by Ron Chernow
The situation looked pretty desperate for Cornwallis. In a portrait painted by Thomas Gainsborough two years later, the highborn earl has a well-fed, sagging face and heavy-lidded eyes; his expression is downcast, as if Yorktown still threw a shadow. Short and stout, he had been educated at Eton and Cambridge, served as aide-de-camp to George III, and compiled a commendable record during the French and Indian War. Mostly amiable, he was also prone to temperamental fits. As a Whig member of Parliament, he had questioned government policy in North America but had fought no less fiercely for all that and proved popular among his men. American generals retained a healthy respect for his fighting spirit. “Lord Cornwallis’s abilities are to me more frightening than his superiority of forces,” Lafayette wrote to Knox that August. “I even have a great opinion of him. Our papers call him a madman, but was ever any advantage taken of him where he commanded in person? To speak plain English, I am devilish afraid of him!”47
Cornwallis’s grave situation was aggravated by intramural squabbling with Clinton. The two men had whined and bickered all year: Cornwallis complained to Clinton that he was being kept “totally in the dark as to the intended operations of the summer.”48 Clinton, in turn, distrusted Cornwallis, believing that he had bypassed his own authority to communicate directly with London. Aggravating matters was Clinton’s insistence that the French and Americans might swoop down on New York and that he couldn’t spare men for Virginia.
As Cornwallis awaited reinforcements from New York, rumors circulated that the trapped commander had “built a kind of grotto . . . where he lives underground.” 49 Scooping out space from a hillside, Cornwallis formed his own private bunker. By October 15 he despaired of any relief from Clinton and sent a message that the situation was so “precarious that I cannot recommend that the fleet and army should run great risk in endeavoring to save us.”50 That same day the firing of shells from both sides reached such a feverish pitch of intensity that they sketched patterns of hideous beauty in the sky. “They are clearly visible in the form of a black ball in the day,” wrote James Thacher, “but in the night, they appear like fiery meteors with blazing tails, most beautifully brilliant.”51
More than one hundred allied cannon terrorized the town with punishing consistency. One Hessian wrote that “the bombs and cannonballs hit many inhabitants and negroes of the city and marines, sailors, and soldiers.”52 In desperation Cornwallis took former slaves who had defected to British lines and contracted smallpox and pushed them toward the allied lines in a version of germ warfare. One American soldier reported “herds of Negroes” who had been “turned adrift” by Cornwallis for this grisly purpose.53 Jacky Custis, scanning the defecting blacks for runaway slaves from Mount Vernon, found none. “I have seen numbers [of blacks] lying dead in the woods,” he informed his mother, “and many so exhausted they cannot walk.”54
On the night of October 16 the allies crept so close to the British line that Cornwallis made a frantic effort to evacuate his army across the river to Gloucester. Banastre Tarleton, who was stationed there, sent over sixteen craft for the crossing. The first boat didn’t depart from Yorktown until almost eleven P.M., but a substantial number of men made it across the river. Cornwallis scribbled a note to Washington, asking for mercy toward the sick and wounded left behind. Then shortly before midnight a violent storm drove the boats downriver, terminating the operation and forcing Cornwallis to recall his men from Gloucester the next morning. He had exhausted his last option. Surrender was now the only course left open to him.
