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Lord Rawdon and General Greene

From Diary of the American Revolution, Vol II.  Compiled by Frank Moore and published in 1859.

May 12.—Lord Rawdon having on the 7th instant been reinforced by the corps under Lieutenant-Colonel Watson, marched out with the hope of bringing General Greene to action; but that wary officer, rendered still more so by the event of the 25th of April,1 chose to remain in a strong position, behind Swansey Creek, from which no efforts of his lordship could draw him; he rather preferring to see his enemy manoeuvre in his front, with all the confidence of a victorious army, than contest a point, of which former experience must have rendered him so very cautious. Lord Rawdon, therefore, finding it impossible to draw on an action, but on terms highly disadvantageous, and by assailing a position which gave the rebels their only security, returned to Camden, having convinced General Greene how futile were his ideas of blockading that place, when obliged himself to seek shelter in the recesses of the country, and even there to suffer that blockaded garrison to taunt him with daily defiance.

Thus finding all efforts to engage General Greene in a fair field were ineffectual, Lord Rawdon removed with the king’s troops from Camden [May 9], induced thereto by the approaching season, when that part of the country proves destructive to the soldiery.2

 

1 See April 25th, 1781 (Volume II, Chapter IX)
2 Pennsylvania Packet, July 12.