“CORNWALLIS IS TAKEN!”
These were thrilling days. The American armies were marching south, and
with them were advancing the bugles of Auvergne.
Simple incidents, as well as incidents tragic and dramatic, picture
times and periods, and we relate some of the family stories of General
Knox of the artillery, who had collected powder and directed, often
with his own hands, the siege-guns of the great events of the war.
When the French officers arrived in Philadelphia after their journey
from Lebanon, they were entertained at a banquet by Chevalier de
Luzerne, the ambassador from the French court. Philadelphia was the
seat of the American Government then.
The banquet was a splendid one for those times, and it had a lively
spirit. The American guests must have been filled with expectation.
For the plan to shut up Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown was full of
promise, and the military enterprises to effect this were proceeding
well. The lord himself was dissatisfied with the plans he was compelled
to pursue, and any fortress is weak in which the heart of the commander
is not strong in the faith of success.
In the midst of the banquet, there was a summons for silence. The
Chevalier arose, his face beaming.
He looked into the eager faces and said:
“My friends, I have good news for you all.
“Thirty-three ships of the line, commanded by Monsieur le Compte de
Grasse, have arrived in the Chesapeake Bay.”
A thrill ran through the assembly. The atmosphere became electric, and
amid the ardor of glowing expectation the Chevalier added:
“And the ships have landed three thousand men, and the men have opened
communication with Lafayette.”
The guests leaped to their feet.
“Cornwallis is surrounded and doomed!” said they.
They grasped each other’s hands, and added:
“This is the end!”
The army, now confident of victory, marched toward Yorktown, under the
command of Washington.
The inhabitants along the way hailed it as it passed――women, children.
There were cheers from the doorsteps, fences, and fields, from white
and black, the farmer and laborer. The towns uttered one shout, and
blazed by night. The land knew no common night, every one was so filled
and thrilled with joy. All flags were in air.
The morning of liberty was dawning, the sun was coming, the people knew
it by the advance rays. The invader must soon depart.
“Cornwallis is doomed!” was the salutation from place to place, from
house to house.
General Washington, with Knox and members of his staff, stopped one
morning at a Pennsylvania farmhouse for breakfast.
The meal was provided. The officers partook of it, and ordered their
horses, and were waiting for them when the people of the place came
into the house to pay their respects to Washington. He stood in the
simple room, tall and commanding, with the stately Knox beside him.
“Make way,” said the people, “make way for age!”
An old man appeared, the patriarch of the place. He entered the house
without speaking a word. He looked into the face of Washington and
stood silent. There had come to him the moment that he had hoped to
see; the desire and probably prayers of fading years had been answered.
The room became still.
The old man did not ask an introduction to the great commander. He
lifted his face upward and raised his hands. Then he spoke, not to
Washington and his generals, but to God:
“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have
seen thy salvation.”
The generals rode on toward Virginia, cheered by the spirit of prophecy
in the patriarch’s prayer.
It was a little episode, but the soul of destiny was in it.
October, with its refreshing shade of coolness, its harvest-fields and
amber airs, was now at hand. Cornwallis was surrounded at Yorktown.
He had warned Sir Henry Clinton, his superior, that this might be
his fate. He is lost who has lost his faith, and begins to make the
provision to say, “I told you so!”
Knox with his siege-guns, twenty-three in number, was preparing for the
final tempest of the war.
And against Yorktown were marching the heroes of the old liberty
banners of _Auvergne sans tache_.
In the early autumn of 1781 the field of war had become the scene of a
thrilling drama in the British camp. Lord Cornwallis had taken his army
into Yorktown, and under the protection of the British fleet on the
York River had fortified his position by semicircular fortifications
which extended from river to river.
He must have felt his position impregnable at first, with the advantage
which the fleet would bring to him in the wide river, until there came
news to him that unsettled his faith in his position. But he soon began
to lose confidence. He seemed to foreshadow his doom.
