978-1-4222-3353-5

Endurance and Triumph

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Words to UNDERSTAND IN THIS chapter backcountry —a remote, undeveloped rural area. federal government —a central government intended to control a union of individual states.

credit for that. Von Steuben was a German volunteer with long military experience. He trained the Continentals in skills that were vital to success on the 18th-century battlefield. Washington’s soldiers soon got the chance to demonstrate their new capabilities. On June 28, 1778, the Continental Army beat back repeated British attacks at the Battle of Monmouth. The battle was fought as a huge British column moved through New Jersey to New York. The column included the troops who’d taken Phila- delphia the previous fall. With France’s entry into the war, the British had decided to abandon Philadelphia. Southern Strategy The Battle of Monmouth would prove to be the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War fought in the northern states. The British increas- ingly focused their attention on the south. The southern states had already seen their share of fighting. Patriot and Loyalist militias battled each other, often with uncommon brutal- ity. Neighbor assaulted neighbor. Encouraged by the British, Cherokee Indians attacked settlements across Georgia and the Carolinas. General Henry Clinton—who’d replaced William Howe as the Brit- ish commander-in-chief—thought the south held the key to winning the war. His southern strategy would involve capturing key coastal cities. Meanwhile, British troops would man a string of forts in the interior of the southern states. A strong regular army presence would