A Revolutionary Reflection on Hope

The past does not repeat itself but it often rhymes. Just now I stepped out my back door and heard an eerie sound, the singular sound of rain dripping off the pine trees.

It suddenly occurred to me that on this very ground 240 years ago this very night, the same sound likely was heard. 3 January 1781 and 3 January 2021 are rhyming. In that year of 1781, the cause of the American Revolution in the Carolina Back Country looked bleak indeed. Charleston had been lost, the 5,000 man American Army surrendered. What was left of the Continental Army had been decimated at Camden, SC. The much hated and feared "Bloody Ban Tarleton" was seeking to trap and destroy Daniel Morgan's small army as he retreated through SC moving northeast. If the American commander, General Nathaniel Greene, couldn't find a way to stop Cornwallis and Tarleton, they would sweep up the coast and trap Washington between themselves and Gen. Clinton in New York City, ending the war in a British triumph. 1781 began bleakly and with little hope. It ended in total victory and collapse of British hegemony over these American States. Morgan destroyed Tarleton's entire force at Cowpens on 17 January. Greene inflicted a 50% casualty rate on Cornwallis at Guilford Court House on 15 March. "I never saw such fighting since God made me," said Gen. Cornwallis, "the Americans fought like demons." Late that summer Cornwallis was forced to Yorktown, VA to be reinforced and resupplied by sea. It never happened. Instead the combined forces of the Americans and the French forced a British surrender on 19 October 1781. 1781...the year of gloom became the year of jubilation. 2021 is a year beginning in bleakness but may very well end in joy and jubilation. History is rhyming.

Tonight's rain is dripping off the pine trees in the Carolina Back Country...

Russell H McCullough is a public historian living in Mint Hill, NC and is a member in good standing with both the William Davidson Chapter Sons of the Revolution and The Mecklenburg Chapter North Carolina Society Sons of the American Revolution. He writes at https://travelingpatriot.blogspot.com as well as here on LinkedIn Pulse.