On February 14, 1781, American Patriot General Nathanael Greene carried out the strategic Retreat to the Dan, crossing the Dan River at Boyd’s Ferry and Irvine’s Ferry and foiling British General Cornwallis’s southern strategy in a turning point toward American victory. Pursuing Greene’s smaller force, Cornwallis hoped to overtake the Americans in North Carolina and set the stage for the capture of Virginia and a certain victory for England. Recognizing that his army was unprepared to face the British, Greene led it on a four-day movement from Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, to the Dan River while a Light Troop cavalry under Col. Otha Williams and Lt. Col. Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee drew British cavalry onto false leads, buying time for the slowest American units to reach the crossing ahead of the enemy. Boats gathered at the ferry landings by Col. Edward Carrington enabled all of the Americans to cross the icy, rain-swollen river safely before the British arrived, and Lee and Carrington were in the last boat to reach the north side. Left without any vessels and unable to swim or ford the river against Patriot resistance, Cornwallis had been tricked, cut off from his lines of support and communication, and turned back into North Carolina. The retreat’s effects were dramatic: Greene more than doubled his troops within weeks, many people joined the Patriot army after seeing the enemy on their own property, and he found needed supplies in Halifax County. In March, Greene fought the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, where he inflicted heavy losses on Lord Cornwallis’s Redcoats although the British held the field, after which Cornwallis withdrew to Wilmington, NC, for supplies and replacement troops. The Dan crossing and other factors then forced Cornwallis to camp at Yorktown instead of sweeping through Virginia, where he was trapped when the French fleet held off a British squadron and George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau combined American and French forces on land. The British surrender on October 19, 1781, signaled the end of the American Revolution, and without Greene’s Retreat to the Dan, the surrender at Yorktown would never have taken place.