Camden, South Carolina, August 16, 1780: the Continental Army's worst day in the field. Not the worst surrender — that was Charleston three months earlier — but the worst battlefield defeat, the most complete collapse of an American army in open engagement during the entire war.
PEOPLE
Baron Johann de Kalb
Continental Army Major General, German-French Officer, Maryland and Delaware Commander
Major General Horatio Gates
Continental Army General, Southern Department Commander, Hero of Saratoga
Lord Charles Cornwallis
British General, Southern Army Commander, Lieutenant General
Lieutenant Colonel James Webster
British Infantry Commander, Regular Army Officer
KEY EVENTS
STORIES
HISTORICAL VOICE
Eleven Times
The Maryland and Delaware Continentals did not know the left had broken. The battle had been going on for perhaps fifteen minutes when the British infantry began appearing on their flank. De Kalb was ...
MODERN VOICE
The Shadow of an Army
When Nathanael Greene arrived at Charlotte in December 1780 to take command of the Southern Army, he wrote to Washington that he had found "but the shadow of an army." That's a figure of speech, but i...