of Guilford Court House, and Cornwallis's eventual defeat at the siege of Yorktown in Virginia in October 1781. Background On October 14, 1780, Continental Army commander General George Washington chose Nathanael Greene, a Rhode Island Quaker officer, to be commander of the Southern Department of the Continental forces. Greene's task was not an easy one. In 1780 the Carolinas had been the scene of a long string of disasters for the Continental Army, the worst being the capture of one American army under Gen. Benjamin Lincoln in May 1780, at the siege of Charleston. The British then occupied the city, the largest in the South and the capital of South Carolina. Later that year, another Colonial army, commanded by General Horatio Gates, was defeated at the Battle of Camden. A victory of colonial militia over their Loyalist counterparts at the Battle of Kings Mountain on the northwest frontier in October had bought time, but most of South Carolina was still occupied by the British. When Greene took command, the southern army numbered 2307 men on paper (1482 present), of whom only 949 were Continental regulars, mostly of the famous and highly trained "Maryland Line" regiment. On December 3, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan reported for duty to Greene's headquarters at Charlotte, North Carolina. At the start of the Revolution, Morgan, whose military experience dated to the French and Indian War (1754–1763), had served at the siege of Boston in 1775. Later he participated in the 1775 invasion of Canada and its climactic battle, the Battle of Quebec. That battle, on December 31, 1775, ended in defeat and Morgan's capture by the British. Morgan was exchanged in January 1777 and placed by George Washington in command of a picked force of 500 trained riflemen, known as Morgan's Riflemen. Morgan and his men played a key role in the 1777 victory at Saratoga along the Hudson River in upstate New York, which proved to be a turning point of the entire war. Bitter after being passed over for promotion and plagued by severe attacks of sciatica, Morgan left the army in 1779. A year later, he was promoted to brigadier general and returned to service in the Southern Department. Greene decided that his weak army could not meet the British in a stand-up fight. He made the unconventional decision to divide his army, sending a detachment west of the Catawba River to raise