WEBVTT NOTE 52. The Southern Strategy 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Volume 4, Chapter 52, The Southern Strategy 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:14.000 The main theater of war, however, the theater that decided victory or defeat, was not the North or the West. 3 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:18.000 The South's great travail had begun. 4 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:25.000 As John Shy has shown in a brilliant essay on British strategy during the Revolutionary War, 5 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:29.000 that strategy proceeded in three successive stages. 6 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:51.000 The first stage, from the coercive acts in early 1774 until the end of 1776, was seen by the British as a quick police action, or punishment operation, against the main rebel center of Boston, after which the other colonies and even rural Massachusetts would quickly come to heel. 7 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:58.000 But this strategy proved counterproductive and the rebellion spread throughout the American colonies. 8 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:13.000 After the outbreak of the war and with their troops bottled up in Boston, the British proceeded to the second stage of their strategy, a conventional interstate war against the rebel Continental Army. 9 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:22.000 When this strategy collapsed at Saratoga, they withdrew to bases at New York and Newport and reconsidered their strategy. 10 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:40.000 By late 1778, they had decided on seizing the nettle of new large-scale revolutionary war by conducting a full-scale campaign of counter-revolutionary and counter-guerrilla pacification. 11 00:01:40.000 --> 00:02:00.000 The idea now was that instead of going from north to south as before, they would start in the deep south and slowly move north, not moving until their rear had been thoroughly pacified by Tory self-defense units and Tory instruments of government. 12 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:12.000 This strategy depended upon the characteristic British overestimation of the extent of Tory sentiment among the American populace, especially in the South. 13 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:26.000 It was a typical failure of imperialists in deluding themselves that the colonized masses are loyal and that revolutions are only made by a malevolent minority of fanatics. 14 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:34.240 As Shy sums up the new strategy, the basic concept was to regain complete military control 15 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:42.240 of some one major colony, restore full civil government, and then expand both control and 16 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:50.440 government in a step-by-step operation conducted behind a slowly advancing screen of British 17 00:02:50.440 --> 00:03:06.440 From a police operation and then a classical military confrontation, British strategy had finally become a comprehensive plan of pacification directed against a revolutionary war. 18 00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:14.020 In this strategy, the first task was to capture Georgia, the weakest and least populous of 19 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:19.860 the southern states, and also the one which could be readily attacked from the great British 20 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:23.420 East Florida-based St. Augustine. 21 00:03:23.420 --> 00:03:28.340 Georgia could also be approached readily by sea, where the British were dominant, and 22 00:03:28.340 --> 00:03:34.140 could then be used to supply the embattled British islands in the West Indies. 23 00:03:34.140 --> 00:03:40.980 The British plan was to drive northward, rolling up one state after another, depriving the northern 24 00:03:40.980 --> 00:03:47.700 and middle states of the benefits of the southern export trade and blockading the north into 25 00:03:47.700 --> 00:03:49.300 submission. 26 00:03:49.300 --> 00:03:54.500 The southern Tories, protected from rebel fanatics by the presence of British troops, 27 00:03:54.500 --> 00:04:00.220 would then surely be able to resume stable government in their states. 28 00:04:00.220 --> 00:04:05.980 The British evidently did not learn from their disillusioning experiences with Tory strength 29 00:04:05.980 --> 00:04:07.180 in the North. 30 00:04:07.180 --> 00:04:12.940 As Alden writes, spokesmen for the Loyalist, insistent throughout the War of Independence 31 00:04:12.940 --> 00:04:19.060 that they formed the bulk of the population of the thirteen states, were staunch in asserting 32 00:04:19.060 --> 00:04:25.940 their eagerness to pick up arms for Britain in areas as yet untouched by British troops. 