YORKTOWN
The failure to accomplish anything in the north caused Washington,
as the year drew to a close, to turn his thoughts once more toward a
combined movement at the south. In pursuance of this idea, he devised
a scheme of uniting with the Spaniards in the seizure of Florida, and
of advancing thence through Georgia to assail the English in the rear.
De Rochambeau did not approve the plan, and it was abandoned; but the
idea of a southern movement was still kept steadily in sight. The
governing thought now was, not to protect this place or that, but to
cast aside everything else in order to strike one great blow which
would finish the war. Where he could do this, time alone would show,
but if one follows the correspondence closely, it is apparent that
Washington's military instinct turned more and more toward the south.
In that department affairs changed their aspect rapidly. January 17,
Morgan won his brilliant victory at the Cowpens, withdrew in good
order with his prisoners, and united his army with that of Greene.
Cornwallis was terribly disappointed by this unexpected reverse, but
he determined to push on, defeat the combined American army, and then
join the British forces on the Chesapeake. Greene was too weak to risk
a battle, and made a masterly retreat of two hundred miles before
Cornwallis, escaping across the Dan only twelve hours ahead of the
enemy. The moment the British moved away, Greene recrossed the river
and hung upon their rear. For a month he kept in their neighborhood,
checking the rising of the Tories, and declining battle. At last he
received reinforcements, felt strong enough to stand his ground, and
on March 15 the battle of Guilford Court House was fought. It was a
sharp and bloody fight; the British had the advantage, and Greene
abandoned the field, bringing off his army in good order. Cornwallis,
on his part, had suffered so heavily, however, that his victory turned
to ashes. On the 18th he was in full retreat, with Greene in hot
chase, and it was not until the 28th that he succeeded in getting over
the Deep River and escaping to Wilmington. Thence he determined to
push on and transfer the seat of war to the Chesapeake. Greene, with
the boldness and quickness which showed him to be a soldier of a high
order, now dropped the pursuit and turned back to fight the British in
detachments and free the southern States. There is no need to follow
him in the brilliant operations which ensued, and by which he achieved
this result. It is sufficient to say here that he had altered the
whole aspect of the war, forced Cornwallis into Virginia within reach
of Washington, and begun the work of redeeming the Carolinas.
The troops which Cornwallis intended to join had been sent in
detachments to Virginia during the winter and spring. The first body
had arrived early in January under the command of Arnold, and a
general marauding and ravaging took place. A little later General
Phillips arrived with reinforcements and took command. On May 13,
General Phillips died, and a week later Cornwallis appeared at
Petersburg, assumed control, and sent Arnold back to New York.
Meantime Washington, though relieved by Morgan's and Greene's
admirable work, had a most trying and unhappy winter and spring. He
sent every man he could spare, and more than he ought to have spared,
to Greene, and he stripped himself still further when the invasion of
Virginia began. But for the most part he was obliged, from lack of any
naval strength, to stand helplessly by and see more and more British
troops sent to the south, and witness the ravaging of his native
State, without any ability to prevent it. To these grave trials was
added a small one, which stung him to the quick. The British came up
the Potomac, and Lund Washington, in order to preserve Mount Vernon,
gave them refreshments, and treated them in a conciliatory manner. He
meant well but acted ill, and Washington wrote:--
"It would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard
that, in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they
had burnt my house and laid the plantation in ruins. You ought to have
considered yourself as my representative, and should have reflected
on the bad example of communicating with the enemy, and making a
voluntary offer of refreshments to them, with a view to prevent a
conflagration."
What a clear glimpse this little episode gives of the earnestness of
the man who wrote these lines. He could not bear the thought that any
favor should be shown him on any pretense. He was ready to take his
share of the marauding and pillaging with the rest, but he was deeply
indignant at the idea that any one representing him should even appear
to ask a favor of the British.
