After the defeat of Gates, Greene went to command in Carolina; Arnold
was placed at West Point; the principal army, under the immediate orders
of Washington, had for its front guard the light infantry of Lafayette,
to which was joined the corps of the excellent partisan, Colonel Lee.
This is the proper time to speak of that light infantry. The American
troops had no grenadiers; their _chasseurs_, or riflemen, formed
a distinct regiment, under the orders of the colonel, since
Brigadier-General Morgan, and had been taken, not from different corps,
but from parts of the country on the frontiers of the savage tribes,
and from amongst men whose mode of life, and skill in firing their long
carabines, rendered them peculiarly useful in that service. But the
regiments of the line supplied some chosen men, whose officers were
also all picked men, and who formed a select band of about two thousand,
under the orders of Lafayette. The mutual attachment of that corps and
its head had become even a proverb in America. As a traveller brings
from distant countries presents to his family and friends, he had
brought from France the value of a large sum of money in ornaments
for the soldiers, swords for the officers and under officers, and
banners~[3] for the battalions. This troop of chosen men, well exercised
and disciplined, although badly clothed, were easily recognised by
their red and black plumes, and had an excellent and a very pleasing
appearance. But, except the few things which M. de Lafayette himself
supplied, none of the things France had promised to send arrived: the
money she lent proved, however, of essential service to the army.
During that year, a conference took place at Hartford, in Connecticut,
between the French generals and General Washington, accompanied by
General Lafayette and General Knox; they resolved to send the American
Colonel Laurens, charged to solicit new succours, and above all, a
superiority of force in the navy. On their return from this conference,
the conspiracy of Arnold was discovered. General Washington would still
have found that general in his quarters; if chance, or rather the desire
of showing Lafayette the fort of West Point, constructed during his
absence, had not induced him to repair thither before proceeding to
Robinson's house, in which General Arnold then resided.~[4]
It is impossible to express too much respect or too deep regret for
Major André. The fourteen general officers who had the painful task of
Historians have rendered a detailed account of the treachery of Arnold.
When, at his own request, the command of West Point was confided to him,
he urged General Washington to inform him what means of information
he possessed at New York. He made the same request to Lafayette, who
accidentally had several upon his own account, and to the other officers
who commanded near the enemy's lines. All these generals fortunately
considered themselves bound by the promise of secrecy they had made,
especially as several of the correspondents acted from a feeling of
patriotism only. If Arnold had succeeded in discovering them,
those unfortunate persons would have been ruined, and all means of
communication cut off.
Arnold was very near receiving the letter of Lieutenant-Colonel Jameson
in the presence of the commander-in-chief: he had turned aside, with
Lafayette and Knox, to look at a redoubt; Hamilton pronouncing his
sentence, the commander-in-chief, and the whole American army; were
filled with sentiments of admiration and compassion for him. The conduct
of the English in a preceding circumstance had been far from, being
similar. Captain Hale, of Connecticut, a distinguished young man,
beloved by his family and friends, had been taken on Long Island, under
circumstances of the same kind as those that occasioned the death of
Major André; but, instead of being treated with the like respect, to
which Major André himself bore testimony, Captain Hale was insulted to
the last moment of his life. "This is a fine death for a soldier!" said
one of the English officers who were surrounding the cart of execution.
"Sir," replied Hale lifting up his cap, "there is no death which would
not be rendered noble in such a glorious cause." He calmly replaced
his cap, and the fatal cart moving on, he died with the most perfect
composure.
During the winter, there was a revolt in the Pennsylvanian line.
Lafayette was at Philadelphia; the congress, and the executive power of
the state, knowing his influence over the troops, induced him to proceed
thither with General Saint Clair. They were received by the troops with
marked respect, and they listened to their complaints, which were but
too well grounded. General Wayne was in the midst of them, and had
undertaken a negotiation in concert with the state of Pennsylvania.