33 00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:30.680 When the Red Coats were in Boston, they were told they would be welcomed with open arms 34 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:32.260 in New York. 35 00:04:32.260 --> 00:04:37.520 On Manhattan, they were informed that the Tories in New Jersey and Pennsylvania would 36 00:04:37.520 --> 00:04:40.000 rise as soon as they appeared. 37 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:45.220 In Philadelphia, it was said that the supporters of the Crown in Maryland and Delaware needed 38 00:04:45.220 --> 00:04:51.940 only minimal assistance to throw off the yoke imposed upon them by their patriot neighbors. 39 00:04:51.940 --> 00:05:03.940 But, as the British commanders moved into the American interior, they had found themselves surrounded by hostile militia rather than throngs of allies. 40 00:05:03.940 --> 00:05:09.940 In England, however, it was easier to accept loyalist assertions at face value. 41 00:05:09.940 --> 00:05:19.940 While the proportion of Tories in Georgia and the Carolinas was certainly higher than the average in the North, it was scarcely as high as the British liked to believe. 42 00:05:19.940 --> 00:05:29.940 More than overconfidence, however, was involved in the reliance upon the Tories and the consequent strategy they stubbornly insisted upon. 43 00:05:29.940 --> 00:05:41.940 Domestic political opposition in Britain revived and swelled after Saratoga, and the balance of power in parliament was held by the country gentry. 44 00:05:41.940 --> 00:05:52.940 These nominally Tory but instinctively libertarian gentry were most deeply impressed with the tax burden upon themselves. 45 00:05:52.940 --> 00:06:06.940 Larger and wider war meant higher taxes on them and there was the danger to the crown that they would let their aversion for taxation overcome their naive patriotism and join the opposition. 46 00:06:06.940 --> 00:06:23.940 Their main enthusiasm for the war had lain in the prospect of placing part of the imperial tax burden upon the Americans, but this was shattered by Lord North's abandonment of the plan to tax America in early 1778. 47 00:06:23.940 --> 00:06:30.940 The southern strategy, however, was calculated to appeal to the budget-conscious gentry. 48 00:06:30.940 --> 00:06:39.940 It meant that the war in America could be carried on, and supposedly won, with the absolute minimum of additional expense to Great Britain. 49 00:06:39.940 --> 00:06:43.940 The American Tories themselves would supply the manpower. 50 00:06:43.940 --> 00:06:56.940 Bemused also by the overestimate of Tory strength, and influenced by the sentimental argument that Britain had the duty to come to the support of its suffering, loyal subjects overseas, 51 00:06:56.940 --> 00:07:09.940 The gentry agreed to continue supporting the war effort, thereby irrevocably committing the Crown to a strategy heavily reliant on Tory contributions to the war. 52 00:07:09.940 --> 00:07:16.940 This commitment itself reinforced and propelled the British tendency to overrate the Tories. 53 00:07:16.940 --> 00:07:25.940 As Professor Paul Smith concludes, consequently, the administration became dangerously dependent upon the American loyalists. 54 00:07:25.940 --> 00:07:34.940 The weakness of Britain's reliance upon the southern loyalist was that it unwisely combined political and military considerations. 55 00:07:34.940 --> 00:07:42.940 It was one matter to base a single operation on the expectation that widespread civilian support would appear. 56 00:07:42.940 --> 00:07:46.940 If that operation failed, another maneuver could be tried. 57 00:07:46.940 --> 00:07:54.940 It was quite a different matter to use this argument to secure parliamentary support for the war. 58 00:07:54.940 --> 00:08:01.820 If the anticipated civilian support failed to materialize at any time, the same dubious 59 00:08:01.820 --> 00:08:07.820 strategy would have to be repeated endlessly in other areas for no other reason than to 60 00:08:07.820 --> 00:08:11.660 maintain the necessary political support. 61 00:08:11.660 --> 00:08:17.220 As Britain came to depend increasingly upon the loyalists to justify continuance of the 62 00:08:17.220 --> 00:08:23.760 war against the colonies, it became impossible for officials in the ministry to formulate 63 00:08:23.760 --> 00:08:30.560 made a grand strategy independently of their image of conditions in the colonies. 64 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:36.600 In order to maintain a parliamentary majority, the administration tethered its strategy to 65 00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:39.440 the shimmer of loyalist support. 