Much of the Patriot's success during the Revolutionary War came from unconventional tactics implemented
by American military forces.
The British military was the most powerful fighting force in the world in 1776, and most
of the world was skeptical about a Patriot victory.
Yet, by altering their fighting styles, several officers were able to achieve stunning success.
Who were these men and what strategies did they implement?
Although the term Guerrilla Warfare was not used in the English language until the early
19th Century, the phrase means irregular warfare in which a small group of combatants use ambushes,
sabotage, disguise, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to dominate
a larger, less mobile army.
The term means "little war" in Spanish and it defines what a select number of American
officers did throughout the American Revolution.
George Rogers Clark, a man who had been a surveyor along the Ohio and Kentucky rivers,
used his knowledge of the area and the terrain to harass and often dominate British forces
in the war on the frontier.
His soldiers, many of whom were Tennesseans known as Over Mountain Men, were extremely
mobile, rugged individuals who became famous for their long overland treks through the
wilderness and fierce, surprise attacks.
In 1779, Clark's men launched a surprise attack on Fort Sackville near the town of Vincennes
in present-day Indiana.
Clark, with only 127 men, endured an 18-day march through the chest-deep icy waters of
a flooded Wabash River to attack the fort.
Displaying an excessive number of banners and keeping up an intense fire, Clark managed
to convince the British officers that he had far more men than he did.
The British surrendered, only to be shocked by how few men Clark truly had when they turned
over their weapons.
Another American who excelled at an unconventional form of fighting was the Virginian Daniel
Morgan.
Morgan led an elite group of sharpshooters with rifles built with smaller, rifled barrels.
The grooved barrels were a huge advancement over military muskets because their bullets
spiraled in a straight line, giving them deadly accuracy.
While an advantage when it came to firing, the rifles would become a liability in a conventional
fight when British soldiers charged at them with bayonets.
Morgan's men didn't use bayonets, nor did they attempt to meet the British in open,
conventional warfare.
Morgan, a former Indian fighter, molded his tactics on the fighting styles of Native American
Indians.
His men used hit and run tactics, concealing themselves in trees, shrubbery, and anywhere
else the Redcoats wouldn't expect a gentleman to be.
Accurate at 250 yards, Morgan's men also went after officers, which appalled the British
and greatly decimated their armies.
In multiple engagements, such as the Battle of Saratoga, Morgan's men shot down so many
officers that the British threw the down their weapons and fled.
For all of the successes that Clark and Morgan enjoyed, no Patriot excelled at Guerilla Warfare
more than Francis Marion.
Marion's Brigade used surprise attacks to harass British supply lines and communication
in South Carolina.
Using the swamps and forest trails to shield his movements, Marion rarely engaged the enemy
in open warfare.
The quickness and ease with which he could strike and disappear, earned him the nickname
Swamp Fox.