Lafayette had only, therefore, to repair to head quarters. The
discontent of the Pennsylvanians was appeased by the measures of
conciliation which had been already begun; but the same kind of
revolt in a Jersey brigade was suppressed with more vigour by the
general-in-chief, who, setting out with some battalions of Lafayette's
light infantry, brought the mutineers to reason, and the generals,
no longer restrained by the interference of the civil authority,
re-established immediately that military discipline which was on the
point of being lost.~[6]
(1781.) General Arnold was at Portsmouth in Virginia; Washington formed
the project of combining with the French to attack him, and take the
garrison. Lafayette set out from the head quarters with twelve hundred
of the light infantry; he pretended to make an attack on Staten Island,
and marching rapidly by Philadelphia to Head-of-Elk, he embarked with
his men in some small boats, and arrived safely at Annapolis. He set out
from thence in a canoe, with some officers, and, in spite of the English
frigates that were stationed in the bay, he repaired to Williamsburg,
to assemble the militia, whilst his detachment was still waiting for
the escort which the French were to send him. Lafayette had already
blockaded Portsmouth, and driven back the enemy's picquets, when the
issue of the combat between Admiral Arbuthnot and M. Destouches, the
commander of the French squadron, left the English complete masters
of the Chesapeake. Lafayette could only then return to Annapolis, to
re-conduct his detachment to the camp. He found himself blockaded by
small English frigates, which were much too considerable in point of
force for his boats; but having placed cannon on some merchant ships,
and embarked troops in them, he, by that manoeuvre, made the English
frigates retreat, and taking advantage of a favourable wind, he reached
with his men the Head-of-Elk, where he received some very important
despatches from General Washington: The enemy's plan of campaign was
just at that time become known: Virginia was to be its object. General
Phillips had left New York with a corps of troops to reinforce Arnold.
The general wrote to Lafayette to go to the succour of Virginia.
The task was not an easy one; the men whom he commanded had engaged
themselves for a short expedition: they belonged to the northern states,
which still retained strong prejudices as to the unhealthiness of the
southern states; they had neither shirts nor shoes. Some Baltimore
merchants lent Lafayette, on his bill, two thousand guineas, which
sufficed to buy some linen. The ladies of Baltimore, whom he met with at
a ball given in his honour when he passed through the town, undertook
to make the shirts themselves. The young men of the same city formed
themselves into a company of volunteer dragoons. His corps were
beginning to desert. Lafayette issued an order, declaring that he was
setting out for a difficult and dangerous expedition; that he hoped that
the soldiers would not abandon him, but that whoever wished to go away
might do so instantly; and he sent away two soldiers who had just
been punished for some serious offences. From that hour all desertions
ceased, and not one man would leave him: this feeling was so strong,
that an under officer, who was prevented by a diseased leg from
following the detachment, hired, at his own expense, a cart, rather than
separate from it. This anecdote is honourable to the American troops,
and deserves to become publicly known.
Lafayette had conceived that the capital of Virginia would be the
principal object of the enemy's attack. Richmond was filled with
magazines; its pillage would have proved fatal to the cause. Lafayette
marched thither with such rapidity, that when General Phillips, arriving
before Richmond, learnt that Lafayette had arrived there the night
before, he would not believe it. Having ascertained, however, the truth
of the report, he dared not attack the heights of Richmond. Lafayette
had a convoy to send to the southern states; he reconnoitred Petersburg
carefully. This threatened attack assembled the English, and whilst the
removing of cannon, and other preparations for an assault, amused them,
the convoy was sent off rapidly with the munition and clothes which
General Greene required. After the death of General Phillips, who died
that same day, Arnold wrote, by a flag of truce, to Lafayette, who
refused to receive his letter. He sent for the English officer, and,
with many expressions of respect for the British army, told him that he
could not consent to hold any correspondence with its present general.
This refusal gave great pleasure to General Washington and the public,
and placed Arnold in an awkward situation with his own army.
