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Monday, March 12, 2018

"After the Surrender"

Last page of the Treaty of Paris
So, in October 1781, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, and the Revolution was over. Right?

Not quite.

It would be nearly three more years before the signing of the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the American War for Independence. And in the meantime, the partisan conflict that I discussed last month would continue to rage, especially in the Southern theatre.

In addition to the Bloody Scout (the name given for William Cunningham’s rampages during the late fall and winter of 1781), several other notable skirmishes took place. My best source focuses almost exclusively on the Carolinas, but the war continued to affect relations between people for many long years in other areas of the country as well. The British continued to foment uprising among the native tribes from forts held in the upper Ohio Valley, and those loyalists who preferred not to leave America had a tough struggle either to hold onto their lands or to make a way for themselves, often further west (Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia) or even south (Spanish-held Florida).

Plenty of conflicts happened in the first year after the British surrendered, however. One incident involved the Chickamauga in Tennessee seeking to continue trading goods with the British, holed up in Savannah, Georgia, and fighting continued with the Cherokee. Others took place in North Carolina, in lingering clashes between loyalists and patriots. Still others happened at sea. And Cunningham made a few forays into the South Carolina backcountry, but none as widespread as before.

Finally, then, the Continental army grew impatient with the British presence in Savannah and Charleston, and laid siege to both in turn … but more about those in my next post. :-)

5 comments:

  1. Why did you until your next post? I was reading along and all of sudden it stopped. Now, I have to wait. I felt let down! I'm very interested in the Revolutionary War, before and after. I had several ancestors that fought in that war and at lest one was an officer.
    When will your next post be?

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    1. Oh Beverly, I'm so sorry! :-) My next post is the 2nd Monday in April. Since I'm working on the historical background to my novella in Backcountry Brides, I'd already planned to do a post after this one on the British withdrawal from Charleston SC, then found while researching for this post that there were actual sieges by the Continental forces against that city and Savannah GA ... so it was better, I thought, to divide all that into two separate posts and not overwhelm busy readers with too much information at one time. :-) I'm glad you were enjoying the read!!

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  2. Living here in Yorktown, and having had ancestors present at that battle, it's sad to think it took so long after that decisive victory to shut things down!

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    1. Definitely!! And interesting how long it takes, logistically, to end a war ... :)

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  3. Thank you for this very interesting post, Shannon!I'm looking forward to your next one and the continuation of the story. :-)

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