Originally published in the Journal of the American Revolution on November 12, 2019. In late June 1780 a messenger arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with intelligence for Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis. The messenger, Capt. John La Boularderie De Treville, was a South Carolina Continental artillery officer and prisoner of war on parole. He was also a British spy. On at least four occasions, from June 1780 to January 1781, De Treville was sent into North Carolina to ga

Originally published in the Summer 2021 issue of the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research ( Vol. 99, No. 397) On 6 August 1780, Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis, in a letter to the commander-in-chief of British forces in America, General Sir Henry Clinton, wrote that ‘it may be doubted by some whether the invasion of North Carolina may be a prudent measure, but I am convinced it is a necessary one’.1 Cornwallis, who had been left in charge of British Regul