Lord Cornwallis, on entering Virginia by Carolina, got rid of all his
equipage, and did the same also respecting the heavy baggage of the army
under his orders. Lafayette placed himself under the same regimen, and,
during the whole of that campaign, the two armies slept without any
shelter, and only carried absolute necessaries with them. Upon that
active and decisive conflict the issue of the war was to depend; for
if the English, who bore all the force of the campaign on that point,
became masters of Virginia, not only the army of Lafayette, but also
that of Greene, who drew from thence all his resources,--and not only
Virginia, but all the states south of the Chesapeake, would inevitably
be lost. Thus the letters of the commander-in-chief, whilst telling
Lafayette that he did not deceive himself as to the difficulties of the
undertaking, merely requested him to prolong as much as possible the
defence of the state. The result was far more successful than any person
had dared to hope, at a period when all eyes and all thoughts were
directed towards that one decisive point.
The military scene in Virginia was soon to become more interesting.
General Greene had marched to the right, to attack the posts of South
Carolina, whilst Lord Cornwallis was in North Carolina. Cornwallis
allowed him to depart, and, marching also to the right, burnt his
own equipage and tents, to be enabled to remove more easily; he then
advanced rapidly towards Petersburg, and made Virginia the principal
seat of war. General Washington wrote to Lafayette that he could
send him no other reinforcement than eight hundred of the mutinous
Pennsylvanians, who had been formed again into a corps on the side of
Lancaster. Lord Cornwallis had obtained, and generally by the aid of
negroes, the best horses in Virginia. His Tarleton front guard, mounted
on race horses, stopped, like birds of prey, all they met with. The
active corps of Cornwallis was composed of more than four thousand
men, of which eight hundred were supplied with horses. The command was
divided in the following manner: General Rochambeau remained at Rhode
Island with his French corps; Washington commanded in person the
American troops before New York; he summoned, some time after, the corps
of Rochambeau to join him. That French lieutenant-general was under his
orders the same as the American major-generals, for when Lafayette
asked for the succour of troops, he took care to stipulate, in the most
positive manner, that it was to be placed entirely under Washington's
orders. The Americans were to have the right side; the American officer,
when rank and age were equal, was to command the French officer.
Lafayette had wished to give the rising republic all the advantages
and all the consequence of the greatest and longest established powers.
Washington had sent, the preceding year, General Greene to command in
the southern states; Virginia was nominally comprised in that command,
and had not yet become the theatre of war, but the distance between
the operations of Carolina and those of Virginia was so great, and the
communications were so difficult, that it was impossible for Greene
to direct what was passing in Virginia. Lafayette took, therefore, the
chief command, corresponding in a direct manner with General Washington,
and occasionally with the congress. But he wished that Greene should
retain his title of supremacy, and he only sent to the head quarters
copies of General Greene's letters, who was his intimate friend, in the
same way that both he and Greene had always been on the most intimate
footing with General Washington. During the whole of this campaign
the most perfect harmony always subsisted between the generals, and
contributed much to the success of the enterprise.
Lafayette, after having saved the magazines of Richmond, hastened to
have them evacuated; he had taken his station at Osborn, and wrote to
General Washington that he would remain there, as long as his weakest
point, which was the left, should not be threatened with an attack. Lord
Cornwallis did not fail soon to perceive the weakness of that point, and
Lafayette retreated with his little corps, which, including recruits and
the militia, did not exceed two thousand five hundred men. The richest
young men of Virginia and Maryland had come to join him as volunteer
dragoons, and from their intelligence, as well as from the superiority
of their horses, they had been of essential service to him. The
Americans retreated in such a manner that the front guard of the enemy
arrived on the spot just as they had quitted it, and, without running
any risk themselves, they retarded as much as possible its progress.
Wayne was advancing with the reinforcement of Pennsylvanians. Lafayette
made all his calculations so as to be able to effect a junction with
that corps, without being prevented from covering the military magazines
of the southern states, which were at the foot of the mountains on the
height of Fluvana. But the Pennsylvanians had delayed their movements,
and Lafayette was thus obliged to make a choice. He went to rejoin his
reinforcement at Raccoon-Ford, and hastened, by forced marches, to
come into contact with Lord Cornwallis, who had had time to make one
detachment at Charlottesville, and another at the James River Fork.
