great britain's "southern strategy" for winning the american revolutionary war appeared in some ways to be going well after the battle of guilford courthouse in march 1781. general lord cornwallis had defeated general nathanael greene, but his army was short on supplies and had suffered significant casualties, so he decided to move to wilmington, north carolina to resupply and refit his troops. greene, while he had lost the battlefield, still had his army intact. after shadowing cornwallis for a time, he turned south, and embarked on an expedition to recover patriot control of south carolina and georgia, where british and loyalist forces were thinly distributed, and smaller outposts were subject to attack from larger forces under the command of greene or one of the patriot militia commanders in the area.