THE FRENCH ALLIANCE.
[Sidenote: Lord North changes front, and France interferes,
Feb., 1778.]
This capture of a British army made more ado in Europe than anything
which had happened for many a day. It was compared to Leuktra and the
Caudine Fork. The immediate effect in England was to weaken the king and
cause Lord North to change his policy. The tea-duty and the obnoxious
acts of 1774 were repealed, the principles of colonial independence of
Parliament laid down by Otis and Henry were admitted, and commissioners
were sent over to America to negotiate terms of peace. It was hoped that
by such ample concessions the Americans might be so appeased as to be
willing to adopt some arrangement which would leave their country a part
of the British Empire. As soon as the French government saw the first
symptoms of such a change of policy on the part of Lord North, it
decided to enter into an alliance with the United States. There was much
sympathy for the Americans among educated people of all grades of
society in France; but the action of the government was determined
purely by hatred of England. While Great Britain and her colonies were
weakening each other by war, France had up to this moment not cared to
interfere. But if there was the slightest chance of a reconciliation, it
was high time to prevent it; and besides, the American cause was now
prosperous, and something might be made of it. The moment had come for
France to seek revenge for the disasters of the Seven Years' War; and on
the 6th of February, 1778, her treaty of alliance with the United States
was signed at Paris.
[Sidenote: Untimely death of Lord Chatham, May 11, 1778.]
At the news of this there was an outburst of popular excitement in
England. There was a strong feeling in favour of peace with America and
war with France, and men of all parties united with Lord North himself
in demanding that Lord Chatham, who represented such a policy, should be
made prime minister. It was rightly believed that he, if any one, could
both conciliate America and humiliate France. There was only one way in
which Chatham could have broken the new alliance which Congress had so
long been seeking. The faith of Congress was pledged to France, and the
Americans would no longer hear of any terms that did not begin with the
acknowledgment of their full independence. To break the alliance, it
would have been necessary to concede the independence of the United
States. The king felt that if he were now obliged to call Chatham to the
head of affairs and allow him to form a strong ministry, it would be the
end of his cherished schemes for breaking down cabinet government.
There was no man whom George III. hated and feared so much as Lord
Chatham. Nevertheless the pressure was so great that, but for Chatham's
untimely death, the king would probably have been obliged to yield. If
Chatham had lived a year longer, the war might have ended with the
surrender of Burgoyne instead of continuing until the surrender of
Cornwallis. As it was, Lord North consented, against his own better
judgment, to remain in office and aid the king's policy as far as he
could. The commissioners sent to America accomplished nothing, because
they were not empowered to grant independence; and so the war went on.
[Sidenote: Change in the conduct of the war.]
There was a great change, however, in the manner in which the war was
conducted. In the years 1776 and 1777 the British had pursued a definite
plan for conquering New York and thus severing the connection between
New England and the southern states. During the remainder of the war
their only definite plan was for conquering the southern states. Their
operations at the north were for the most part confined to burning and
plundering expeditions along the coast in their ships, or on the
frontier in connection with Tories and Indians. The war thus assumed a
more cruel character. This was chiefly due to the influence of Lord
George Germaine, the secretary of state for the colonies. He was a
contemptible creature, weak and cruel. He had been dismissed from the
army in 1759 for cowardice at the battle of Minden, and he was so
generally despised that when in 1782 the king was obliged to turn him
out of office and tried to console him by raising him to the peerage as
Viscount Sackville, the House of Lords protested against the admission
of such a creature. George III. had made this man his colonial secretary
in the autumn of 1775, and he had much to do with planning the campaigns
of the next two years. But now his influence in the cabinet seems to
have increased. He was much more thoroughly in sympathy with the king
than Lord North, who at this time was really to be pitied. Lord North
would have been a fine man but for his weakness of will. He was now
keeping up the war in America unwillingly, and was obliged to sanction
many things of which he did not approve. In later years he bitterly
repented this weakness. Now the truculent policy of Lord George Germaine
began to show itself in the conduct of the war. That minister took no
pains to conceal his willingness to employ Indians, to burn towns and
villages, and to inflict upon the American people as much misery as
possible, in the hope of breaking their spirit and tiring them out.
[Sidenote: The Conway Cabal.]
In America the first effect of Burgoyne's surrender was to strengthen a
feeling of dissatisfaction with Washington, which had grown up in some
quarters. In reality, as our narrative has shown, Washington had as much
to do with the overthrow of Burgoyne as anybody; for if it had not been
for his skilful campaign in June, 1777, Howe would have taken
Philadelphia in that month, and would then have been free to assist
Burgoyne. It is easy enough to understand such things afterward, but
people never can see them at the time when they are happening. This is
an excellent illustration of what was said at the beginning of this
book, that when people are down in the midst of events they cannot see
the wood because of the trees, and it is only when they have climbed the
hill of history and look back over the landscape that they can see what
things really meant. At the end of the year 1777 people could only see
that Burgoyne had surrendered to Gates, while Washington had lost two
battles and the city of Philadelphia. Accordingly there were many who
supposed that Gates must be a better general than Washington, and in the
army there were some discontented spirits that were only too glad to
take advantage of this feeling. One of these malcontents was an Irish
adventurer, Thomas Conway, who had long served in France and came over
here in time to take part in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown.