Altogether, the spring of 1781 was very trying, for there was nothing
so galling to Washington as to be unable to fight. He wanted to get to
the south, but he was bound hand and foot by lack of force. Yet the
obstacles did not daunt or depress him. He wrote in June that he felt
sure of bringing the war to a happy conclusion, and in the division of
the British forces he saw his opportunity taking shape. Greene had
the southern forces well in hand. Cornwallis was equally removed from
Clinton on the north and Rawdon on the south, and had come within
reach; so that if he could but have naval strength he could fall upon
Cornwallis with superior force and crush him. In naval matters fortune
thus far had dealt hardly with him, yet he could not but feel that
a French fleet of sufficient force must soon come. He grasped the
situation with a master-hand, and began to prepare the way. Still he
kept his counsel strictly to himself, and set to work to threaten, and
if possible to attack, New York, not with much hope of succeeding
in any such attempt, but with a view of frightening Clinton and of
inducing him either to withdraw troops from Virginia, or at least to
withhold reinforcements. As he began his Virginian campaign in this
distant and remote fashion at the mouth of the Hudson, he was cheered
by news that De Grasse, the French admiral, had sent recruits to
Newport, and intended to come himself to the American coast. He at
once wrote De Grasse not to determine absolutely to come to New
York, hinting that it might prove more advisable to operate to the
southward. It required great tact to keep the French fleet where he
needed it, and yet not reveal his intentions, and nothing showed
Washington's foresight more plainly than the manner in which he made
the moves in this campaign, when miles of space and weeks of time
separated him from the final object of his plans. To trace this
mastery of details, and the skill with which every point was
remembered and covered, would require a long and minute narrative.
They can only be indicated here sufficiently to show how exactly each
movement fitted in its place, and how all together brought the great
result.
Fortified by the good news from De Grasse, Washington had an interview
with De Rochambeau, and effected a junction with the French army. Thus
strengthened, he opened his campaign against Cornwallis by beginning a
movement against Clinton. The troops were massed above the city, and
an effort was made to surprise the upper posts and destroy Delancey's
partisan corps. The attempt, although well planned, failed of its
immediate purpose, giving Washington opportunity only for an effective
reconnoissance of the enemy's positions. But the move was perfectly
successful in its real and indirect object. Clinton was alarmed. He
began to write to Cornwallis that troops should be returned to New
York, and he gave up absolutely the idea of sending more men to
Virginia. Having thus convinced Clinton that New York was menaced,
Washington then set to work to familiarize skillfully the minds of his
allies and of Congress with the idea of a southern campaign. With this
end in view, he wrote on August 2 that, if more troops arrived from
Virginia, New York would be impracticable, and that the next point
was the south. The only contingency, as he set forth, was the
all-important one of obtaining naval superiority. August 15 this
essential condition gave promise of fulfillment, for on that day
definite news arrived that De Grasse with his fleet was on his way to
the Chesapeake. Without a moment's hesitation, Washington began to
move, and at the same time he sent an urgent letter to the New England
governors, demanding troops with an earnestness which he had never
surpassed.
In Virginia, meanwhile, during these long midsummer days, while
Washington was waiting and planning, Cornwallis had been going up and
down, harrying, burning, and plundering. His cavalry had scattered the
legislature, and driven Governor Jefferson in headlong flight over the
hills, while property to the value of more than three millions had
been destroyed. Lafayette, sent by Washington to maintain the American
cause, had been too weak to act decisively, but he had been true to
his general's teaching, and, refusing battle, had hung upon the flanks
of the British and harassed and checked them. Joined by Wayne, he had
fought an unsuccessful engagement at Green Springs, but brought off
his army, and with steady pertinacity followed the enemy to the coast,
gathering strength as he moved. Now, when all was at last ready,
Washington began to draw his net about Cornwallis, whom he had been
keenly watching during the victorious marauding of the summer. On the
news of the coming of the French fleet, he wrote to Lafayette to be
prepared to join him when he reached Virginia, to retain Wayne, who
intended to join Greene, and to stop Cornwallis at all hazards, if he
attempted to go southward.
