Fought on September 8, 1781, the Battle of Eutaw Springs was the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War in the Carolinas, and both sides claimed victory. This episode looks at how exhaustion, starvation and the brutal Southern environment shaped a battle decided as much by logistics as by tactics.

We begin with Nathanael Greene’s failed siege of Ninety Six and the punishing pursuit that broke Lord Rawdon’s army, then follow Alexander Stewart’s British force to Eutaw Springs. A morning foraging party sent to dig sweet potatoes was captured almost whole, the American militia held through repeated volleys, and a two-story brick house became the anchor that stopped Greene’s advance as his hungry troops broke ranks to plunder the British camp.

• How Greene used the heat, swamps and distance of the Carolinas to wear down the British
• The ambush that captured roughly 400 British foragers before the main battle began
• Greene’s three-line formation, grasshopper cannons, and the disciplined passage of lines
• Why William Washington’s cavalry charge failed and how the brick house rallied the British
• Why the British claimed a tactical win yet suffered a strategic defeat weeks before Yorktown