He had a grudge against Washington, as Charles Lee had. He thought he
could get on better if Washington were out of the way. So he busied
himself in organizing a kind of conspiracy against Washington, which
came to be known as the "Conway Cabal." The purpose was to put forward
Gates to supersede Washington, as he had lately superseded the noble
Schuyler. Gates, of course, lent himself heartily to the scheme; such
intrigues were what he was made for. And there were some of our noblest
men who were dissatisfied with Washington, because they were ignorant of
the military art, and could not understand his wonderful skill, as
Frederick the Great did. Among these were John and Samuel Adams, who
disapproved of "Fabian strategy." Gates and Conway tried to work upon
such feelings. They hoped by thwarting and insulting Washington to wound
his pride and force him to resign. In this wretched work they had
altogether too much help from Congress, but they failed ignominiously
because Gates's lies were too plainly discovered. The attempts to injure
Washington recoiled upon their authors. Never, perhaps, was Washington
so grand as in that sorrowful winter at Valley Forge.
When the news of the French alliance arrived, in the spring of 1778,
there was a general feeling of elation. People were over-confident. It
seemed as if the British might be driven from the country in the course
of that year. Some changes occurred in both the opposing armies. A great
deal of fault was found in England with Howe and Burgoyne. The latter
was allowed to go home in the spring, and took his seat in Parliament
while still a prisoner on parole. He was henceforth friendly to the
Americans, and opposed the further prosecution of the war. Sir William
Howe resigned his command in May and went home in order to defend his
conduct. Shortly before his appointment to the chief command in America,
he had uttered a prophecy somewhat notable as coming from one who was
about to occupy such a position. In a speech at Nottingham he had
expressed the opinion that the Americans could not be subdued by any
army that Great Britain could raise!
[Sidenote: Howe is superseded by Clinton.]
Howe was succeeded in the chief command by Sir Henry Clinton. His
brother, Lord Howe, remained in command of the fleet until the autumn,
when he was succeeded by Admiral Byron. During the winter the American
army had received a very important reinforcement in the person of Baron
von Steuben, an able and highly educated officer who had served on the
staff of Frederick the Great. Steuben was appointed inspector-general
and taught the soldiers Prussian discipline and tactics until the
efficiency of the army was more than doubled. About the time of Sir
William Howe's departure, Charles Lee was exchanged, and came back to
his old place as senior major-general in the Continental army. Since
his capture there had been a considerable falling off in his reputation,
but nothing was known of his treasonable proceedings with the Howes.
Probably no one in the British army knew anything about that affair
except the Howes and their private secretary Sir Henry Strachey. Lee saw
that the American cause was now in the ascendant, and he was as anxious
as ever to supplant Washington.
[Sidenote: The Americans take the offensive; Lee's misconduct at
Monmouth, June 28, 1778.]
The Americans now assumed the offensive. Count d'Estaing was approaching
the coast with a powerful French fleet. Should he be able to defeat Lord
Howe and get control of the Delaware river, the British army in
Philadelphia would be in danger of capture. Accordingly on the 18th of
June that city was evacuated by Sir Henry Clinton and occupied by
Washington. As there were not enough transports to take the British army
around to New York by sea, it was necessary to take the more hazardous
course of marching across New Jersey. Washington pursued the enemy
closely, with the view of forcing him to battle in an unfavourable
situation and dealing him a fatal blow. There was some hope of effecting
this, as the two armies were now about equal in size--15,000 in
each--and the Americans were in excellent training. The enemy were
overtaken at Monmouth Court House on the morning of June 28, but the
attack was unfortunately entrusted to Lee, who disobeyed orders and
made an unnecessary and shameful retreat. Washington arrived on the
scene in time to turn defeat into victory. The British were driven from
the field, but Lee's misconduct had broken the force of the blow which
Washington had aimed at them. Lee was tried by court-martial and at
first suspended from command, then expelled from the army. It was the
end of his public career. He died in October, 1782.
After the battle of Monmouth the British continued their march to New
York, and Washington moved his army to White Plains. Count d'Estaing
arrived at Sandy Hook in July with a much larger fleet than the British
had in the harbour, and a land force of 4000 men. It now seemed as if
Clinton's army might be cooped up and compelled to surrender, but on
examination it appeared that the largest French ships drew too much
water to venture to cross the bar. All hope of capturing New York was
accordingly for the present abandoned.
[Siege of Newport, Aug. 1778.]
The enemy, however, had another considerable force near at hand, besides
Clinton's. Since December, 1776, they had occupied the island which
gives its name to the state of Rhode Island. Its position was safe and
convenient. It enabled them, if they should see fit, to threaten Boston
on the one hand and the coast of Connecticut on the other, and thus to
make diversions in aid of Sir Henry Clinton. The force on Rhode Island
had been increased to 6000 men, under command of Sir Robert Pigott. The
Americans believed that the capture of so large a force, could it be
effected, would so discourage the British as to bring the war to an end;
and in this belief they were very likely right. The French fleet
accordingly proceeded to Newport; to the 4000 French infantry Washington
added 1500 of the best of his Continentals; levies of New England
yeomanry raised the total strength to 13,000; and the general command of
the American troops was given to Sullivan.
The expedition was poorly managed, and failed completely. There was some
delay in starting. During the first week of August the Americans landed
upon the island and occupied Butts Hill. The French had begun to land on
Conanicut when they learned that Lord Howe was approaching with a
powerful fleet. The count then reëmbarked his men and stood out to sea,
manoeuvring for a favourable position for battle. Before the fight had
begun, a terrible storm scattered both fleets and damaged them severely.
