By the late summer of 1781, the American Revolution was drawing to a close. Hoping to inflict more damage to the British, Major General Nathanael Greene planned a strike at the one remaining British army in South Carolina. The Battle of Eutaw Springs, fought on September 8, 1781, sixty miles from Charleston, resulted in another frustrating loss for General Nathanael Greene and his Continental Army, a fight Greene described as the most obstinate he ever saw.

On October 14, 1780, General Nathanael Greene was appointed commander of the southern Continental Army by General George Washington and tasked with salvaging the desperate situation in the southern theater. Confronting Greene and his skeleton force was a British army of 3,200 trained, experienced men led by Lord Charles Cornwallis, arguably the best British general in North America.

In September 1780, Lord Charles Cornwallis ordered Major Patrick Ferguson to secure North Carolina. Ferguson, a very capable British officer, issued a proclamation to the Overmountain Men of the Watauga River Valley in present day Tennessee to “desist from their opposition to British arms” or he would “lay waste their country with fire and sword.” Isaac Shelby and John Sevier rallied 1,000 men in Sycamore Shoals and advanced through Yellow Mountain Gap to the east side of the Appalachians. Ferguson decided to confront the Tennesseans at King’s Mountain, just inside the South Carolina border. The fight raged for an hour, but Ferguson’s militia was no match for the Tennesseans.

On the morning of August 16, 1780, Lord Charles Cornwallis’s Redcoats and the Southern Continental Army under General Horatio Gates clashed near Camden, the site of a British supply depot. Gates led 3,000 men, but two-thirds were inexperienced militiamen, while Cornwallis had 2,200 seasoned British regulars at his command. The final result was catastrophic for the Americans; in essence, the Southern Continental Army ceased to exist. But this victory at Camden would be the high-water mark of the British southern campaign. Soon, the tide would turn, and the resilient Americans would gain the upper hand.

To restore a presence in the south following the fall of Charleston, Congress named General Horatio Gates, a weak but politically well-connected officer, as the new southern commander. Gates inherited a small but well-trained group of Continental soldiers that was starving and waiting for reinforcements and supplies to catch up when Gates took command.