Charleston Captured: America's Worst Revolutionary Defeat
British forces under General Sir Henry Clinton captured Charleston, South Carolina, on May 12, 1780, after a six-week siege. Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the city along with 5,266 Continental soldiers, 311 artillery pieces, and four ships, making it the worst American defeat of the Revolutionary War and the largest surrender of US troops until Bataan in 1942. The fall of Charleston effectively ended organized American resistance in the South for nearly two years. The British installed a garrison and expected loyalist support to control the region. Instead, partisan leaders like Francis Marion ("the Swamp Fox"), Thomas Sumter, and Andrew Pickens launched a guerrilla campaign that tied down British forces until Nathanael Greene's conventional army could retake the initiative.
May 12, 1780
246 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Continental Army
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Kingdom of Great Britain
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American Revolutionary War
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Charleston, South Carolina
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is taken
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American Revolutionary War
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Continental Army
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Charleston, South Carolina
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Siege of Charleston
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Benjamin Lincoln
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South Carolina
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Henry Clinton (British Army officer, born 1730)
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