9781422286050

14

Atlantic: North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia

The largest Revolutionary War battle in the South was fought in rural North Carolina, at Guilford Courthouse. Although the British were technically the victors, the army was so weakened that it had to abandon plans to attack the Continental Army in the Carolinas. Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, retreated to Virginia, where his army was trapped by George Washington at Yorktown.

Virginia, on October 19, 1781, and the war ended. North Carolina sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. At first, the del- egates rejected the Constitution because they thought it gave too much power to the federal government and not enough to the states. After the addition of the first ten amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights, North Carolinians ratified the Constitution. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state.

in North Carolina. However, most of the fighting in North Carolina hap- pened late in the war. In January 1781, General Nathanael Greene tricked the British under General Cornwallis into moving into North Carolina, separating them from their base in Charleston, South Carolina. In March 1781, the armies of Greene and Cornwallis fought the bat- tle of Guilford Courthouse near Greensboro. Although the Continental Army lost the battle, the British were severely weakened. Cornwallis was forced to surrender at Yorktown,