After 1778 the war took on a distinctively international character. In 1778 France declared war on Britain, followed in 1779 and 1780 by Spain and the Dutch Republic, respectively. Britain now had to fight on a battlefield that included India, Gibraltar, the US, and the West Indies. Partially in response to this turn of events and partially in response to the declining situation in the North, the British turned their attention to the American South. The southern ports, if controlled by the British, would provide the flexibility of movement necessary to carry out such a geographically broad conflict. Additionally, loyalist influences were far stronger in the South then they were in the North, and the British counted on their support. The plan entailed seizing the major southern ports and after establishing control of the South, working back toward the North.

General Henry Clinton sailed from New York to Charleston, South Carolina in pursuit of this goal. He brought with him 9,000 troops and took the Continental garrison at the South Carolina capitol on May 12, 1780. Clinton, satisfied that with loyalist support he could control the city, returned to New York with 3,000 men. He left the British troops in the South under the control of Lord Charles Cornwallis. Cornwallis found that while loyalism was not as strong as the British had hoped, there were significant numbers of Tories in the Carolinas and in Georgia especially.

These loyalists quickly joined the royal militia and aided in the defense of British strongholds and in the harassment of local Whigs. The Tories, long oppressed by the dominant Whigs during the opening years of the revolution, struck back with vigor, forming roaming mobs to terrorize patriot leaders. The patriots formed their own bands and mobs in resistance. The first few months of British occupation were characterized by small skirmishes between neighbors divided over the cause of independence. After a short time of relatively unfettered British domination and loyalist torment of southern patriots, the Continental Army finally responded with large-scale military action.

Congress sent General Horatio Gates to command the southern forces in opposition to the British occupation. However, he only had a small number of trained Continentals under his command, thus his troops were comprised largely of more poorly trained militiamen. On August 16, 1780, Gates attempted to take the British and Tory camp at Camden, South Carolina. His forces, numbering 3,500 were crushed resoundingly by only 2,000 British troops. The less experienced militiamen scattered and retreated after firing only one volley, leaving the small Continental force to be routed. American losses are not known for certain, but estimates as high as 800 killed are commonly accepted. The British, on the other hand, only suffered 68 killed and 256 wounded. Horatio Gates himself fled from the battlefield shortly after the fighting began. For his failure, General George Washington immediately relieved Gates of command, and sent Nathanael Greene to South Carolina in his place.

Although the British could explain their shift in focus from North to South by citing the practical need to locate their troops in a more flexible position relative to their other major conflicts around the globe, many historians believe the move South truly signified the frustrated effort to quell the resistance in the North. Unable to halt the progress of the revolution through direct conflict in the geographical center of the rebellion, the British moved south, planning to take the hardest possible route back to the North. British military officials decided on a move to the South as a last-ditch effort at victory, expecting that the greater presence of loyalists in the region would make it easier to conquer and hold their military targets.

While the British expectation of finding a significantly higher proportion of loyalists in the Carolinas than they had found in the North turned out to be correct, the British found far fewer than they had expected. Southern loyalism had suffered a blow during the early years of the war, when Cherokee Indians had attacked the American settlers, killing Whigs and Tories indiscriminately. Additionally, attempts at political education undertaken by the patriots took its toll slowly but surely, and the number of loyalists turned to the cause of the revolution grew steadily throughout the opening years of the war.

Still, the war in the South was predominantly a civil war during the first three months of British occupation. The American Tories, supplied and empowered by the support of the British troops, did most of the fighting for the British/Tory side during this time. Eager to get revenge on the Whigs, who had treated them poorly during the war to this point, the Tories mobilized quickly and ferociously. As a result, the war in the South was intensely personal in nature. Individuals often took sides and actions based solely on personal vendettas rather than politics, with many instances of individuals becoming avid militants as a result of what they felt to be personal affronts. Many of these instances involved individuals responding to personal vendettas in the form of brutally violent revenge, such as hangings and executions.

The failure of Horatio Gates' Continental forces to end this situation was an understandable outrage to the Continental leadership. His embarrassing defeat both gave the British hope and crushed the sprit of many patriots in the North and Mid-Atlantic who hoped the situation in the South was not as direly loyalist as rumors often claimed. The Continentals saw in the move south a chance to crush all remaining British hopes of victory. Instead, Gates had done just the opposite. While it is true that many of his soldiers were poorly trained militiamen, the resounding nature of the defeat at Camden suggested that poor planning and cowardice had factored into the loss. Washington, furious, called for Nathanael Greene to rectify the situation.