On the 14th of October he succeeded Gates as commander-in-chief of the Southern army, and took command at Charlotte, N.C., on the 2nd of December. The army was weak and badly equipped and was opposed by a superior force under Cornwallis. Greene decided to divide his own troops, thus forcing the division of the British as well, and creating the possibility of a strategic interplay of forces. This strategy led to General Daniel Morgan's victory of Cowpens (just over the South Carolina line) on the 17th of January 1781, and to the battle at Guilford Court House, N.C. (March 15), in which after having weakened the British troops by continual movements, and drawn in reinforcements for his own army, Greene was defeated indeed, but only at such cost to the victor that Tarleton called it "the pledge of ultimate defeat." Three days after this battle Cornwallis withdrew toward Wilmington. Greene's generalship and judgment were again conspicuously illustrated in the next few weeks, in which he allowed Cornwallis to march north to Virginia and himself turned swiftly to the reconquest of the inner country of South Carolina. This, in spite of a reverse sustained at Lord Rawdon's hands at Hobkirk's Hill (2 m. N. of Camden) on the 25th of April, he achieved by the end of June, the British retiring to the coast. Greene then gave his forces a six weeks' rest on the High Hills of the Santee, and on the 8th of September, with 2600 men, engaged the British under Lieut.-Colonel James Stuart (who had succeeded Lord Rawdon) at Eutaw Springs; the battle, although tactically drawn, so weakened the British that they withdrew to Charleston, where Greene penned them during the remaining months of the war. Greene's Southern campaign showed remarkable strategic features that remind one of those of Turenne, the commander whom he had taken as his model in his studies before the war. He excelled in dividing, eluding and tiring his opponent by long marches, and in actual conflict forcing him to pay for a temporary advantage a price that he could not afford. He was greatly assisted by able subordinates, including the Polish engineer, Tadeusz Kosciusko, the brilliant cavalry captains, Henry ("Light-Horse Harry") Lee and William Washington, and the partisan leaders, Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion.