O'DONNELL: A Turning Point in the American Revolution -- the Battle of Guilford Courthouse and Washington's Unknown Immortal

This year, the Ides of March marks the 236th anniversary of one of the most important — yet widely unknown — battles of the American Revolution: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

Near present-day Greensboro, North Carolina, Robert Kirkwood and his men lined up facing the Redcoats, including the dreaded Banastre Tarleton, a cavalry officer known for his ruthlessness. A light breeze carried the sound of fifes and Highlander pipes across the field in front of the county courthouse. With blood dripping from his sword, the Patriot cavalry officer, Light Horse Harry Lee, father of General Robert E. Lee, delivered a stirring address to prepare his men for battle: “My brave boys, your lands, your lives and your country depend on your conduct this day – I have given Tarleton hell this morning, and I will give him more of it before night.”

Forming the front line, hand-picked members of Kirkwood’s Delaware Blues, flanked by militia and cavalry, stared across the rain-soaked, recently plowed cornfield at the “scarlet uniforms, burnished armor, and banners floating in the breeze” as Cornwallis’s army assembled in formation more than four hundred yards in front of them. In the damp, cold morning air, the Americans took their carefully plotted positions in the defense and prepared for what proved to be one of the most crucial battles of the war.

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