Cornwallis, however, had no intention of moving. He had seen the peril
of his position, and had wished to withdraw to Charleston; but the
ministry, highly pleased with his performances, wished him to remain
on the Chesapeake, and decisive orders came to him to take a permanent
post in that region. Clinton, moreover, was jealous of Cornwallis,
and, impressed and deceived by Washington's movements, he not only
sent no reinforcements, but detained three thousand Hessians, who had
lately arrived. Cornwallis, therefore, had no choice, and with much
writing for aid, and some protesting, he obeyed his orders, planted
himself at Yorktown and Gloucester, and proceeded to fortify, while
Lafayette kept close watch upon him. Cornwallis was a good soldier and
a clever man, suffering, as Burgoyne did, from a stupid ministry and
a dull and jealous commander-in-chief. Thus hampered and burdened,
he was ready to fall a victim to the operations of a really great
general, whom his official superiors in England undervalued and
despised.
August 17, as soon as he had set his own machinery in motion,
Washington wrote to De Grasse to meet him in the Chesapeake. He was
working now more anxiously and earnestly than at any time in the
Revolution, not merely because he felt that success depended on the
blow, but because he descried a new and alarming danger. He had
perceived it in June, and the idea pursued him until all was over, and
kept recurring in his letters during this strained and eager summer.
To Washington's eyes, watching campaigns and government at home and
the politics of Europe abroad, the signs of exhaustion, of mediation,
and of coming peace across the Atlantic were plainly visible. If peace
should come as things then were, America would get independence, and
be shorn of many of her most valuable possessions. The sprawling
British campaign of maraud and plunder, so bad in a military point of
view, and about to prove fatal to Cornwallis, would, in case of sudden
cessation of hostilities, be capable of the worst construction. Time,
therefore, had become of the last importance. The decisive blow must
be given at once, and before the slow political movements could come
to a head. On July 14, Washington had his plan mapped out. He wrote in
his diary:--
"Matters having now come to a crisis, and a decided plan to be
determined on, I was obliged--from the shortness of Count De Grasse's
promised stay on this coast, the apparent disinclination of their
naval officers to force the harbor of New York, and the feeble
compliance of the States with my requisitions for men hitherto, and
the little prospect of greater exertions in future--to give up all
ideas of attacking New York, and instead thereof to remove the French
troops and a detachment from the American army to the Head of Elk, to
be transported to Virginia for the purpose of coöperating with the
force from the West Indies against the troops in that State."
Like most of Washington's plans, this one was clear-cut and direct,
and looks now simple enough, but at the moment it was hedged with
almost inconceivable difficulties at every step. The ever-present and
ever-growing obstacles at home were there as usual. Appeals to Morris
for money were met by the most discouraging responses, and the States
seemed more lethargic than ever. Neither men nor supplies could be
obtained; neither transportation nor provision for the march could be
promised. Then, too, in addition to all this, came a wholly new set of
stumbling-blocks arising among the allies. Everything hinged on the
naval force. Washington needed it for a short time only; but for that
crucial moment he must have not only superiority but supremacy at sea.
Every French ship that could be reached must be in the Chesapeake, and
Washington had had too many French fleets slip away from him at the
last moment and bring everything to naught to take any chances in this
direction. To bring about his naval supremacy required the utmost
tact and good management, and that he succeeded is one of the
chief triumphs of the campaign. In fact, at the very outset he was
threatened in this quarter with a serious defection. De Barras, with
the squadron of the American station, was at Boston, and it was
essential that he should be united with De Grasse at Yorktown. But De
Barras was nettled by the favoritism which had made De Grasse, his
junior in service, his superior in command. He determined therefore to
take advantage of his orders and sail away to the north to Nova Scotia
and Newfoundland, and leave De Grasse to fight it out alone. It is a
hard thing to beat an opposing army, but it is equally hard to bring
human jealousies and ambitions into the narrow path of self-sacrifice
and subordination. Alarmed beyond measure at the suggested departure
of the Boston squadron, Washington wrote a letter, which De Rochambeau
signed with him, urging De Barras to turn his fleet toward the
Chesapeake. It was a skillfully drawn missive, an adroit mingling of
appeals to honor and sympathy and of vigorous demands to perform an
obvious duty. The letter did its work, the diplomacy of Washington was
successful, and De Barras suppressed his feelings of disappointment,
and agreed to go to the Chesapeake and serve under De Grasse.