Yorktown was situated on a projecting bank of the York River. The river
was a mile wide, and deep. Lord Cornwallis expected to have the place
fortified by middle fall, and that Sir Henry Clinton would join him
there.
“I have no enemy now to contend against but Lafayette,” he thought
until the coming of the French fleet was announced to him.
Washington determined to cut off Lord Cornwallis from any retreat
from Yorktown by land or by sea. His plan was to pen up the British
commander on the peninsula, and there to end the war. He largely
entrusted the siege by land to young Lafayette. He probably felt a
pride in giving the young general the opportunity to end the war. He
liked to honor one who had so trusted his heart, and whose service had
so honored him.
Washington ordered the French army to the Virginia peninsula, and with
them went the grand regiment of Gatinais, or Gatinois, with which many
years before Rochambeau had won his fame. The heroes of old Auvergne
were to be given the opportunity to fight for liberty here, as they had
done in the days of old.
These heroes had had their regimental name officially taken away from
them on being brought to America――_Auvergne sans tache_. They desired
to serve liberty under this glorious name of noble memories again. They
appealed to Rochambeau for that distinction.
Their hearts beat high, for they were going to reenforce Lafayette,
who was born in Auvergne, and who had desired their presence and
inspiration.
So on sea and land a powerful force was gathering to shut up Lord
Cornwallis in Yorktown and to shatter the British army on the banks of
the York.
Washington himself was approaching Lafayette by way of Philadelphia,
Rochambeau by way of Chester and Philadelphia, and De Grasse by the
sea. General Thomas Nelson, Governor of Virginia, was arousing the
spirit of Virginia again and calling out the militia.
At the great banquet which was given in Philadelphia by the French
minister, Chevalier de Luzerne, to Washington and the French officers,
when came the news that Count De Grasse and Marquis St. Simon with
3,000 troops had joined Lafayette, all Philadelphia had rung with
cheers, and the news thrilled the country. At that hour the destiny
of America was revealed. There could but one thing happen at Yorktown
now――Cornwallis must surrender. The General was certain to be blocked
up in York River.
Everything was going well. Washington and Rochambeau went to Baltimore
and found the city blazing as with the assurance of victory. At this
time, with victory in view, Washington visited Mount Vernon, from which
he had been absent six anxious years. He passed the evening there with
Count Rochambeau, and they were joined there by Chastellux. Washington
now left his old home for the field of final victory.
The great generals next faced Yorktown, with their forces, some 16,000
men. They saw the helplessness of Cornwallis, and as De Grasse wished
to return soon to the West Indies, the combined forces prepared to move
on the British fortifications at once. Seven redoubts and six batteries
faced the allies, with abatis, field-works, and barricades of fallen
trees.
The allies began to prepare for an immediate conflict. They erected
advancing earthworks, in a semicircle, and with the French fleet in the
bay, the 1st of October heard the sound of the cannonade.
The peninsula thundered and smoked, and the drama there begun was
watched by Washington, Rochambeau, Chastellux, and Count de Grasse.
What men were these with Lafayette at the front!
A great cannonade began on the 9th of October, Washington himself
putting the match to the first gun.
Governor Nelson of Virginia was in the field. His house was there, too,
within the enemy’s lines in Yorktown. “Do you see yonder house?” said
he to a commander of the artillery. It was the headquarters of the
enemy. “It is my house, but fire upon it.”
This recalls John Hancock’s message to Washington at the beginning of
the war. “Burn Boston, if need be, and leave John Hancock a beggar.”
The enemy responded. The shells of each crossed each other in the
bright, smoky October air. The British fired red-hot shot, and set on
fire some of their own shipping. The nights seemed full of meteors, as
though red armies were battling in the sky.
The 14th of October came――a day of heroes. That day the redoubts were
to be stormed.
Lafayette prepared his own men for the assault.
Then Baron de Viomenil led out the heroes of Gatinais.
Before this regiment De Rochambeau appeared to give them their orders,
which meant death. He had won, as we have said, his own fame in Europe
with these mountain heroes. The attack to which he was to order them
now was to be made at night.
