American Revolution What-If: Britain Holds the Deep South (Part 1)
by Dale R. Cozort
July 3, 2003

People have speculated on what might have happened if the American Revolution had never happened, or if it had failed. I’m going to look at another possibility: What if Britain had been able to keep the states of the deep south at the end of the revolutionary war? I’ll briefly summarize what actually happened, figure out a way to get a partial British victory that left them in control of the southern states, and look at the consequences of that victory.

What actually happened: In 1780, after several years of concentrating on the northern and middle colonies, Britain decided to try to retake the southern colonies, then gradually move north, wiping out the rebellion in one colony after another.

Britain already held Florida and Georgia. In May of 1780 a powerful British army crushed American forces in Charlestown South Carolina. The British won a number of additional victories in the southern colonies, but they found those victories hard to sustain. Rebel militias kept springing back up in conquered areas, always a threat. Continental army forces always lurked on the border of the conquered area, usually just out of reach of the British. Meanwhile, the British kept picking up more enemies. The French had come in after the British defeat at Saratoga, looking for a way to avenge their defeat in the French and Indian War. The Spanish joined them in June 1779 in a bid to recover Gibraltar. The British provoked a war with Holland in December 1780 to stop the Dutch from shipping vital naval supplies to their enemies.

General Cornwallis, British commander in the south, eventually passed through much of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, but actually controlled little of the territory of those states. Actual British control weakened as they theoretically conquered more territory. Eventually Cornwallis found himself trapped in Virginia between a French and American army and a French fleet and was forced to surrender his army, effectively ending the American part of the war.

The American Revolution as a proto-World War: Like many wars of the late 1700s and early 1800s, the American Revolution was eventually fought on almost every continent or was significantly influenced by events on those continents. While the rebels and redcoats fought in North America, powerful French, Spanish and eventually Dutch fleets challenged Britain for control of the English Channel and attacked British shipping. Spain and France besieged British controlled Gibraltar and the Mediterranean island of Minorca. All three powers fought the British for colonies in the West Indies that they considered more valuable than the forests of North America. Unrest in Spanish colonies of South America made Spain wary of supporting the contagious example of independence for American colonies, while the British planned raids along the Pacific coast of South America and against Manila. The British attacked or planned to attack Dutch possessions in South Africa and Asia, while fighting French-supported hostile powers in India.

Armies, supplies, and ships flowed between theatres. Battles or hurricanes in the West Indies changed the naval balance of power along the coast of North America, making it possible or impossible for the British to support and reinforce their armies. Ships of the line sent to India or defending against a French/Spanish invasion of Britain were not available to maintain British control of North American waters. The British had to guess where opposing countries were going to send fleets and manpower, and counter those moves. Guessing wrong could be disastrous in world where it took months to transmit orders or move a fleet from theatre to theatre, even assuming favorable winds and no communication breakdowns.

What would it have taken to give Britain control of the Deep South at the end of the revolution? There are two issues to consider here. First, we’ll look at the situation on the ground. Second, we’ll look at what it would take to get the combatants to accept that situation as an acceptable end of the war.

The difficulty of having Britain end up in control on the ground differs from state to state. East Florida and Georgia wouldn’t be much of a problem. Georgia was thinly populated and the British held onto it without a great deal of trouble. Britain held East Florida (most of the territory of the state of Florida) throughout the war. This was territory seized from Spain as part of the French and Indian war, and never considered part of the 13 colonies. It was traded to Spain at the end of the war as a consolation prize for Spain’s failure to get back Gibraltar. West Florida, which consisted of a strip of the Gulf Coast reaching at least to Mobile Alabama, and arguably further west, was conquered by Spain in 1780 and 1781, one of the few Spanish military successes of the war. It was a thinly settled area without a great deal of apparent value to the combatants, but it would be important for the future of any British-held area in the south.

The British would have more problems holding South Carolina. Rebel militias kept springing up to wage guerilla war against the British. Strong Loyalist militias made the battles in South Carolina a civil war, and a very bitterly fought one, with atrocities on both sides. British forces and their loyalist allies could probably have held the more settled coastal areas of South Carolina against rebel militia and the small portion of the continental army that Washington could spare for the South if they had concentrated exclusively on that, especially if they had been able to avoid self-inflicted wounds like the loyalist defeat at Kings Mountain. The British would have had ongoing difficulties controlling the Scot/Irish settlers in the hills and mountains further west, and they would have remained vulnerable to a joint American continental army/French attack of the kind that historically destroyed Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown.

Most of North Carolina and Virginia were probably beyond Britain’s power to take and hold at this stage of the war, at least with the armies they could reasonably have been expected to have available. A British-held block consisting of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and possibly part of North Carolina was about the best that the British could hope for in the south by 1780.

What would it take to get the combatants to accept that outcome? We’ll look at that in the next installment.

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