When D'Estaing had got his ships together again, which was not till the
20th of August, he insisted upon going to Boston for repairs, and took
his infantry with him. This vexed Sullivan and disgusted the yeomanry,
who forthwith dispersed and went home to look after their crops. General
Pigott then tried the offensive, and attacked Sullivan in his strong
position on Butts Hill, on the 29th of August. The British were
defeated, but the next day Sullivan learned that Clinton was coming with
heavy reinforcements, and so he was obliged to abandon the enterprise
and lose no time in getting his own troops into a safe position on the
mainland. In November the French fleet sailed for the West Indies, and
Clinton was obliged to send 5000 men from New York to the same quarter
of the world.
[Sidenote: Wyoming and Cherry Valley, July-Nov., 1778.]
In the years 1778 and 1779 the warfare on the border assumed formidable
proportions. The Tories of central New York, under the Johnsons and
Butlers, together with Brant and his Mohawks, made their headquarters at
Fort Niagara, from which they struck frequent and terrible blows at the
exposed settlements on the frontier. Early in July, 1778, a force of
1200 men, under John Butler, spread death and desolation through the
beautiful valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania. On the 10th of November,
Brant and Walter Butler destroyed the village of Cherry Valley in New
York, and massacred the inhabitants. Many other dreadful things were
done in the course of this year; but the affairs of Wyoming and Cherry
Valley made a deeper impression than all the rest. During the following
spring Washington organized an expedition of 5000 men, and sent it,
under Sullivan, to lay waste the Iroquois country and capture the nest
of Tory malefactors at Fort Niagara. While they were slowly advancing
through the wilderness, Brant sacked the town of Minisink and destroyed
a force of militia sent against him. But on the 29th of August a battle
was fought on the site of the present town of Elmira, in which the
Tories and Indians were defeated with great slaughter. The American army
then marched through the country of the Cayugas and Senecas, and laid it
waste. More than forty Indian villages were burned and all the corn was
destroyed, so that the approach of winter brought famine and pestilence.
Sullivan was not able to get beyond the Genesee river for want of
supplies, and so Fort Niagara escaped. The Iroquois league had received
a blow from which it never recovered, though for two years more their
tomahawks were busy on the frontier.
[Sidenote: Conquest of the northwestern territory, 1778-79.]
At intervals during the Revolution there was more or less Indian warfare
all along the border. Settlers were making their way into Kentucky and
Tennessee. Feuds with these encroaching immigrants led the powerful
tribe of Cherokees to take part with the British, and they made trouble
enough until they were crushed by John Sevier, the "lion of the border."
In 1778 Colonel Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, attempted to
stir up all the western tribes to a concerted attack upon the frontier.
When the news of this reached Virginia, an expedition was sent out
under George Rogers Clark, a youth of twenty-four years, to carry the
war into the enemy's country. In an extremely interesting and romantic
series of movements, Clark took the posts of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, on
the Mississippi river, defeated and captured Colonel Hamilton at
Vincennes, on the Wabash, and ended by conquering the whole northwestern
territory for the state of Virginia.
[Sidenote: Storming of Stony Point, July 15, 1779.]
The year 1779 saw very little fighting in the northern states between
the regular armies. The British confined themselves chiefly to marauding
expeditions along the coast, from Martha's Vineyard down to the James
river. These incursions were marked by cruelties unknown in the earlier
part of the war. Their chief purpose would seem to have been to carry
out Lord George Germaine's idea of harassing the Americans as
vexatiously as possible. But in Connecticut, which perhaps suffered the
worst, there was a military purpose. In July, 1779, an attack was made
upon New Haven, and the towns of Fairfield and Norwalk were burned. The
object was to induce Washington to weaken his force on the Hudson river
by sending away troops to protect the Connecticut towns. Clinton now
held the river as far up as Stony Point, and he hoped by this diversion
to prepare for an attack upon Washington which, if successful, might end
in the fall of West Point. If the British could get possession of West
Point, it would go far toward retrieving the disaster which had befallen
them at Saratoga. Washington's retort was characteristic of him. He did,
as always, what the enemy did not expect. He called Anthony Wayne and
asked him if he thought he could carry Stony Point by storm. Wayne
replied that he could storm a very much hotter place than any known in
terrestrial geography, if Washington would plan the attack. Plan and
performance were equally good. At midnight of July 15 the fort was
surprised and carried in a superb assault with bayonets, without the
firing of a gun on the American side. It was one of the most brilliant
assaults in all military history. It instantly relieved Connecticut, but
Washington did not think it prudent to retain the fortress. The works
were all destroyed, and the garrison, with the cannon and stores,
withdrawn. The American army was as much as possible concentrated about
West Point. In the general situation of affairs on the Hudson there was
but little change for the next two years.
It may seem strange that so little was done in all this time. But, in
fact, both England and the United States were getting exhausted, so far
as the ability to carry on war was concerned.
[Sidenote: How England was weakened and hampered, 1778-81.]
As regards England, the action of France had seriously complicated the
situation. England had now to protect her colonies and dependencies on
the Mediterranean, in Africa, in Hindustan, and in the West Indies. In
1779 Spain declared war against her, in the hope of regaining Gibraltar
and the Floridas. For three years Gibraltar was besieged by the allied
French and Spanish forces. A Spanish fleet laid siege to Pensacola.