“My lads,” said he, “I have need of you this night, and I hope that you
will not forget that we have served together in that brave regiment of
_Auvergne sans tache_.”
A cheer went up in memory of old, followed by:
“Restore to us our name of ‘Auvergne sans tache’ and we will die.”
“That name shall be restored,” said Rochambeau.
They marched to death side by side with the bold regiment of Lafayette,
who was to lead the advance.
About eight o’clock the signal rockets for the attack reddened the sky.
The regiment of Gatinais rushed forward. They faced the hardest
resistance of the siege. This redoubt was powerfully garrisoned and
fortified.
Baron de Viomenil led his heroes into the fire, and his men fought like
ancient heroes, to whom honor was more than life. In the midst of the
struggle an aide came to him from Lafayette.
“I am in the redoubt,” said the message. “Where are you?”
“I will be in _my_ redoubt in five minutes.”
Strongly fortified as that redoubt was, it could not withstand the men
of Gatinais. They entered it with a force that nothing could withstand,
but _one third of them fell_.
“Royal Auvergne,” said Rochambeau, “your survivors shall have your own
name again.”
He reported the action to the French King, and the latter gave back to
the heroes their regimental name of old _Auvergne sans tache_.
These men are worthy of a monument under that noble motto. We repeat,
the words should be used on decorative ensigns of the Sons of the
Revolution; nothing nobler in war ever saw the light.
* * * * *
Yorktown fell on the morning of the 17th, and a courier sped toward
Philadelphia, crying, as he went: “Cornwallis is taken!” Bells rang,
people cheered.
The messenger reached Philadelphia at night――“Cornwallis is taken!”
Windows opened. The citizens leaped from their beds. The bells
rang on, and the city blazed with lights, and Congress gave way to
transports of joy.
Dennis and Peter came riding back to the alarm-post, shouting by the
way, “Cornwallis is taken!”
The Governor knelt down in the war office, and the people shouted
without the silent place.
* * * * *
Peter could afford to be magnanimous now to his feeble old uncle. He
hurried to the old man’s cabin and knocked at the door.
“I chop wood,” said a voice within.
“Uncle, it is Peter. Cornwallis has surrendered!”
The latch was lifted, and the wood-chopper appeared as one withered and
palsied.
“What is that you tell me? Cornwallis has surrendered? What has become
of the King?”
“The cause of the King is lost!”
“Then I don’t see that I have anything more to live for. Come in. I
have nothing against you now, so far as I am concerned, for _you came
back_――don’t you remember that on the night that I was to have been
robbed you came back? I have never forgotten that. You came back.”
He tottered to the chest beside the table.
“Here, let me open the chest now while I have strength to unlock the
lid. The King! the King! How he will feel when he hears the news! And
he said of young Trumbull, ‘I pity him.’ His heart will go down like a
sailor on the sea on a stormy night. Peter, I feel for him. Don’t you
pity him? Sit down by me.”
He lifted the lid of the chest, and took out of the chest a leather
bag. He untied the bag-string, and turned a pile of doubloons on the
table.
“_One._ That is yours. You _came back_ to your poor old uncle on the
night when the robber was trying to find me.
“_Two._ It is yours, for you came back.
“_Three._ My sight is going. It is all yours, for you came back.
“My hands grow numb, the world is going. I can feel it going. But
all that I leave is yours. My breath grows cold. I have only time to
say, ‘God save the King!’ I want to go, and leave what I have to you,
Peter, for you came back. Good-by, earth; I leave you my woodpile; warm
yourself by my fire when I am gone. God――save――the――King!”
He sat silent. Peter bent over him. The old man’s breath was cold, and
soon the last pulse beat.
Peter gathered up the gold. He would turn it into education at
Plainfield Academy and at Yale College. Then he would go away, after
Dennis, perhaps, to the Western territory which would become a new
Connecticut.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to
follow the text that they illustrate.
――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.