in-chief, and Henry Lee, the daring “Light Horse Harry."

The first battle was fought on January 17, 1781, at Cowpens, South Carolina, where Morgan, with nine hundred men, met a larger force under the notorious Colonel Tarleton, and defeated them so completely that they were almost destroyed. Morgan's loss was very small.

When the news of this victory reached Greene and his army it filled them with joy and hope. But Cornwallis was now hastily advancing with his whole army, much larger and better equipped than that of Greene, who was too weak to meet him. Morgan hastened to join him, crossing the Catawba River just as Cornwallis appeared on the other side. That night a heavy rain swelled the stream and the British could not cross it for three days. It was a happy meeting when Greene and Morgan came together. Northward they marched, reaching and crossing the Yadkin. When Cornwallis came to this stream he was again vexed to find it swollen with rain. Still the two armies sped northward till the forks of the Dan River were reached. Again Greene was first and crossed over to Virginia soil, holding the fords so firmly that Cornwallis dared not follow him.

By this masterly retreat he had drawn the British commander two hundred miles from his base and

baffled him at every point. Washington wrote him when he heard of it, "your retreat before Cornwallis is highly applauded by all ranks."

Reinforcements reaching him, Greene soon felt strong enough to advance and at every point to harass the retreating British. When Guilford Court-House was reached the position of the invaders was so critical that Cornwallis was forced to turn and fight. Greene met him boldly. The militia were soon broken and fled, but the Continental regulars held their own with much courage. In the end they were driven back, but the British had been so roughly handled that they had no heart to pursue these unbroken troops. It was a defeat for Greene, but it had all the effect of a victory. Cornwallis found his army so cut up that it was in no shape for a further fight, supplies were sadly needed, and he retreated to Wilmington, North Carolina, which he reached in very bad plight.

South Carolina was abandoned in the retreat. Cornwallis never returned there, but made his way north into Virginia, where he met his fate at Yorktown. Greene pursued him for some distance towards Wilmington, then turned and made a march two hundred miles long into South Carolina. Here he was joined by the active partisan leaders, Sumter, Marion, and Pickins, and encamped at Hobkirk's Hill, near Camden, where Lord Rawdon was in command.

Rawdon attacked and defeated him on April 25, but it was another defeat that had the effect of a victory, and Rawdon found Camden an unsafe place to hold. Greene went on taking post after post from the British, and on September 8 met the forces under Rawdon again at Eutaw Springs. Here a sharp battle

was fought, in which Greene lost heavily and was forced from his positions. Once more his defeat served as a victory, for Rawdon had got more than he bargained for and during the night he left the field, retreating towards Charleston.

It was during this battle that a soldier of Lee's legion, named Manning, while pursuing a flying regiment, found himself suddenly alone in the midst of the enemy. Not an American was near. Without hesitation he seized an officer by the collar, wrested his sword from him and backed off, drawing him along as a shield.

"I am Sir Henry Barry," cried the dismayed officer, "deputy adjutant-general, and captain in the Fiftysecond regiment."

"That will do," said Manning, "you are just the man I was looking for."

Thus Greene went on, technically defeated, but winning everywhere by his skill and strategy, and before the end of the year he had the British shut up in Charleston and the States of the South freed from their hands. Shortly afterwards the gallant defender of the South was gladdened with the news of Washington's brilliant feat and the surrender of his old foe, Cornwallis, at Yorktown.

Practically the war was ended, but Greene was kept busy till the end of 1782, watching the British garrisons, while his own army was in the greatest distress. Food, clothing, money, ammunition were wanting; sickness broke out, and finally mutiny. His force grew so small that he proposed to enlist negro soldiers, but this the authorities would not permit, nor would they let the soldiers forage for food. Their condition was fairly desperate when the war ended and their

gladdened eyes saw the last of the British sail away from Charleston. Great was the rejoicing, while throughout the country the name of Greene was hailed as second only to that of Washington.

Congress had voted him a gold medal in honor of his services at Eutaw Springs, and the Carolinas and Georgia granted him valuable tracts of land. These he pledged to secure food and clothing for his soldiers, and most of his land was lost through the false dealing of a man whom he trusted. On the remainder he settled down in Georgia in 1785, and here, on the 19th of June, 1786, he died of a sunstroke, which attacked him while walking in his fields.

His widow remained there, and it was she who, in 1792, suggested to Eli Whitney the need of a cottoncleaning machine, and encouraged him in that series of experiments which ended in the invention of the invaluable cotton-gin.