Thank you for this opportunity to be with you today as we commemorate the Battle of Guilford Courthouse; a major battle of major influence in the War for American Independence, fought on this site 226 years ago March 15, 1781.

 The Battle of Guilford Courthouse was the climax of a Southern Campaign begun a little more than two years earlier in 1778.  The British authorities adopted a plan that by all rights should have been successful.  The plan was to overrun the Southern Colonies successively from Georgia northward in the belief that little more than a parade of British might would be necessary to restore order in the Southern Colonies.  The plan was only partially successful.  Attrition took its toll.  Recruitment efforts failed on many fronts.  The Battle of Guilford Courthouse was the final blow.   

  This pivotal battle, between forces led by British general Lord Charles Cornwallis and American General Nathanael Greene, for whom the city of Greensboro is named, was a British victory, but only in the sense that the British held the field.  The victory left Cornwallis in such a weakened state, that it propelled the army of Cornwallis on the ill-fated road to Yorktown, Virginia, where the British suffered a devastating defeat just seven months later.

 Inscribed on the Nathanael Greene monument here behind us is the following statement on the significance of the battle by C. Alphonso Smith:

 “In the maneuvering that preceded it, in the strategy that compelled it, in the heroism that signalized it, and in the results that flowed from it, the Battle of Guilford Court House is second to no battle fought on American soil.  Over the brave men who fell here their comrades marched to ultimate victory at Yorktown and the cause of constitutional self-government and to assured triumph at Philadelphia.  To officer and private, to Continental soldier and volunteer militiaman, honor and award are alike due.  They need neither defense nor eulogy but only just recognition…”

 Today, we stand here in recognition and common reverence to honor those men who so bravely fought, and to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice on this field of honor.  Let not their sacrifice be in vain.