France strove to regain the places which England had formerly won from
her in Senegambia. War broke out in India with the Mahrattas, and with
Hyder Ali of Mysore, and it required all the genius of Warren Hastings
to save England's empire in Asia. We have already seen how Clinton, in
the autumn of 1778, was obliged to weaken his force in New York by
sending 5,000 men to the West Indies. Before the end of 1779 there were
314,000 British troops on duty in various parts of the world, but not
enough could be spared for service in New York to defeat Washington's
little army of 15,000. We thus begin to realize what a great event was
the surrender of Burgoyne. The loss of 6,000 men by England was not in
itself irreparable; but in leading to the intervention of France it was
like the touching of a spring or the drawing of a bolt which sets in
motion a vast system of machinery.
Under these circumstances George III. tried to form an alliance with
Russia, and offered the island of Minorca as an inducement. Russia
declined the offer, and such action as she took was hostile to England.
It had formerly been held that the merchant ships of neutral nations,
employed in trade with nations at war, might lawfully be overhauled and
searched by war ships of either of the belligerent nations, and their
goods confiscated. England still held this doctrine and acted upon it.
But during the eighteenth century her maritime power had increased to
such an extent that she could damage other nations in this way much more
than they could damage her. Other nations accordingly began to maintain
that goods carried in neutral ships ought to be free from seizure. Early
in 1780 Denmark, Sweden, and Russia entered into an agreement known as
the Armed Neutrality, by which they pledged themselves to unite in
retaliating upon England whenever any of her cruisers should molest any
of their ships. This league was a new source of danger to England,
because it entailed the risk of war with Russia.
[Sidenote: Paul Jones, 1779.]
During these years several bold American cruisers had made the stars and
stripes a familiar sight in European waters. The most famous of these
cruisers, Paul Jones, made his name a terror upon the coasts of England,
burned the ships in a port of Cumberland, sailed into the Frith of Forth
and threatened Edinburgh, and finally captured two British war vessels
off Flamborough Head, in one of the most desperate sea-fights on
record.
[Sidenote: St. Eustatius, Feb., 1781.]
Paul Jones was a regularly commissioned captain in the American navy,
but because the British did not recognize Congress as a legal body they
called him a pirate. When he took his prizes into a port in Holland,
they requested the Dutch government to surrender him into their hands,
as if he were a mere criminal to be tried at the Old Bailey. But the
Dutch let him stay in port ten weeks and then depart in peace. This
caused much irritation, and as there was also perpetual quarrelling over
the plunder of Dutch ships by British cruisers, the two nations went to
war in December, 1780. One of England's reasons for entering into this
war was the desire to capture the little Dutch island of St. Eustatius
in the West Indies. An immense trade was carried on there between
Holland and the United States, and it was believed that the stoppage of
this trade would be a staggering blow to the Americans. It was captured
in February, 1781, by Admiral Rodney, private property was seized to the
amount of more than twenty million dollars, and the inhabitants were
treated with shameful brutality.
[Sidenote: How the Americans were weakened and hampered. The want
of union.]
As England was thus fighting single-handed against France, Spain,
Holland, and the United States, while the attitude of all the neutral
powers was unfriendly, we can find no difficulty in understanding the
weakness of her military operations in some quarters. The United States,
on the other hand, found it hard to carry on the war for very different
reasons. In the first place the country was really weak. The military
strength of the American Union in 1780 was inferior to that of Holland,
and about on a level with that of Denmark or Portugal. But furthermore
the want of union made it hard to bring out such strength as there was.
In the autumn of 1777 the Articles of Confederation were submitted to
the several states for adoption; but the spring of 1781 had arrived
before all the thirteen states had ratified them. These articles left
the Continental Congress just what it was before, a mere advisory body,
without power to enlist soldiers or levy taxes, without federal courts
or federal officials, and with no executive head to the government. As
we have already seen, the only way in which Congress could get money
from the people was by requisitions upon the states, by _asking_ the
state-governments for it. This was always a very slow way to get money,
and now the states were unusually poor. There was very little
accumulated capital. Farming, fishing, ship-building, and foreign trade
were the chief occupations. Farms and plantations suffered considerably
from the absence of their owners in the army, and many were kept from
enlisting, because it was out of the question to go and leave their
families to starve. As for ship-building, fishing, and foreign trade,
these occupations were almost annihilated by British cruisers. No doubt
the heaviest blows that we received were thus dealt us on the water.
[Sidenote: Fall of the Continental currency:--"Not worth a
Continental."]
The people were so poor that the states found it hard to collect enough
revenue for their own purposes, and most of them had a way of issuing
paper money of their own, which made things still worse. Under such
circumstances they had very little money to give to Congress. It was
necessary to borrow of France, or Spain, or Holland, and by the time
these nations were all at war, that became very difficult. From the
beginning of the war Congress had issued paper notes, and in 1778 the
depreciation in their value was already alarming. But as soon as the
exultation over Burgoyne's surrender had subsided, as soon as the hope
of speedily driving out the British had been disappointed, people soon
lost all confidence in the power of Congress to pay its notes, and in
1779 their value began falling with frightful rapidity. In 1780 they
became worthless. It took $150 in Continental currency to buy a bushel
of corn, and an ordinary suit of clothes cost $2000. Then people refused
to take it, and resorted to barter, taking their pay in sheep or
ploughs, in jugs of rum or kegs of salt pork, or whatever they could
get. It thus became almost impossible either to pay soldiers, or to
clothe and feed them properly and supply them with powder and ball. We
thus see why the Americans, as well as the British conducted the war so
languidly that for two years after the storming of Stony Point their
main armies sat and faced each other by the Hudson river, without any
movements of importance.
