The Victor Who Lost

Greene knew before the guns fired what the battle was supposed to accomplish. Not a victory — he wasn't going to beat Cornwallis's regulars in a straight fight. He was going to make Cornwallis pay a price the British army in North Carolina could not afford to pay.

The three-line formation was designed with this in mind. Militia in front would fire and fall back. Virginia militia in the second line would give the British more resistance. The Continental regulars in the third — Maryland and Virginia veterans — would make the British work for every foot of the courthouse hill.

What Greene had calculated was that Cornwallis, to win the field, would have to bleed his army down to something that could no longer operate in the North Carolina interior. The march to Wilmington, the turn to Virginia — those weren't bold strategic choices. They were what Cornwallis did because he had no other options.

After the battle, Greene wrote to Joseph Reed: "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." He lost at Guilford Courthouse. He lost at Hobkirk's Hill. He lost at Ninety Six. He never won a tactical victory in the entire Southern Campaign. And at the end of it, the British were confined to coastal enclaves, their army at Yorktown marching into captivity. The general who won by losing.