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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.