[Sidenote: The British conquer Georgia, 1779.]
In one quarter, however, the British began to make rapid progress. They
possessed the Floridas, having got them from Spain by the treaty of
1763. Next them lay Georgia, the weakest of the thirteen states, and
then came the Carolinas, with a strong Tory element in the population.
For such reasons, after the great invasion of New York had failed, the
British tried the plan of starting at the southern extremity of the
Union and lopping off one state after another. In the autumn of 1778
General Prevost advanced from East Florida, and in a brief campaign
succeeded in capturing Savannah, Sunbury, and Augusta. General Lincoln,
who had won distinction in the Saratoga campaign, was appointed to
command the American forces in the South. He sent General Ashe, with
1500 men, to threaten Augusta. At Ashe's approach, the British abandoned
the town and retreated toward Savannah. Ashe pursued too closely and at
Briar Creek, March 3, 1779, the enemy turned upon him and routed him.
The Americans lost nearly 1000 men killed, wounded, and captured,
besides their cannon and small arms; and this victory cost the British
only 16 men killed and wounded. Augusta was reoccupied, the royal
governor, Sir James Wright, was reinstated in office, and the machinery
of government which had been in operation previous to 1776 was restored.
Lincoln now advanced upon Augusta, but Prevost foiled him by returning
the offensive and marching upon Charleston. In order to protect that
city, Lincoln was obliged to retrace his steps. It was now the middle of
May, and little more was done till September, when D'Estaing returned
from the West Indies. On the 23d Savannah was invested by the combined
forces of Lincoln and D'Estaing, and the siege was vigorously carried on
for a fortnight. Then the French admiral grew impatient. On the 9th of
October a fierce assault was made, in which the allies were defeated
with the loss of 1000 men, including the gallant Pulaski. The French
fleet then departed, and the British could look upon Georgia as
recovered.
[Sidenote: And capture Charleston, with Lincoln's army,
May 12, 1780.]
It was South Carolina's turn next. Washington was obliged to weaken his
own force by sending most of the southern troops to Lincoln's
assistance. Sir Henry Clinton then withdrew the garrisons from his
advanced posts on the Hudson, and also from Rhode Island, and was thus
able to leave an adequate force in New York, while he himself set sail
for Savannah, December 26, 1779, with a considerable army. After the
British forces were united in Georgia, they amounted to more than
13,000 men, against whom Lincoln could bring but 7000. The fate of the
American army shows us what would probably have happened in New York in
1776 if an ordinary general instead of Washington had been in command.
Lincoln allowed himself to be cooped up in Charleston, and after a siege
of two months was obliged to surrender the city and his whole army on
the 12th of May, 1780. This was the most serious disaster the Americans
had suffered since the loss of Fort Washington. The dashing cavalry
leader, Tarleton, soon cut to pieces whatever remnants of their army
were left in South Carolina. Sir Henry Clinton returned in June to New
York, leaving Lord Cornwallis with 5000 men to carry on the work. The
Tories, thus supported, got the upperhand in the interior of the state,
which suffered from all the horrors of civil war. The American cause was
sustained only by partisan leaders, of whom the most famous were Francis
Marion and Thomas Sumter.
[Sidenote: Battle of Camden, Aug. 16, 1780.]
When the news of Lincoln's surrender reached the North, the emergency
was felt to be desperate. A fresh army was raised, consisting of about
2000 superbly trained veterans of the Maryland and Delaware lines, under
the Baron de Kalb, and such militia as could be raised in Virginia and
North Carolina. The chief command was given to Gates, whose conduct from
the start was a series of blunders. The most important strategic point
in South Carolina was Camden, at the intersection of the principal roads
from the coast to the mountains and from north to south. In marching
upon this point Gates was met by Lord Cornwallis on the 16th of August
and utterly routed. Kalb was mortally wounded at the head of the
Maryland troops, who held their ground nobly till overwhelmed by
numbers; the Delaware men were cut to pieces; the militia were swept
away in flight, and Gates with them. His northern laurels, as it was
said, had changed into southern willows; and for the second time within
three months an American army at the South had been annihilated.
This was, on the whole, the darkest moment of the war. For a moment in
July there had been a glimmer of hopefulness when the Count de
Rochambeau arrived with 6000 men who were landed on Rhode Island. The
British fleet, however, soon came and blockaded them there, and again
the hearts of the people were sickened with hope deferred. It seemed as
if Lord George Germaine's policy of "tiring the Americans out" might be
going to succeed after all. When the value of the Continental paper
money now fell to zero, it was a fair indication that the people had
pretty much lost all faith in Congress. In the army the cases of
desertion to the British lines averaged about a hundred per month.
[Sidenote: Benedict Arnold's treason, July-Sept., 1780.]
This was a time when a man of bold and impulsive temperament, prone to
cherish romantic schemes, smarting under an accumulation of injuries,
and weak in moral principle, might easily take it into his head that the
American cause was lost, and that he had better carve out a new career
for himself, while wreaking vengeance on his enemies. Such seems to have
been the case with Benedict Arnold. He had a great and well-earned
reputation for skill and bravery. His military services up to the time
of Burgoyne's surrender had been of priceless value, and he had always
stood high in Washington's favour. But he had a genius for getting into
quarrels, and there seem always to have been people who doubted his
moral soundness. At the same time he had good reason to complain of the
treatment which he received from Congress. The party hostile to
Washington sometimes liked to strike at him in the persons of his
favourite generals, and such admirable men as Greene and Morgan had to
bear the brunt of this ill feeling. Early in 1777 five brigadier
generals junior to Arnold in rank and vastly inferior to him in ability
and reputation had been promoted over him to the grade of major-general.
