The Southern Campaign

In 1778 the British again turned to the South in their final major campaign to end the American Revolution. Military failures in the North during 1777—78 and a strong belief in southern loyalist strength encouraged the British War Office to undertake a full-scale southern invasion in the autumn of 1778. The American-French alliance following the British defeat at Saratoga and the threat of French intervention also made it urgent for the British to move southward. They hoped to obtain food and recruits in the South and an effective base from which to attack the remaining patriot armies in the East. A British military and naval expedition was also to assemble in the Chesapeake Bay area and from that point aid the British forces in the South to crush patriot resistance. This time the British were confident of success. They strongly doubted that the South, thinly populated and torn by sectional strife between patriot and loyalist groups, could unite and fight off the invader.