This point made, Washington pushed on his preparations, or rather
pushed on despite his lack of preparations, and on August 17, as has
been said, wrote to De Grasse to meet him in the Chesapeake. He left
the larger part of his own troops with Heath, to whom in carefully
drawn instructions he intrusted the grave duty of guarding the Hudson
and watching the British in New York. This done, he gathered his
forces together, and on August 21 the army started on its march to the
south. On the 23d and 24th it crossed the Hudson, without annoyance
from the British of any kind. Washington had threatened New York so
effectively, and manoeuvred so successfully, that Clinton could not be
shaken in his belief that the real object of the Americans was his own
army; and it was not until September 6 that he fully realized that his
enemy was going to the south, and that Cornwallis was in danger. He
even then hesitated and delayed, but finally dispatched Admiral Graves
with the fleet to the Chesapeake. The Admiral came upon the French
early on September 5, the very day that Washington was rejoicing in
the news that De Grasse had arrived in the Chesapeake and had landed
St. Simon and three thousand men to support Lafayette. As soon as the
English fleet appeared, the French, although many of their men were
on shore, sailed out and gave battle. An indecisive action ensued, in
which the British suffered so much that five days later they burned
one of their frigates and withdrew to New York. De Grasse returned to
his anchorage, to find that De Barras had come in from Newport with
eight ships and ten transports carrying ordnance.
While everything was thus moving well toward the consummation of the
campaign, Washington, in the midst of his delicate and important work
of breaking camp and beginning his rapid march to the south, was
harassed by the ever-recurring difficulties of the feeble and bankrupt
government of the confederation. He wrote again and again to Morris
for money, and finally got some. His demands for men and supplies
remained almost unheeded, but somehow he got provisions enough to
start. He foresaw the most pressing need, and sent messages in all
directions for shipping to transport his army down the Chesapeake. No
one responded, but still he gathered the transports; at first a few,
then more, and finally, after many delays, enough to move his army to
Yorktown. The spectacle of such a struggle, so heroically made, one
would think, might have inspired every soul on the continent with
enthusiasm; but at this very moment, while Washington was breaking
camp and marching southward, Congress was considering the reduction
of the army!--which was as appropriate as it would have been for the
English Parliament to have reduced the navy on the eve of Trafalgar,
or for Lincoln to have advised the restoration of the army to a peace
footing while Grant was fighting in the Wilderness. The fact was that
the Continental Congress was weakened in ability and very tired in
point of nerve and will-power. They saw that peace was coming, and
naturally thought that the sooner they could get it the better. They
entirely failed to see, as Washington saw, that in a too sudden peace
lurked the danger of the _uti possidetis_, and that the mere fact of
peace by no means implied necessarily complete success. They did not,
of course, effect their reductions, but they remained inert, and so
for the most part did the state governments, becoming drags upon
the wheels of war instead of helpers to the man who was driving the
Revolution forward to its goal. Both state and confederate governments
still meant well, but they were worn out and relaxed. Yet over and
through all these heavy masses of misapprehension and feebleness,
Washington made his way. Here again all that can be said is that
somehow or other the thing was done. We can take account of the
resisting forces, but we cannot tell just how they were dealt with.
We only know that one strong man trampled them down and got what he
wanted done.
