I’ve started breaking up longer car trips to include
overnight stops and a visit to favorite bookstores, new museums, battlefields,
etc. I recently was able to visit GuilfordCourthouse National Military Park, preserving a significant portion of the
battlefield in modern Greensboro, North Carolina. The Park has a Visitor’s Center with parking
near the entrance. The Center presents
some exhibits related to the battle including a reproduction British Army
‘grasshopper’ gun and a very nice collection of artwork on the battle by Don
Troiani. A roughly 30 minute long film is shown in the Visitor’s Center theatre
every hour and there is a shorter 10 minute program animating the battlefield
maps to illustrate the course of the battle.
The largest battle of the American Revolution fought in the
Carolinas, Guilford Courthouse offers many interesting aspects of warfare of
the period from tactics to logistics, from command to the factors that support
of breakdown an individual soldier’s morale.
The outlines of the battle itself as fought by both sides may be
familiar to fans of the film “The Patriot” which drew upon elements of this
battle and The Cowpens for its fictional major battle.
The park today is mostly wooded just as this area was at the
time of the battle and covers about 250 acres of the original battlefield with
suburbia butting up against it on every side. The areas occupied by the flanks
of both armies, however, are now in the adjacent cemetery, county park, or
neighboring subdivisions. The Military Park
also straddles a local commuter route, Old Battleground Road, but there are
traffic signals to get you across it to the other part of the battlefield. The park has been very much adopted by local
runners, walkers, cyclists, and dog walkers which at least suggests local
support for its continued preservation (and a need for caution if you drive or
bicycle during your visit.)
Brochures and cd-audio guides available in the Visitor’s
Center shop will direct you along a 2.25 mile long self-guided tour featuring 8
stops each with one or more placards relating to the people and events of
interest at that stop. These stops are
linked to the park-wide system of paved walking trails which, while rough in
spots, appear wheelchair accessible (you might want to contact the Park staff
before visiting to make sure this is still true). A wider grass pathway through the park
follows the original trace of the Great Salisbury Wagon Road (Historic New
Garden Road) which brought the armies together at this spot. Also indicated is an approximate area
location for the long lost Guilford Courthouse building which gave its name to
the battlefield.
The main part of the battle lasted about two hours and I
easily spent that much time in the Visitor’s Center, its Shop, and in driving
the auto tour, walking to all of the related markers and sites at each
stop. Frankly, I could happily spend
most of a day here pursuing a more detailed and slower paced examination of the
battle from beginning to end.
The area in which Cornwallis assembled and formed the
British Army for battle is actually outside the park, although a part of that
assembly area is preserved in the nearby Hoskins Farmstead/Colonial Heritage
Center property. The first of the three
American lines crosses the modern New Garden Road just inside the National
Military Park before you reach the Visitor’s Center. Its right (north) wing extended into the
modern suburbs and the extreme left (south) wing likewise stretched out beyond its
side of the park.
From the Visitor’s Center, you can walk the greenway that
marks the path of the original Salisbury Wagon Road used by both armies or
begin the walking/biking/auto tour (as I did by car for reasons of time). The greenway/Wagon Road route offers a sense
of what the wooded battlefield was like for both armies and takes you across
the center of the first two American lines.
The self-guided tour road/path takes you across the left wing of the first
two American lines and then to the leftmost edge of the third and final
American line.
From the 3rd stop of the tour, a path takes you
to the Nathanael Greene Monument at the approximate center of the second
American line and near the path of the old wagon road. This 2nd line of Virginians
offered more prolonged resistance to the advancing British but eventually the 2nd
Line too was broken and the pieces withdrew in different directions through the
wooded terrain. During the battle itself Greene appears to
have spent most of his time with his third strongest battle line anticipating
the climactic moment of engagement for both sides.
That 3rd American battle line had about twice the distance
between itself and the 2nd line as there was between the first two lines. None of them were close enough to offer
effective support to each other, although this also meant each line was less
likely to be dragged into the fight at the previous line. Instead, they constituted independent and
increasingly difficult obstacles placed in the path of the British through wooded
and difficult terrain. From stop No 6 on
the guided trail, you can walk to the area held by the Maryland Regiment where
it clashed with the British Guards and grenadiers. There is also a cavalry monument on the field
though given the numbers I would consider it more to have been a ‘mounted
action’ between elements of cavalry on both sides rather than the classic clash
of sabers charge.
The Maryland Regiment was of particular interest since my
former Maryland Army National Guard unit claimed the legacy of the Marylanders
of the Revolution. Here at Guilford
Courthouse, the 1st Maryland clashed with the British Brigade of Guards. The Guards, the Marylanders, and Colonel
Washington’s horse were all a part of a melee on the American left where two
American guns were the target of the Guards’ attentions. Volleys were exchanged and each side charged
the other in a complex action as the Guards had to address the Marylanders in
one direction and the mounted Americans in another. All those engaged were veterans and fought
like it. It was during these actions
that the British guns reportedly fired into the brawling mass inflicting
casualties on both sides, though the legend that this was done at the order of
Cornwallis is challenged in a number of accounts.
The now worn American Army with many of its units scattered under
British pressure faced a tired and worn British Army. Green was able to mount an effective rear
guard as the rest of the army began its retreat to a former camp of the army
some 15 miles away. The Americans had
lost the battle but Greene imposed such a price for the victory that instead of
pursuing the British Army began a withdrawal that would ultimately end in surrender
at Yorktown, Virginia. Nathanael Greene
would describe the two hour battle as “long, obstinate, and bloody” probably
based upon the intensity of those two hours of almost continuous, intense combat.
