Battle of Green Spring

V-39

Nearby, late in the afternoon of 6 July 1781, Gen. Charles Cornwallis and cavalry commander Col. Banastre Tarleton with 5,000 British and Hessian troops clashed with 800 American troops commanded by Brig. Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne and the Marquis de Lafayette. Believing that the main British force was across the James River, and that he was attacking Cornwallis's rear guard, Wayne soon realized that he was facing far superior numbers. He startled the advancing British forces by charging them, exchanging volleys, and then withdrawing his troops from encirclement and certain defeat. Dusk prevented Cornwallis from pursuing the Americans.

Department of Historic Resources, 2000

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Edward Cline, “Mad Anthony Wayne’s ‘Unexpected Happening,’ In Unheralded Battle of Green Spring, He and Lafayette Matched Wits—But Not Numbers—With Cornwallis,” Colonial Williamsburg 19 (Summer 1997): 35-43; N. Callahan, “Anthony Wayne, Military Romanticist,” George Washington’s Generals, George Billas, ed. (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1964), 281.