The first had dispersed the Virginian assembly; the second had done
no material injury; but the principal blow was to be struck: Lord
Cornwallis was established in a good position, within one march of the
magazines, when Lafayette arrived close to him on a road leading towards
those magazines. It was necessary for him to pass before the English
army, presenting them his flank, and exposing himself to a certain
defeat: he fortunately found out a shorter road which had remained for a
long time undiscovered, which he repaired during the night; and the next
day, to the great surprise of the English general, he was established
in an impregnable station, between the English and the magazines, whose
loss must have occasioned that of the whole southern army, of whom they
were the sole resource; for there was a road behind the mountains
that the English never intercepted, and by which the wants of General
Greene's army were supplied. Lord Cornwallis, when he commenced the
pursuit of Lafayette, had written a letter, which was intercepted, in
which he made use of this expression: _The boy cannot escape me_. He
flattered himself with terminating, by that one blow, the war in the
whole southern part of the United States, for it would have been easy
for him afterwards to take possession of Baltimore, and march towards
Philadelphia. He beheld in this manner the failure of the principal part
of his plan, and retreated towards Richmond, whilst Lafayette, who had
been joined in his new station by a corps of riflemen, as well as by
some militia, received notice beforehand to proceed forward on a certain
day, and followed, step by step, the English general, without, however,
risking an engagement with a force so superior to his own. His corps
gradually increased. Lord Cornwallis thought proper to evacuate
Richmond; Lafayette followed him, and ordered Colonel Butler to attack
his rear guard near Williamsburg. Some manoeuvre took place on that
side, of which the principal object on Lafayette's part was, to convince
Lord Cornwallis that his force was more considerable than it was in
reality. The English evacuated Williamsburg, and passed over James River
to James Island. A warm action took place between the English army and
the advance guard, whom Lafayette had ordered to the attack whilst they
were crossing the river. Lord Cornwallis had stationed the first troops
on the other side, to give the appearance as if the greatest number
of the troops had already passed over the river. Although all were
unanimous in asserting that this was the case, Lafayette himself
suspected the deception, and quitted his detachment to make observations
upon a tongue of land, from whence he could more easily view the passage
of the enemy. During that time, a piece of cannon, exposed, doubtless,
intentionally, tempted General Wayne, a brave and very enterprising
officer.
Lafayette found, on his return, the advance guard engaged in action
with a very superior force; he withdrew it, however (after a short but
extremely warm conflict), in good order, and without receiving a check.
The report was spread that he had had a horse killed under him, but it
was merely the one that was led by his side.~[7]
The English army pursued its route to Portsmouth; it then returned by
water to take its station at Yorktown and Gloucester, upon the York
River. A garrison still remained at Portsmouth. Lafayette made some
demonstrations of attack, and that garrison united itself to the body of
the army at Yorktown.
Lafayette was extremely desirous that the English army should unite at
that very spot. Such had been the aim of all his movements, ever since
a slight increase of force had permitted him to think of any other thing
than of retiring without being destroyed and of saving the magazines.
He knew that a French fleet was to arrive from the islands upon the
American coast. His principal object had been to force Lord Cornwallis
to withdraw towards the sea-shore, and then entangle him in such a
manner in the rivers, that there should remain no possibility of a
retreat. The English, on the contrary, fancied themselves in a very
good position, as they were possessors of a sea-port by which they could
receive succours from New York, and communicate with the different
parts of the coast. An accidental, but a very fortunate circumstance,
increased their security. Whilst Lafayette, full of hope, was writing to
General Washington that he foresaw he could push Lord Cornwallis into a
situation in which it would be easy for him, with some assistance from
the navy, to cut off his retreat, the general, who had always thought
that Lafayette would be very fortunate if he could save Virginia without
being cut up himself, spoke to him of his project of attack against New
York, granting him permission to come and take part in it, if he wished
it, but representing how useful it was to the Virginian army that he
should remain at its head. The two letters passed each other; the one
written by Lafayette arrived safely, and Washington prepared beforehand
to take advantage of the situation of Lord Cornwallis. Gen. Washington's
letter was intercepted, and the English, upon seeing that confidential
communication, never doubted for a moment but the real intention of the
Americans was to attack New York: their own security at Yorktown was
therefore complete.~[8]