Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

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strongly enough about the retreat several years later to write that ‘few armies ever encountered greater difficulties and hardships’, with ankle-deep mud, rain for days, and no tents. 109 With the supply lines at least partially severed and certainly thought unsafe, there was a shortage of food, supplies, and opportunities to forage. John Robert Shaw recalled that ‘we made our retreat like lost sheep, not knowing where to go, no forage, no provisions for our men, though marching day and night’. 110 No meat or bread for two weeks had a deleterious effect not only on the physical but also the mental health of the men. A few of the British Legion had suffered enough and deserted during this time along with many Loyalists. 111 That month, 115 British soldiers died . 112 The rain in one way proved beneficial to Cornwallis as it prevented the enemy from attacking his men. For several days the American Militia followed the British but could not find an opportunity to attack. By 24 October, the first invasion of North Carolina had essentially concluded when the last of Cornwallis’s men unceremoniously crossed to the west side of the Catawba River at Land’s Ford, South Carolina. Three days later, he settled in Winnsborough, South Carolina, a retreat of over 96 kilometres. Was Cornwallis’s first invasion of North Carolina the prudent and necessary measure he stated? If the primary goal was to come to the aid of Loyalists in North Carolina and raise a ‘corps’, the significant and spirited uprising for which he had hoped did not occur. There was indeed a Loyalist uprising in early October, but it was as quickly and efficiently suppressed as those prior to 1780. If the aim was to establish British posts in North Carolina to provide ‘security to the frontier’, then that not only failed but emboldened American efforts. It is hard to deny that the first invasion of North Carolina was a high-stakes gamble, the supposed advantages of which were outweighed by any complication or problem that might arise. Cornwallis was determined from the very start of his command in June 1780 to invade North Carolina, seemingly at all costs. There is no evidence that he deliberated or evaluated the problems that confronted him enough to change his original plan. Nor was there a consideration of a strategy that involved remaining in South Carolina, which, in the long term, with diligence and patience, may have yielded the desired goal: the return of both Carolinas to Crown control. British efforts at recruiting Loyalists, the central component of their ‘southern strategy’, largely ceased after the invasion, which had contributed to substantial losses in both Regular and Loyalist forces in skirmishes, illness, and desertions. Likewise, substantial amounts of stores abandoned on the retreat could only be replaced with considerable difficulty from Charles Town. For all of their experiences with the American Militia as an adversary, the British never did devise effective tactics to combat them. Politically, the first invasion was a public relations 109 Stedman, American War, II, pp. 224-225. 110 J.R. Shaw, A Narrative of the Life & Travels of John Robert Shaw, the Well Digger, now resident in Lexington, Kentuck y (Lexington: Printed by Daniel Bradford, 1807), p. 57. 111 Davidson to Nash, 22 Oct. 1780, CSRNC , XV, pp. 127-128. 112 Kopperman, “Medical Dimension,” p. 372.