Following Camden, Horatio Gates no longer had the confidence of Congress. Congress asked Washington to pick a new commander of the Southern Department. Washington immediately turned to Nathanael Greene, who had proven himself one of the Commander in Chief's most loyal and able subordinates.

Greene swiftly traveled south and at Charlotte, “with respectful sympathy,” took over command of the southern army from General Gates on December 4. It was not much of an army. With a paper strength of more than 2,300 men, only 1,500 troops were actually fit and available for duty, and of these only 800 were fully clothed and equipped.

On his way to the army, Greene had been promised food, clothing, and other supplies. None arrived. Greene could not stay where he was. When he arrived, there was only food for three days. After a scouting mission by Thaddeus Kosciuszko, he decided to move the bulk of his army to Cheraw Hill, just inside the South Carolina border. There he would rest and refit his men. He would also be close enough to the enemy to monitor their movements and to pose a worrisome threat.

Greene recognized that his army was in no condition to take on Cornwallis in the open field. He also realized that the partisan war offered a means of achieving much the same results as a more conventional offensive. He proved adept at working with the partisan chiefs. He did not insist that these independent-minded men subordinate themselves to him, but he did urge them to cooperate with the operations of his regulars. As he wrote to Sumter, “You may strike a hundred strokes and reap little benefit from them, unless you have a good Army to take advantage of your success.” When Lieutenant Colonel Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee arrived with his elite Legion of 300 men, Greene did not keep him with his army but sent him to cooperate with Francis Marion.

A native Rhode Islander, Greene was careful to surround himself with capable men who knew the south. He was fortunate in being joined by Daniel Morgan, the famed frontier fighter, who had played a conspicuous role in the Canadian and Saratoga campaigns. Greene made good use of his skills. Greene also took General Washington's advice and sent officers to carefully inspect and map the rivers and roads between him and the British. As a precaution, he had these officers construct or purchase boats, with wagons to transport them between rivers. The information and boats gathered by these men would prove invaluable in the coming campaign.

Before he proceeded with 1,100 men to Cheraw, Greene sent Morgan with 600 of his best men, the Maryland and Delaware Continentals, some Virginia riflemen, and Lieutenant Colonel William Washington's dragoons, marching to the west. On the face of it, splitting his army in the face of a superior foe was an act of military folly. This opened his army up to the danger of being destroyed in detail, with each half being cut off and overwhelmed like Ferguson's detachment at King's Mountain. Greene trusted to the mobility of his lean columns should the British attempt to trap them. The advantage of splitting his army lay in placing American forces on either flank of the British, offering support to the partisan forces. Whichever direction the British moved, they would be exposing outposts to American attack. As Greene wrote of his unconventional strategy, “It makes the most of my inferior force, for it compels my adversary to divide his, and holds him in doubt as to his own line of conduct.”