Pushing on after the joyful news of the arrival of De Grasse had been
received, Washington left the army to go by water from the Head of
Elk, and hurried to Mount Vernon, accompanied by De Rochambeau. It
was six years since he had seen his home. He had left it a Virginian
colonel, full of forebodings for his country, with a vast and unknown
problem awaiting solution at his hands. He returned to it the first
soldier of his day, after six years of battle and trial, of victory
and defeat, on the eve of the last and crowning triumph. As he paused
on the well-beloved spot, and gazed across the broad and beautiful
river at his feet, thoughts and remembrances must have come thronging
to his mind which it is given to few men to know. He lingered there
two days, and then pressing on again, was in Williamsburg on the 14th,
and on the 17th went on board the Ville de Paris to congratulate De
Grasse on his victory, and to concert measures for the siege.
The meeting was most agreeable. All had gone well, all promised well,
and everything was smiling and harmonious. Yet they were on the eve
of the greatest peril which occurred in the campaign. Washington
had managed to scrape together enough transports; but his almost
unassisted labors had taken time, and delay had followed. Then the
transports were slow, and winds and tides were uncertain, and there
was further delay. The interval permitted De Grasse to hear that the
British fleet had received reinforcements, and to become nervous in
consequence. He wanted to get out to sea; the season was advancing,
and he was anxious to return to the West Indies; and above all he
did not wish to fight in the bay. He therefore proposed firmly and
vigorously to leave two ships in the river, and stand out to sea with
his fleet. The Yorktown campaign began to look as if it had reached
its conclusion. Once again Washington wrote one of his masterly
letters of expostulation and remonstrance, and once more he prevailed,
aided by the reasoning and appeals of Lafayette, who carried the
message. De Grasse consented to stay, and Washington, grateful beyond
measure, wrote him that "a great mind knows how to make personal
sacrifice to secure an important general good." Under the
circumstances, and in view of the general truth of this complimentary
sentiment, one cannot help rejoicing that De Grasse had "a great
mind."
At all events he stayed, and thereafter everything went well. The
northern army landed at Williamsburg and marched for Yorktown on the
28th. They reconnoitred the outlying works the next day, and prepared
for an immediate assault; but in the night Cornwallis abandoned all
his outside works and withdrew into the town. Washington thereupon
advanced at once, and prepared for the siege. On the night of the 5th,
the trenches were opened only six hundred yards from the enemy's line,
and in three days the first parallel was completed. On the 11th the
second parallel was begun, and on the 14th the American batteries
played on the two advanced redoubts with such effect that the breaches
were pronounced practicable. Washington at once ordered an assault.
The smaller redoubt was stormed by the Americans under Hamilton and
taken in ten minutes. The other, larger and more strongly garrisoned,
was carried by the French with equal gallantry, after half an hour's
fighting. During the assault Washington stood in an embrasure of the
grand battery watching the advance of the men. He was always given to
exposing himself recklessly when there was fighting to be done, but
not when he was only an observer. This night, however, he was much
exposed to the enemy's fire. One of his aides, anxious and disturbed
for his safety, told him that the place was perilous. "If you think
so," was the quiet answer, "you are at liberty to step back." The
moment was too exciting, too fraught with meaning, to think of peril.
The old fighting spirit of Braddock's field was unchained for the last
time. He would have liked to head the American assault, sword in hand,
and as he could not do that he stood as near his troops as he could,
utterly regardless of the bullets whistling in the air about him. Who
can wonder at his intense excitement at that moment? Others saw a
brilliant storming of two outworks, but to Washington the whole
Revolution, and all the labor and thought and conflict of six years
were culminating in the smoke and din on those redoubts, while out of
the dust and heat of the sharp quick fight success was coming. He
had waited long, and worked hard, and his whole soul went out as he
watched the troops cross the abattis and scale the works. He could
have no thought of danger then, and when all was over he turned to
Knox and said, "The work is done, and well done. Bring me my horse."
