Cornwallis had chased Greene's army across North Carolina for six weeks after Cowpens, through what became known as the Race to the Dan, before Greene finally turned to offer battle near a small courthouse town in the North Carolina backcountry. Greene built his defense in three lines, the same defense in depth Morgan had used at Cowpens, with North Carolina militia in front, Virginia militia behind them, and Continental regulars anchoring the rear. The British broke through all three lines and held the field at the end of the day. Greene's own letters, written almost immediately afterward, survive at Founders Online and explain why that outcome did not feel like a defeat to the men who reported it.
Greene wrote to Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson the day after the battle, from a camp ten miles from the field where his army had regrouped in good order.
On the 14th we marched to Gilford Court House and took a position within 8 Miles of the Enemies encampment, with a view to attack them the next Morning, but they anticipated our designs and moved down upon us. We were in perfect readiness to receive them. A severe conflict ensued, and after a struggle of near two Hours the Enemy gained the advantage of the field and four pieces of Artillery, which could not be brought off for the want of Horses, most of them being killed on the field. Our Army retired in good order to this place, and are now in the most perfect readiness to give the Enemy Action again.
Greene also took care to credit the militia by name in the same dispatch, a notable departure from how American commanders had usually written about militia performance after Camden. A Virginia newspaper later printed the line directly: "It would be ungenerous in me not to acknowledge my approbation of the brave and spirited conduct of the Virginia militia, in the action of yesterday."
Two weeks later, with more complete intelligence on British losses, Greene wrote Washington a fuller assessment that captured the strategic logic of the battle in a single line.
I have it from good authority that the enemy suffered in the Battle of Guilford 633 exclusive of officers, and most of their Principal Officers are killed and wounded. They have met with a defeat in a Victory. Never was an Army in greater distress than the British, they were loaded with their wounded, and must have fallen a sacrifice, had not the Tories given them support.
Cornwallis technically won Guilford Courthouse, but the quarter of his army he lost there was a quarter he could not replace six hundred miles from any British depot. Unable to pursue Greene and unable to hold the interior of North Carolina with what remained of his force, Cornwallis marched his army to the coast at Wilmington to resupply, then turned north into Virginia rather than continuing the southern campaign at all. That decision carried him, seven months later, to a small port called Yorktown.
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