There was increasing disharmony between regular Continental troops and the militiamen from the south, who had admired Morgan but found Williams arrogant, insensitive to their needs, and lacking any understanding of their proud status as volunteers. Knowing of the prospective engagement, Williams decided that he needed more foot soldiers instead of cavalry, and ordered the South Carolina and Georgia militia to send their horses home. They immediately threatened to resign from service, and the colonel was forced to cancel his order for them to dismount. Two days later, to avoid confronting the superior British troops, Williams rushed to ford Reedy Fork Creek with his regular forces, and ordered the already aggravated militia and some Virginia riflemen to cover his rear, where the British attack was focused.

When Williams’s troops were safe, General Andrew Pickens went to headquarters to inform General Greene that he and his men would be returning to their homes farther south. They had served unfailingly for two months, during the most challenging times and far beyond their original expectation. Since the Continental force had now received a substantial increase in troops, to almost 4,500, General Greene agreed with their decision. He suggested to Pickens that the Georgia and Carolina militia might consider concentrating on taking Ninety Six.

Cornwallis had less than two thousand men in his army now, all of whom had been on short rations for the past six weeks. Still, both sides were ready for a showdown, and Greene decided to deploy his force at Guilford Courthouse on terrain with which he was thoroughly familiar. He remembered Morgan’s strategy at Cowpens and put the North Carolina militia in the front line, with orders to his seasoned troops in the second and third ranks to shoot them if they fled. Some did fight, at least to fire one round from their muskets, but the British pressed forward as one thousand militiamen dropped their weapons and all other impediments and ran away. Cornwallis pressed forward through thick woods and, when the most vicious hand-to-hand fighting was at its peak and the outcome for his men was in doubt, ordered the firing of grapeshot into the general melee.

The British ultimately prevailed, as Greene withdrew in order to save the remainder of his Continental army, the only one in the south. However, the British also suffered heavy losses. A London commentator said, “Lord Cornwallis has conquered his army out of shoes and provisions and himself out of troops.” The British troops moved slowly back to Wilmington and then to Charles Town, where they received food and other supplies from British ships, and then headed, once again, for Virginia. At the same time, Nathanael Greene moved his troops, almost unopposed, back into the south. The two forces passed each other, with the Continentals farther west.

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