At 08:54 PM 6/5/2002 -0400, Holley Calmes (a friend) wrote: >Can you expound a bit on some evidence re the Brits inciting a civil >war? Not arguing-just curious. The success of the British strategy for the Southern Campaign was based upon the mistaken belief that there was a strong loyalist sentiment in the South that only had to be tapped. The Brit field commanders in the South quickly learned that this was not the case. The policy makers, far away in London, clung to the idea, long after it became a doomed strategy. The idea was that loyalists would show up in armed support of the British troops, and supposedly, in far greater numbers than the phenomenon noted of the rebel militia rising in great numbers whenever the Continentals appeared. It simply never happened, or if it did, was mishandled by the Brits. Loyalist militia in great numbers fighting rebel militia in great numbers, put bluntly, equals civil war. While the Brits never succeeded in this plan in an "organized" fashion, they succeeded to their chagrin and dismay (and also to that of their regular rebel counterparts), in an informal fashion. They did not succeed in creating the "orderly civil war" which was absolutely essential to their success (they didn't have the manpower to win otherwise), they spawned a wildfire sort of civil war over which neither they nor the official rebel leadership had a great deal of control. At times, this "wildfire" civil war was found to be an easier thing to start than to control or stop. Leaders in both camps said that if it could not be brought to and end, the population "would destroy itself". After Brit victories at Charleston and Camden, the loyalist militia acting on their own, wreaking some understandable revenge, violated the paroles of some sidelined rebel leadership (e.g., Pickens, Sumter, et al) which worked sorely at counter-purposes to the policies of the Brit regular commanders. Indeed, the point can be made that these rebel militia commanders, brought back into the fray by overexhuberant loyalist militia, were the ones who brought about British defeat when there was no longer a viable force of Continentals in the South. Let see, if I followed you correctly on another point. The rebels were motivated primarily by greed. Therefore the loyalists would have been characterized by ... (absence of greed?). Ahem. I'd put it this way. The rebels never intended to rebel, as such. They wanted to continue the large measure of self-government they had become accustomed to before George III came on the scene, determined to improve on the job performance of George I (who intentionally reaped the maximum economic benefit from the colonies with an absolute minimum of effort and expense, aka "salutary neglect"). When Geo. III, his ministers and those voting with them (the very best money could buy), belatedly attempted to impose additional restrictions on the colonies, the colonies did something the civics teachers taught us as one way to repeal a law, i.e., to collectively ignore it (the way prohibition was repealed in the US). Had Britain in 1776 agreed to what they themselves proposed after Saratoga, there never would have been a Revolution. The revolution came to an end not so much a military defeat as one of failed policy. After Yorktown, Geo. III, a constitutional monarch, did not have enough payola available to put together an administration or vote support willing to continue his policies. So it ground to a miserable end. This war simply cannot be understood if approached as a conflict between the forces of good and evil (quoting Dan Morrill). However, that might work if applied to the inner workings of one side or the other! Both Higginbottom and Mackesy do that for their respective sides, I suppose it's why I like them. John