Washington was not mistaken. The work was indeed done. Tarleton early
in the siege had dashed out against Lauzun on the other side of the
river and been repulsed. Cornwallis had been forced back steadily into
the town, and his redoubts, as soon as taken, were included in the
second parallel. A sortie to retake the redoubts failed, and a wild
attempt to transport the army across the river was stopped by a gale
of wind. On the 17th Cornwallis was compelled to face much bloody and
useless slaughter, or to surrender. He chose the latter course, and
after opening negotiations and trying in vain to obtain delay, finally
signed the capitulation and gave up the town. The next day the troops
marched out and laid down their arms. Over 7000 British and Hessian
troops surrendered. It was a crushing defeat. The victorious army
consisted in round numbers of 5500 continentals, 3500 militia, and
7000 French, and they were backed by the French fleet with entire
control of the sea.
When Washington had once reached Yorktown with his fleet and army, the
campaign was really at an end, for he held Cornwallis in an iron grip
from which there was no escape. The masterly part of the Yorktown
campaign lay in the manner in which it was brought about, in the
management of so many elements, and in the rapidity of movement which
carried an army without any proper supplies or means of transportation
from New York to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The control of the sea
had been the great advantage of the British from the beginning, and
had enabled them to achieve all that they ever gained. With these odds
against him, with no possibility of obtaining a fleet of his own,
Washington saw that his only chance of bringing the war to a quick and
successful issue was by means of the French. It is difficult to manage
allied troops. It is still more difficult to manage allied troops and
an allied fleet. Washington did both with infinite address, and won.
The chief factor of his success in this direction lay in his profound
personal influence on all men with whom he came in contact. His
courtesy and tact were perfect, but he made no concessions, and
never stooped. The proudest French noble who came here shrank from
disagreement with the American general, and yet not one of them had
anything but admiration and respect to express when they wrote of
Washington in their memoirs, diaries, and letters. He impressed them
one and all with a sense of power and greatness which could not
be disregarded. Many times he failed to get the French fleet in
coöperation, but finally it came. Then he put forth all his influence
and all his address, and thus he got De Barras to the Chesapeake, and
kept De Grasse at Yorktown.
This was one side of the problem, the most essential because
everything hinged on the fleet, but by no means the most harassing.
The doubt about the control of the sea made it impossible to work
steadily for a sufficient time toward any one end. It was necessary to
have a plan for every contingency, and be ready to adopt any one of
several plans at short notice. With a foresight and judgment that
never failed, Washington planned an attack on New York, another on
Yorktown, and a third on Charleston. The division of the British
forces gave him his opportunity of striking at one point with an
overwhelming force, but there was always the possibility of their
suddenly reuniting. In the extreme south he felt reasonably sure that
Greene would hold Rawdon, but he was obliged to deceive and amuse
Clinton, and at the same time, with a ridiculously inferior force,
to keep Cornwallis from marching to South Carolina. Partly by good
fortune, partly by skill, Cornwallis was kept in Virginia, while by
admirably managed feints and threats Clinton was held in New York in
inactivity. When the decisive moment came, and it was evident that the
control of the sea was to be determined in the Chesapeake, Washington,
overriding all sorts of obstacles, moved forward, despite a bankrupt
and inert government, with a rapidity and daring which have been
rarely equaled. It was a bold stroke to leave Clinton behind at the
mouth of the Hudson, and only the quickness with which it was done,
and the careful deception which had been practiced, made it possible.
Once at Yorktown, there was little more to do. The combination was
so perfect, and the judgment had been so sure, that Cornwallis was
crushed as helplessly as if he had been thrown before the car of
Juggernaut. There was really but little fighting, for there was no
opportunity to fight. Washington held the British in a vice, and the
utter helplessness of Cornwallis, the entire inability of such a good
and gallant soldier even to struggle, are the most convincing proofs
of the military genius of his antagonist.