To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan by Andrew Waters (review)

Andrew Waters tells the story of Nathanael Greene's "strategic retreat" over North Carolina's Dan River into Virginia (p. xx). This retreat was "designed to inflict a toll on his enemy while conserving his own military options further down the road" (p. xx). Greene was "a chess master, thinking moves ahead, designed to lure his opponent into a trap" (p. xx). Finally, this race to retreat "was responsible for Cornwallis's move to Yorktown" (p. xxi).

The first four chapters are introductory material, far too much for a book of this size. More exasperating is how repetitive Waters is. He repeats himself so much that it gets tedious. Did any editor at this publisher read the entire book? The John Marshall who wrote a biography of George Washington was the chief justice of the Supreme Court, not a later "historian" (p. 19). I have never heard of a general with an "inferiority complex" (p. 169). It must be a rare thing indeed. The author suggests Greene had one. If that were true, Greene should have immediately left when he saw the mess Horatio Gates made of the southern army.

Regarding the heroic Horatio Gates, he took command in New York only toward the end of John Burgoyne's invasion. Gates did very little to bring about the eventual American victory. If Gates had been any good, he would have still been in the British army. His disaster at the battle of Camden should not therefore surprise.

As for Banastre Tarleton's British Legion, the author is wrong when he says it was recruited from northern Loyalists. The legion and Lord Rawdon's Irish Volunteers were created to recruit American prisoners from the New York prison ships. In the South, they recruited from Charleston's prison ships and jails. These units, especially Tarleton's, were known to be "ruthless" (p. 32). The author relates one incident when some of the legion wanted to rape a group of Loyalist women, but some were just "slashed with swords" (p. 75). The actions of Tarleton's men were beyond the pale in that century. British regulars detested them. Throughout the war, the British showed a definite talent in attacking their own supporters. The author is certainly correct when he calls the British government's belief that there were a host of Loyalists in the South "a fiction" (p. 29).

Greene did prepare for a retreat across the Dan, but the hoarded boats were reasonably close to Cornwallis. If Cornwallis had better spies, he could have seized the boats, ending the retreat, and he would not have fallen for the diversion that drew the British away. As it was, a general warned Greene, "Rely on it, my Dear Sir it is possible (for you) to be overtaken before you can cross the Dan even if you had 20 Boats" (p. 189). The British were just twelve hours late. Cornwallis was truly exasperated by North Carolina's rivers. The retreat to the Dan could have been a disaster for the American cause.

The Continental army had much experience in retreating, and George Washington has been praised for his Fabian tactics. Greene knew all about the tactics his mentor had been using and had to have been inspired by them. Greene seems less like a chess master and more like a master juggler who managed to keep everything in the air until the ultimate victory. Waters, I believe, has done a service by giving the retreat to the Dan more attention.