Hey. Hey You know, sometimes, when I'm sad, I think about how a fighting quaker logistician from Rhode Island totally skunked an entire British army And then, much like Julie Andrews & her favorite things,I don't feel so sad Get in, fools, we're taking a history drunkscursion
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The first is a really angry gay German dude named von Steuben who takes over management of the department HQ and streamlines the f outta it. Then there's the crazy Polish engineer, Tadeusz Kosciusko, who's half cavalry commander, half theater engineer. Best of all worlds
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Then there's the OG himself, Daniel "you british pricks still owe me a lash, ya lazy sods" Morgan, who basically refuses to ever die and threatens retirement so much that it's just sort of a cute joke now. Morgan's a light infantry genius and crochety af. Greene sets him loose
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While Morgan goes all French and Indian War PTSD on the Brits, Greene takes a good hard look at his new theater of operatikns. And notes that holy shiznit, it's all cut up by rivers. Sure, he's out outnumbered 4-1, but if he can control river crossings, he can even the oddspic.twitter.com/0TPAxMeOec
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So he straight up commandeers, requisitions, impounds, and steals all the boats in the AO. And has some built, too. And gets wagons to haul boats. He goes boat crazy.pic.twitter.com/L2nvt0pvHh
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Coz Greene realizes that if he and Morgan harass Corny, he's gonna have to come out of his base on the coast to do something, in which case they go ape on his flanks. And if Corny tries to ignore them, well, then Greene can just build up his force. Win-win, Natty thinks
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Plus, if Cornwallis comes at him for real, Greene knows he can just cross a river and wave at Cornwallis from the other side, while the Brits have to build boats or bring them with them from the coast, which also takes time. Greene basically hacks the war in the south right offpic.twitter.com/X76PaIbn75
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Cornwallis, meanwhile, is v annoyed with all this nonsense and sends his light force off to deal with Morgan. This force is led by Banastre Tarleton, who is not so vile as he's painted, but let's just pretend he looks like Jason Isaacs. For funsies. Tarleton races after Morganpic.twitter.com/EVr4c7Ypap
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Morgan like three things best of all in life: taunting the British, fighting, and threatening to retire. At Cowpens on Jan 17, 1781, he gets to do 2/3 which ain't too shabby. Tarleton gets overexcited at seeing militia and charges them. They give a volley and then dutifully run
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Ok, 2 volleys to be accurate, whatever. Then the Brits suddenly hit Continentals SURPRISE who give em some lovely volleys, while Morgan's rifle bois pepper them from a hill. Morgan's been learning a LOT and has set a nice lil trap & kicks Tarleton's ass Then threatens to retire
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The win is big for continental morale, but it's also big because it cripples Corny's recon abilities. So Cornwallis decides to do what he's always done: be bold and impetuous to save South Carolina by... invading North Carolina Greene is likepic.twitter.com/JJiRd5Ctxu
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Cornwallis has his army destroy all non essentials to march faster, INCLUDING THEIR RUM RATION The horror. The horror. The rum is gone FOR MILITARY NECESSITY and this is also when British desertions spikepic.twitter.com/wxPtjGW43Z
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But hold up, hold up we didn't marvel at the masterpiece that is cowpens. Like. It's like the Mona Lisa. Without the creepy vibes. Morgan makes Tarleton commit his infantry, has the militia reform on his flank, has Washington's nephew's cavalry on the other flank and then attacks
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Hit on the front and both flanks, Tarleton barely gets away with his life, and about 200 troops Utter genius on Morgan's part. Anyhoo. Back to Cornwallis who's deciding to pursue Greene. Meanwhile, Greene just keeps falling back. With his boats. Forcing Cornwallis to find fordspic.twitter.com/NoKA1chGCB
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Tarleton's still a dangerous boy, even after getting triple teamed. Err. Yeah, whatever. banny and corny keep slowly hopping rivers, getting further and further from their supply lines, as Greene crosses another river Meanwhile, Morgan takes a leave of absence. Because dysentery
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Morgan keeps imitating a frog hopping across lilly pads while Cornwallis plods on, getting so far from his base of supplies that he finally halts and realizes that he's gotta gtfo otherwise he's gonna do a Burgoyne and lose his army And nobody wants to do a Burgoyne
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By March of 1781, Greene and Cornwallis have been dancing around north Carolina for a few months Not anything too crazy Maybe some waltzing or a foxtrot Never a tango Then Greene decides it's time and grinds all up on Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse
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Greene tries to pull a Morgan at Cowpens but it doesn't quite work out. Everyone just ends up shooting at each other and refusing to back down, which is sorta the worst case scenario for 18th century battles. Greene's like "eff this, man" and bails. Corny claims a W.pic.twitter.com/01preHFq5U
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With his "win" Cornwallis withdraws to Fayetteville, then realizing that's not a win either, he retreats from there, too Fayettenam, man Meanwhile, Greene keeps bobbing and weaving around the Carolinas, trying to keep his weird coalition of regulars and crazies together
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By the summer of 1781, Greene has, thru a mixture of losing battles and marching - and pure new England cussedness - pushed the Brits back to basically small areas around savannah and Charleston Yes, I said losing battles. He loses, but his enemies are worse off. They withdraw
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Meanwhile, Cornwallis has the BRILLIANT idea to defeat Greene: outflank him and go to Yorktown, VA, to destroy Greene's base of supplies I mean, it briefs well Corny just has the bad luck to go to VA the one time in the war that the Americans & French coordinate their shitpic.twitter.com/eZjifBI9qg
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This of course leads to GW leaving his NY fires burning, slipping outta there like it was a bad booty call, and scooting down the coast just in time to meet Rochambeau and the French while the French Navy does navy stuff to the Royal Navypic.twitter.com/JaTT8Hcra7
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This is where Corny realizes that he's possibly actually pulled a Burgoyne Which you never wanna dopic.twitter.com/LFluwXA1ia
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Sooooo, uh, yeah, what was the original question. Oh there wasn't a question, I just drank too much and started tweeting, didn't I. Woops. Occupational hazard. But yeah, that's Nathaniel fuckin greene for ya. Just winning by losing. All over the damn place.
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Lesson being, that uh, well the lesson The lesson is The lesson is that if you're gonna drink on a school night, drink water, too, which is a lesson that I regrettably arrived at too late. Just like Cornwallis That's a wrap on your
#drunjhistory, tip yer wait staff etcShow this thread
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