portance. On the 12th of May,
1780, the city of Charleston capitulated, between six and seven
thousand prisoners being taken. Clinton then returned to New York,
leaving Lord Cornwallis in command in the south. The latter proposed
to remain quiet during the hot months; but the activity of the
American partisan troops prevented this, and in July the approach of a
small, but relatively formidable force, under General Gates, compelled
him to take the field. On the 16th of August the two little armies
met at Camden, and the Americans, who were much the more numerous, but
largely irregulars, were routed decisively. This news reached General
Washington in the north nearly at the same moment that the treason of
Benedict Arnold became known. Although the objects of his treachery
were frustrated, the sorrowful words, "Whom now can we trust?" show
the deep gloom which for the moment shadowed the constant mind of the
American Commander-in-Chief. It was just at this period, too, that
Rodney arrived at New York.

Cornwallis, not content with his late success, decided to push on into
North Carolina. Thus doing, he separated himself from his naval base
in Charleston, communication with which by land he had not force
to maintain, and could recover effective touch with the sea only in
Chesapeake Bay. This conclusion was not apparent from the first.
In North Carolina, the British general did not receive from the
inhabitants the substantial support which he had expected, and found
himself instead in a very difficult and wild country, confronted by
General Greene, the second in ability of all the American leaders.
Harassed and baffled, he was compelled to order supplies to be sent
by sea to Wilmington, North Carolina, an out-of-the-way and inferior
port, to which he turned aside, arriving exhausted on the 7th of
April, 1781. The question as to his future course remained to be
settled. To return to Charleston by sea was in his power, but to do so
would be an open confession of failure,--that he could not return by
land, through the country by which he had come--much the same dilemma
as that of Howe and Clinton in Philadelphia. To support him in his
distress by a diversion, Sir Henry Clinton had sent two successive
detachments to ravage the valley of the James River in Virginia.
These were still there, under the command of General Phillips; and
Cornwallis, in the circumstances, could see many reasons that thither
was the very scene to carry