On this occasion he had shown an excellent spirit, and when sent by
Washington to the aid of Schuyler, he had signified his willingness to
serve under St. Clair and Lincoln, two of the juniors who had been
raised above him. Arnold was a warm friend to Schuyler, and perhaps did
not take enough pains to conceal his poor opinion of Gates. Other
officers in the northern army let it plainly be seen that they placed
more confidence in Arnold than in Gates, and the result was a bitter
quarrel between the two generals, echoes of which were probably
afterwards heard in Congress.
If Arnold's wound on the field of Saratoga had been a mortal wound, he
would have been ranked, among the military heroes of the Revolution,
next to Washington and Greene. Perhaps, however, in a far worse sense
than is commonly conveyed by the term, it proved to be his death-wound,
for it led to his being placed in command of Philadelphia. He was
assigned to that position because his wounded leg made him unfit for
active service. Congress had restored him to his relative rank, but now
he soon got into trouble with the state government of Pennsylvania. It
is not easy to determine how much ground there may have been for the
charges brought against him early in 1779 by the state government. One
of them concerned his personal honesty, the others were so trivial in
character as to make the whole affair look somewhat like a case of
persecution. They were twice investigated, once by a committee of
Congress and once by a court-martial. On the serious charge, which
affected his pecuniary integrity, he was acquitted; on two of the
trivial charges, of imprudence in the use of some public wagons, and of
carelessness in granting a pass for a ship, he was convicted and
sentenced to be reprimanded. The language in which Washington couched
the reprimand showed his feeling that Arnold was too harshly dealt with.
If the matter had stopped here, posterity would probably have shared
Washington's feeling. But the government of Pennsylvania must have had
stronger grounds for distrust of Arnold than it was able to put into the
form of definite charges. Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia he fell
in love with a beautiful Tory lady, to whom he was presently married. He
was thus thrown much into the society of Tories and was no doubt
influenced by their views. He had for some time considered himself
ill-treated, and at first thought of leaving the service and settling
upon a grant of land in western New York. Then, as the charges against
him were pressed and his anger increased, he seems to have dallied with
the notion of going over to the British. At length in the early summer
of 1780, after the reprimand, his treasonable purpose seems to have
taken definite shape. As General Monk in 1660 decided that the only way
to restore peace in England was to desert the cause of the Commonwealth
and bring back Charles II., so Arnold seems now to have thought that the
cause of American independence was ruined, and that the best prospect
for a career for himself lay in deserting it and helping to bring back
the rule of George III. In this period of general depression, when even
the unconquerable Washington said "I have almost ceased to hope," one
staggering blow would be very likely to end the struggle. There could be
no heavier blow than the loss of the Hudson river, and with baseness
almost incredible Arnold asked for the command of West Point, with the
intention of betraying it into the hands of Sir Henry Clinton. The depth
of his villainy on this occasion makes it probable that there were good
grounds for the suspicions with which some people had for a long time
regarded him, although Washington, by putting him in command of the most
important position in the country, showed that his own confidence in him
was unabated. The successful execution of the plot seemed to call for a
personal interview between Arnold and Clinton's adjutant-general, Major
John André, who was entrusted with the negotiation. Such a secret
interview was extremely difficult to bring about, but it was effected on
the 21st of September, 1780. After a marvellous chapter of accidents,
André was captured just before reaching the British lines. But for his
hasty and quite unnecessary confession that he was a British officer,
which led to his being searched, the plot would in all probability have
been successful. The papers found on his person, which left no room for
doubt as to the nature of the black scheme, were sent to Washington;
the principal traitor, forewarned just in the nick of time, escaped to
the British at New York; and Major André was condemned as a spy and
hanged on the 2d of October.
[Sidenote: Battle of King's Mountain, Oct. 7, 1780.]
Only five days after the execution of André an event occurred at the
South which greatly relieved the prevailing gloom of the situation. It
was the first of a series of victories which were soon to show that the
darkness of 1780 was the darkness that comes before dawn. After his
victory at Camden, Lord Cornwallis found it necessary to give his army
some rest from the intense August heat. In September he advanced into
North Carolina, boasting that he would soon conquer all the states south
of the Susquehanna river. But his line of march now lay far inland, and
the British armies were never able to accomplish much except in the
neighbourhood of their ships, where they could be reasonably sure of
supplies. In traversing Mecklenburg county Cornwallis soon found himself
in a very hostile and dangerous region, where there were no Tories to
befriend him. One of his best partisan commanders, Major Ferguson,
penetrated too far into the mountains. The backwoodsmen of Tennessee and
Kentucky, the Carolinas, and western Virginia were aroused; and under
their superb partisan leaders--Shelby, Sevier, Cleaveland, McDowell,
Campbell, and Williams--gave chase to Ferguson, who took refuge upon
what he deemed an impregnable position on the top of King's Mountain. On
the 7th of October the backwoodsmen stormed the mountain, Ferguson was
shot through the heart, 400 of his men were killed and wounded, and all
the rest, 700 in number, surrendered at discretion. The Americans lost
28 killed and 60 wounded. There were some points in this battle, which
remind one of the British defeat at Majuba Hill in southern Africa in
1881.
