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The Southern Strategy: Britain's Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775-1780. By David K. Wilson. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. ISBN 1-57003-573-3. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 341. $39.95.
Expanding on the work of Ira Gruber, Paul H. Smith, and John S. Pancake, David K. Wilson looks at the early Revolutionary War in the South and finds that the "Southern Strategy" that British policymakers established as their modus operandi in that region was fundamentally flawed. The "Southern Strategy" was "based on the concept of counterrevolution; it was a sociomilitary approach that relied on the Loyalists of the southern states to provide the bulk of the manpower to achieve victory" (p. xv). British policy-makers believed that with the help of these Loyalists a relatively small force of British regulars could invade and subdue the South.
Wilson makes two...