66 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:47.620 Moreover, it fell victim to every unfounded report that American resistance was crumbling. 67 00:08:47.620 --> 00:08:53.720 The opposition attacks in parliament reached a peak in the spring of 1779, increasing 68 00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:58.400 emphasis on American Tories and on the Southern Strategy. 69 00:08:58.400 --> 00:09:05.520 By early 1779, the British government had expended hundreds of lives and millions of 70 00:09:05.520 --> 00:09:08.540 pounds on the American War. 71 00:09:08.540 --> 00:09:12.960 And it was certainly no nearer to success than at the outset. 72 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:20.600 Federal and Army losses had been severe during 1778, the year when the war had become worldwide. 73 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:27.280 Only the iron determination of George III to carry on despite all opposition and all 74 00:09:27.280 --> 00:09:31.920 setbacks prevented the North Ministry from toppling. 75 00:09:31.920 --> 00:09:38.880 The Whig General Howe tried to salvage his reputation by opening up the entire question 76 00:09:38.880 --> 00:09:43.040 of the Wisdom of the war to subdue America. 77 00:09:43.040 --> 00:09:48.640 At the inquiry voted by parliament, General Charles Gray effectively told the country 78 00:09:48.640 --> 00:09:55.040 that the goal of crushing the American Revolution was completely impractical without a huge 79 00:09:55.040 --> 00:10:01.880 increase of public expenses, an increase that would not be tolerated by the country gentry. 80 00:10:01.880 --> 00:10:07.600 The administration rebutted with General James Robertson their most important witness. 81 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:11.960 Ray had correctly maintained that the great bulk of the American people supported the 82 00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:18.080 Revolution, but Robertson countered with the thesis that more than two-thirds of the American 83 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:24.320 people were against, or at least would not actively support, the Revolution. 84 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:29.760 He argued, in effect, that the bulk of its American subjects were really docile and happy 85 00:10:29.760 --> 00:10:36.240 under the benign rule of their imperial masters, only a small minority of fanatical zealots 86 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:43.920 Outside agitators had not yet been invented, tyrannized to the bulk of the people, therefore 87 00:10:43.920 --> 00:10:48.440 all that would be necessary to win would be to land a British presence in the country 88 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:54.120 to relieve the people of the pressure exerted by the League of Fanatics and the public would 89 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:56.800 flock to the imperial banner. 90 00:10:56.800 --> 00:11:01.920 The British needed only to arm the American people in their own defense. 91 00:11:01.920 --> 00:11:07.120 He concluded that the object of the war was to enable the loyal subjects of America to 92 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:12.880 get free from the tyranny of the rebels and to let the country follow its inclination 93 00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:15.960 by returning to the King's government. 94 00:11:15.960 --> 00:11:21.160 It was Robertson's testimony that enabled the government to turn back the opposition's 95 00:11:21.160 --> 00:11:28.180 challenge, but this line of argument committed the government even more heavily to the American 96 00:11:28.180 --> 00:11:35.260 Tory, Southern Strategy, and made it ever more dependent upon victories in the South. 97 00:11:35.260 --> 00:11:41.700 To meet any British threat to the South, Washington had sent there, as head of the Southern Department, 98 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:48.320 Major General Benjamin Lincoln, who arrived at Charleston in December 1778. Lincoln was 99 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:56.520 amiable, mild-mannered to the point of insipidity, and widely beloved, but as an officer he was 100 00:11:56.520 --> 00:12:04.160 was undistinguished. Before being raised to this post, he had never won a single battle. 101 00:12:04.160 --> 00:12:10.320 Posing no threat to the Commander-in-Chief's office or prestige, this good-natured mediocrity 102 00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:18.400 was picked for vital command, while Washington's vindictiveness and jealousy were forcing America's 103 00:12:18.400 --> 00:12:23.400 best generals into semi-retirement or out of the service altogether.