Endurance and Triumph
47
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
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.