National Parks:
Guilford Courthouse National Military Park

Greensboro, North Carolina -- Visitors to Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, in busy northwest Greensboro, North Carolina, may be surprised to discover a battlefield of the American Revolution in the South. Here, on the oldest preserved Revolutionary War battlefield in the National Park System, park visitors will learn of a paradoxical battle that helped the fledgling United States win their independence.

The preservation of the Guilford Courthouse battlefield began in 1887 with the vision of David Schenck, a Greensboro attorney. His creation and leadership of the Guilford Battle Ground Company, an organization of private citizens, represents one of the earliest efforts to preserve a battle site of the American Revolution. In March 1917, the thirty-year labor of this group was rewarded through the establishment of Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, the first battlefield in America's fight for independence to be recognized as a national military park by the United States Congress.

Today, Guilford Courthouse NMP preserves approximately 230 acres of historic ground with additional land protected under the designation of the greater Guilford Battlefield Historical Landmark (2001). Assisting the park is a new Guilford Battleground Company, an energetic and successful friend's group dedicated to helping the park and its city park partner, Tannenbaum Historic Park, protect their historic resources and obtain additional battlefield land.

Park visitors will find a friendly and helpful park staff eager to make their visits enjoyable. Plenty of historical information is available both in the visitor center and on the battlefield. A half-hour, live-action theater film conveys the story of the battle through the words of both soldiers and civilians. An eleven-minute narrated battle-map program mixes graphics and live action to depict and explain the tactical deployment and movements of British and American units on the battlefield. Museum exhibits combine displays of period weaponry, artifacts, and everyday items used by soldiers and civilians during the campaign with informative graphic and text panels about the war, the campaign and the battle. A 2.25-mile auto tour road and foot trails access battlefield monuments and exhibits providing on-site information with text and colorful graphics. The visitor center bookstore offers park visitors an enticing selection of Revolutionary War and site-specific books and related interpretive items for sale, including a narrated automobile tour of the battleground.

Significance of Guilfort Courthouse NMP

The American Revolution began in 1775 in Massachusetts and for the next several years the British concentrated their military efforts to end the colonial rebellion in the north. The war began to change after the colonies declared their independence in 1776 and negotiated a diplomatic alliance with France the following year.

Failing in their efforts to quell a burgeoning war, the British decided to shift primary military operations in 1778 to what they perceived as a less belligerent and more loyalist south, making this region the main theater of war for the next five years.

Success came quickly to justify their decision, but by the winter of 1780-1781, British fortunes began to wane. Following successive losses of the King's forces at Kings Mountain and Cowpens in South Carolina, Lord Charles Cornwallis committed his British field army to a determined late-winter chase of Major General Nathanael Greene's American army across North Carolina to Virginia. Reinforced, Greene turned on his opponent. Cornwallis, eager to defeat or destroy Greene's rebels, marched his tired, outnumbered army twelve miles on the wet, cold morning of March 15, 1781, to engage the until-then elusive Greene at Guilford Court House, a small backcountry county seat in North Carolina's Piedmont region.

Clashing in a fierce battle that raged for two and one-half hours, Cornwallis' veteran redcoats forced their rebel opponents from the field in retreat. "I never saw such fighting since God made me; the Americans fought like demons," Cornwallis later commented.

Greene's retreat lost him the battle, but it saved his army to fight again. In contrast, Cornwallis' frail victory had not only failed to destroy the rebels, but it had come at a great cost - more than one-quarter of his army was killed, wounded, captured or missing.

Greene and Cornwallis would never face each other again. Leaving the interior of North Carolina behind, Cornwallis marched his battered army to rest and re-supply on the Carolina coast, while Greene led his army back into South Carolina to campaign against the British garrisons there.

At Wilmington, Cornwallis decided to resume his campaign into Virginia and rebuild his army with the British forces awaiting him there. In the fall, at the fortified post at Yorktown, Cornwallis was forced into surrendering his British army to the combined forces of the United States and France under General George Washington. The eight-year journey to independence would finally end in victory with the Treaty of Paris of 1783.

Having started with a spark in New England in 1775 and boldly declared in 1776, the road to independence for the United States was paradoxically shortened by a defeat of American arms at Guilford Court House on March 15, 1781.

Planning Documents and Management

The Park's General Management Plan was completed in 1996 and A Historic Landscape Report was completed in 2004. Both these plans help guide park development into the future. The Historic Landscape Report gives specific recommendations for landscape preservation and maintenance to restore the battlefield to its 1781 appearance. City development and urban creep have overtaken this once rural park and in many areas apartments, homes, and businesses can be seen from the park tour road. Despite the best management planning there will continue to be pressures on park managers as they try to preserve the landscape, view shed, and solemn dignity of the park to honor the memory of the fallen and preserve the landscape for future generations.

Interesting Facts

• Although the British considered themselves to be the victors at Guilford Courthouse, out of a force of 1,900 men, they lost 532 killed, wounded and missing. The 'defeated' American army lost 264 men out of a force of 4,400.
• The battle of Guilford Courthouse was the "High-Water Mark" of British operations in the American Revolution. The heavy losses suffered at Guilford Courthouse helped turn the British Parliament against the continuation of the war in America. Charles James Fox, leader of Parliament's Whig opposition, was said to have exclaimed, "Another such victory would ruin the British Army!"
• American commander Nathanael Greene was born a Quaker in Rhode Island. He rejected his pacifist upbringing to become second only to George Washington in military leadership skill and ability. The city of Greensboro, North Carolina, is named in his honor.
• African-American soldiers served in both American and British armies at Guilford Courthouse. As a result of his service, one such soldier, North Carolina militiaman Ned Griffin, was enfranchised as a free man.
• Today, Guilford Courthouse NMP preserves about 230 acres, approximately 23% of the 1,000-acre historic battlefield.
• There are twenty-eight monuments, memorials, and gravesites in Guilford Courthouse NMP, honoring soldiers, statesmen and citizens, including two women. North Carolina's three signers of the Declaration of Independence --William Hooper, Joseph Hewes and John Penn -- are honored with one monument. The remains of Hooper and Penn were reburied under this monument in the 1890s. An equestrian statue of Major General Nathanael Greene stands on the battlefield as a tribute to the Southern Army and its leader.
• The park also includes the site of the town of Guilford Courthouse (called Martin Ville in 1785). After the county seat was moved away in 1808, the town failed to thrive. No historic structures remain.
• Young lawyer Andrew Jackson lived and practiced law at Guilford Court House in 1787 and President George Washington visited the battlefield and spent a night here in June 1791.
• More than 200 Volunteers in Parks contributed a total of 5,798 hours in the last fiscal year to assist in park interpretive and resource management programs. The park's volunteer Guilford Court House Fife and Drum Corps presents period musical programs during special events both on- and off-site.
• Two major events during the year are the annual battle observance in mid-March and a July 4th Independence Day program. Interpretive programs for school groups and by volunteer groups representing Revolutionary War units are presented during the year.

Source: National Park Service