Battle Of Camden | Summary - Encyclopedia Britannica

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Battle, casualties, and siginificance

Both commanders placed their most reliable troops on their right, so the British regulars under Lieutenant Colonel James Webster faced the weaker Virginia militia. As at Saratoga, Gates placed himself to the rear. As Webster’s line of regulars advanced, the militia line crumbled with hardly a shot fired. The North Carolinians, at the center of the line, also abandoned the field. Webster then wheeled left and attacked the flank of the two Continental regiments that had been pressing the Loyalists hard. Outnumbered and trapped, the Continentals were overwhelmed. Few escaped except Gates, who fled on horseback.

Quick Facts Date: August 16, 1780 (Show more) Location: Camden South Carolina United States (Show more) Participants: United Kingdom United States (Show more) Context: American Revolution (Show more) Key People: Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess and 2nd Earl Cornwallis Horatio Gates Johann Kalb (Show more) See all related content

Though only 324 British were killed or wounded, the Americans suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including the noted Prussian general Johann DeKalb, and lost large amounts of military supplies. More than 1,000 Americans were taken prisoner. It was arguably the worst American defeat of the war and left the British in temporary control of the southern colonies. While enhancing the reputation of Cornwallis, the battle ruined the career of Gates, who was replaced. The victory opened the way to a subsequent British invasion of North Carolina. The British stopped a second American attack on Camden under General Nathanael Greene on April 25, 1781, at Hobkirk’s Hill, but, worn down by colonial guerrilla harassment, they burned and evacuated the town the following month. Greene’s capable leadership, as compared to Gates’s, led directly to Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in the fall of that year.

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