It mattered little that, after this,
the British won minor victories. Lord Rawdon, still holding
Camden, defeated Greene on the 25th of April at Hobkirk's Hill.
None the less did Rawdon find his position untenable and he, too,
was forced to march to the sea, which he reached at a point near
Charleston. Augusta, the capital of Georgia, fell to the
Americans on the 5th of June and the operations of the summer
went decisively in their favor. The last battle in the field of
the farther South was fought on the 8th of September at Eutaw
Springs, about fifty miles northwest of Charleston. The British
held their position and thus could claim a victory. But it was
fruitless. They had been forced steadily to withdraw. All the
boasted fabric of royal government in the South had come down
with a crash and the Tories who had supported it were having evil
days.
While these events were happening farther south, Cornwallis
himself, without waiting for word from Clinton in New York, had
adopted his own policy and marched from Wilmington northward into
Virginia. Benedict Arnold was now in Virginia doing what mischief
he could to his former friends. In January he burned the little
town of Richmond, destined in the years to come to be a great
center in another civil war.
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