In the series of events which led to the surrender of Cornwallis, the
battle of King's Mountain played a part similar to that played by the
battle of Bennington in the series of events which led to the surrender
of Burgoyne. It was the enemy's first serious disaster, and its
immediate result was to check his progress until the Americans could
muster strength enough to overthrow him. The events, however, were much
more complicated in Cornwallis's case, and took much longer to unfold
themselves. Burgoyne surrendered within nine anxious weeks after
Bennington; Cornwallis maintained himself, sometimes with fair hopes of
final victory, for a whole year after King's Mountain.
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: Greene takes command in South Carolina, Dec. 2, 1780.]
As soon as he heard the news of the disaster he fell back to
Winnsborough, in South Carolina, and called for reinforcements. While
they were arriving, the American army, recruited and reorganized
since its crushing defeat at Camden, advanced into Mecklenburg county.
Gates was superseded by Greene, who arrived upon the scene on the 2d of
December. Under Greene were three Virginians of remarkable
ability,--Daniel Morgan; William Washington, who was a distant cousin of
the commander-in-chief; and Henry Lee, familiarly known as "Light-horse
Harry," father of the great general, Robert Edward Lee. The little army
numbered only 2000 men, but a considerable part of them were disciplined
veterans fully a match for the British infantry.
In order to raise troops in Virginia to increase this little force,
Steuben was sent down to that state. In order to interfere with such
recruiting, and to make diversions in aid of Cornwallis, detachments
from the British army were also sent by sea from New York to Virginia.
The first of these detachments, under General Leslie, had been obliged
to keep on to South Carolina, to make good the loss inflicted upon
Cornwallis at King's Mountain. To replace Leslie in Virginia, the
traitor Arnold was sent down from New York. The presence of these
subsidiary forces in Virginia was soon to influence in a decisive way
the course of events.
[Sidenote: Battle of the Cowpens, Jan. 17, 1781.]
Greene, on reaching South Carolina, acted with boldness and originality.
He divided his little army into two bodies, one of which coöperated
with Marion's partisans in the northeastern part of the state, and
threatened Cornwallis's communications with the coast. The other body he
sent under Morgan to the southwestward, to threaten the inland posts and
their garrisons. Thus worried on both flanks, Cornwallis presently
divided his own force, sending Tarleton with 1100 men, to dispose of
Morgan. Tarleton came up with Morgan on the 17th of January, 1781, at a
grazing-ground known as the Cowpens, not far from King's Mountain. The
battle which ensued was well fought, and on Morgan's part it was a
wonderful piece of tactics. With only 900 men in open field he
surrounded and nearly annihilated a superior force. The British lost 230
in killed and wounded, 600 prisoners, and all their guns. Tarleton
escaped with 270 men. The Americans lost 12 killed and 61 wounded.
[Sidenote: Battle of Guilford, March 15, 1781.]
The two battles, King's Mountain and the Cowpens, deprived Cornwallis of
nearly all his light-armed troops, and he was just entering upon a game
where swiftness was especially required. It was his object to intercept
Morgan and defeat him before he could effect a junction with the other
part of the American army. It was Greene's object to march the two parts
of his army in converging directions northward across North Carolina and
unite them in spite of Cornwallis. By moving in this direction Greene
was always getting nearer to his reinforcements from Virginia, while
Cornwallis was always getting further from his supports in South
Carolina. It was brilliant strategy on Greene's part, and entirely
successful. Cornwallis had to throw away a great deal of his baggage and
otherwise weaken himself, but in spite of all he could do, he was
outmarched. The two wings of the American army came together and were
joined by the reinforcements; so that at Guilford Court House, on the
15th of March, Cornwallis found himself obliged to fight against heavy
odds, two hundred miles from the coast and almost as far from the
nearest point in South Carolina at which he could get support.
The battle of Guilford was admirably managed by both commanders and
stubbornly fought by the troops. At nightfall the British held the
field, with the loss of nearly one third of their number, and the
Americans were repulsed. But Cornwallis could not stay in such a place,
and could not afford to risk another battle. There was nothing for him
to do but retreat to Wilmington, the nearest point on the coast. There
he stopped and pondered.
[Sidenote: Cornwallis retreats into Virginia.]
His own force was sadly depleted, but he knew that Arnold in Virginia
was being heavily reinforced from New York. The only safe course seemed
to march northward and join in the operations in Virginia; then
afterwards to return southward. This course Cornwallis pursued, arriving
at Petersburg and taking command of the troops there on the 20th of May.
[Sidenote: Greene takes Camden, May 10, 1781.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Eutaw Springs, Sept. 8, 1781.]
Meanwhile Greene, after pursuing Cornwallis for about fifty miles from
Guilford, faced about and marched with all speed upon Camden, a hundred
and sixty miles distant. Whatever his adversary might do, he was now
going to seize the great prize of the campaign, and break the enemy's
hold upon South Carolina. Lord Rawdon held Camden. Greene stopped at
Hobkirk's Hill, two miles to the north, and sent Marion and Lee to take
Fort Watson, and thus cut the enemy's communications with the coast. On
April 23 Fort Watson surrendered; on the 25th Rawdon defeated Greene at
Hobkirk's Hill, but as his communications were cut, the victory did him
no good. He was obliged to retreat toward the coast, and Greene took
Camden on the 10th of May. Having thus obtained the commanding point,
Greene went on until he had reduced every one of the inland posts. At
last on the 8th of September he fought an obstinate battle at Eutaw
Springs, in which both sides claimed the victory. The facts were that he
drove the British from their first position, but they rallied upon a
second position from which he failed to drive them. Here, however, as
always after one of Greene's battles, it was the enemy who retreated
and he who pursued. His strategy never failed. After Eutaw Springs the
British remained shut up in Charleston under cover of their ships, and
the American government was reëstablished over South Carolina. Among all
the campaigns in history that have been conducted with small armies,
there have been few, if any, more brilliant than Greene's.
[Sidenote: Lafayette and Cornwallis in Virginia, May-Sept., 1781.]
There was something especially piquant in the way in which after
Guilford he left Cornwallis to himself. It reminds one of a chess-player
who first gets the queen off the board, where she can do no harm, and
then wins the game against the smaller pieces. As for Cornwallis, when
he reached Petersburg, May 20, he found himself at the head of 5000 men.
Arnold had just been recalled to New York, and Lafayette, who had been
sent down to oppose him, was at Richmond with 3000 men. A campaign of
nine weeks ensued, in the first part of which Cornwallis tried to catch
Lafayette and bring him to battle. The general movement was from
Richmond up to Fredericksburg, then over toward Charlottesville, then
back to the James river, then down the north bank of the river. But
during the last part the tables were turned, and it was Lafayette,
reinforced by Wayne and Steuben, that pursued Cornwallis on his retreat
to the coast. At the end of July the British general reached Yorktown,
where he was reinforced and waited with 7000 men.
[Sidenote: Washington's masterly movement.]
We may now change our simile, and liken Cornwallis to a ball between two
bats. The first bat, which had knocked him up into Virginia, was Greene;
the second, which sent him quite out of the game, was Washington. The
remarkable movement which the latter general now proceeded to execute
would have been impossible without French coöperation. A French fleet of
overwhelming power, under the Count de Grasse, was approaching
Chesapeake bay. Washington, in readiness for it, had first moved
Rochambeau's army from Rhode Island across Connecticut to the Hudson
river. Then, as soon as all the elements of the situation were
disclosed, he left part of his force in position on the Hudson, and in a
superb march led the rest down to Virginia. Sir Henry Clinton at New
York was completely hoodwinked. He feared that the real aim of the
French fleet was New York, in which case it would be natural that an
American land-force should meet it at Staten island. Now a glance at the
map of New Jersey will show that Washington's army, starting from West
Point, could march more than half the way toward Philadelphia and still
be supposed to be aiming at Staten island. Washington was a master hand
for secrecy. When his movement was first disclosed, his own generals, as
well as Sir Henry Clinton, took it for granted that Staten island was
the point aimed at. It was not until he had passed Philadelphia that
Clinton began to surmise that he might be going down to Virginia.
When this fact at length dawned upon the British commander, he made a
futile attempt at a diversion by sending Benedict Arnold to attack New
London. It was as weak as the act of a drowning man who catches at a
straw. Arnold's expedition, cruel and useless as it was, crowned his
infamy. A sad plight for a man of his power! If he had only had more
strength of character, he might now have been marching with his old
friend Washington to victory. With this wretched affair at New London,
the brilliant and wicked Benedict Arnold disappears from American
history. He died in London, in 1801, a broken-hearted and penitent man,
as his grandchildren tell us, praying God with his last breath to
forgive his awful crime.
[Sidenote: Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1781.]
Washington's march was so swift and so cunningly planned that nothing
could check it. On the 26th of September the situation was complete.
Washington had added his force to that of Lafayette, so that 16,000 men
blockaded Cornwallis upon the Yorktown peninsula. The great French
fleet, commanding the waters about Chesapeake bay, closed in behind and
prevented escape. It was a very unusual thing for the French thus to get
control of the water and defy the British on their own element. It was
Washington's unwearied vigilance that, after waiting long for such a
chance, had seized it without a moment's delay. As soon as Cornwallis
was thus caught between a hostile army and a hostile fleet, the problem
was solved. On the 19th of October the British army surrendered.
Washington presently marched his army back to the Hudson and made his
headquarters at Newburgh.
[Sidenote: Overthrow of George III.'s political schemes, May, 1784.]
When Lord North at his office in London heard the dismal news, he walked
up and down the room, wringing his hands and crying, "O God, it is all
over!" Yorktown was indeed decisive. In the course of the winter the
British lost Georgia. The embers of Indian warfare still smouldered on
the border, but the great War for Independence was really at an end. The
king's friends had for some time been losing strength in England, and
Yorktown completed their defeat. In March, 1782, Lord North's ministry
resigned. A succession of short-lived ministries followed; first, Lord
Rockingham's, until July, 1782; then Lord Shelburne's, until February,
1783; then, after five weeks without a government, there came into power
the strange Coalition between Fox and North, from April to December.
During these two years the king was trying to intrigue with one interest
against another so as to maintain his own personal government. With this
end in view he tried the bold experiment of dismissing the Coalition
and making the young William Pitt prime minister, without a majority in
Parliament. After a fierce constitutional struggle, which lasted all
winter, Pitt dissolved Parliament, and in the new election in May, 1784,
obtained the greatest majority ever given to an English minister. But
the victory was Pitt's and the people's, not the king's. This election
of 1784 overthrew all the cherished plans of George III. in pursuance of
which he had driven the American colonies into rebellion. It established
cabinet government more firmly than ever, so that for the next seventeen
years the real ruler of Great Britain was William Pitt.