At ten A.M. on October 17, 1781—the fourth anniversary of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga—a British officer appeared before the ramparts, flapping a white flag and bearing a missive from Cornwallis. The battlefield, pulverized by bombs, fell silent. An American escort rushed to the British officer, bandaged his eyes, and shepherded him behind allied lines. Then a messenger on horseback transmitted the all-important letter to Washington, who opened it and read: “Sir, I propose a cessation of hostilities for twenty-four hours and that two officers may be appointed by each side to meet at Mr. Moore’s house to settle terms for the surrender of the posts of York and Gloucester. I have the honor to be, &c, Cornwallis.”55 Never one to gloat, Washington remarked only that the message came “at an earlier period than my most sanguine hopes had induced me to expect.”56
Washington sent Cornwallis a terse, businesslike note. “My Lord: I have had the honor of receiving your Lordship’s letter of this date. An ardent desire to spare the further effusion of blood will readily incline me to such terms for the surrender of your posts and garrisons of York and Gloucester as are admissible. I wish previously to the meeting of commissioners that your Lordship’s proposals in writing may be sent to the American lines, for which purpose a suspension of hostilities during two hours from the delivery of this letter will be granted. I have the honor etc.”57 Cornwallis’s return proposals conformed closely enough to Washington’s wishes that hostilities were suspended for the night as an eerie calm settled over Yorktown. “A solemn stillness prevailed,” St. George Tucker wrote. “The night was remarkably clear and the sky decorated with ten thousand stars. Numberless meteors gleaming through the atmosphere.”58 The next day soldiers waded across a hellish battlefield paved with cadavers, one recalling that “all over the place and wherever you look [there were] corpses lying about that had not been buried.”59 The majority of the bodies, he noted, were black, reflecting their importance on both sides of the conflict. Some of these black corpses likely belonged to runaway slaves who had sought asylum with Cornwallis, only to be stricken during the siege with smallpox or “camp fever”—likely typhus, a disease spread by lice and fleas in overcrowded camps.
In negotiations between the commissioners, a major sticking point involved Cornwallis’s request that his men be allowed to save face and surrender with full military honors. John Laurens and Lafayette objected that, when Charleston fell, Sir Henry Clinton had denied the Americans that consolation. Even though this would deepen the dishonor of the British Army, Washington informed Cornwallis, “The same honors will be granted to the surrendering army as were granted to the garrison of Charleston.”60
In the shadow of a redoubt near the river, the articles of surrender were signed at eleven A.M. on October 19. At two P.M. the French and American troops lined up on opposite sides of a lane stretching a half mile long. Baron von Closen noted the contrast between the “splendor” of the French soldiers, with their dress swords and polished boots, and the Americans “clad in small jackets of white cloth, dirty and ragged, and a number of them . . . almost barefoot.”61 Led by drummers beating a somber march, thousands of defeated British and Hessian soldiers trudged heavily between the allied columns, their colors tightly folded. As they ran this gauntlet, they had to pass by every allied soldier. Legend claims that British fifes and drums played “The World Turned Upside Down.” In another reminder of allied revenge for Charleston, General Benjamin Lincoln, who had been refused the honors of war there, led the procession. Even at the end the British evinced a petty, spiteful attitude toward the Americans, gazing only at the French soldiers until Lafayette prodded the band to strike up “Yankee Doodle,” forcing the conquered army to acknowledge the hated Americans. At the end of the line, the British soldiers emerged into an open field, where they tossed their weapons contemptuously onto a stockpile, trying to smash them. Then they filed back past the double column of victors. The entire wonder of the American Revolution was visible for all to see. It wasn’t the well-dressed French Army who were the true victors of the day, but the weatherbeaten, half-clad American troops.
Washington and Rochambeau waited patiently on horseback at the end of the line. For the occasion, Washington had chosen his favorite steed, Nelson. In yet another snub to the Americans, Cornwallis deemed it beneath his dignity to attend the ceremony and, delivering the lame excuse that he was indisposed, sent Brigadier General Charles O’Hara in his place. When O’Hara rode up to Rochambeau and proffer
ed Cornwallis’s sword, the French general motioned toward Washington as the proper recipient. Washington had no intention of accepting the sword from Cornwallis’s deputy and, with his usual phlegm, asked O’Hara if he would be good enough to hand it to his American counterpart, General Lincoln. The British behavior at Yorktown, so graceless and uncouth, was the last time Americans had to suffer such condescension.
Washington in victory was the picture of humility. In reporting to Congress, he deflected attention from himself: “The unremitting ardor which actuated every officer and soldier in the combined army on this occasion has principally led to this important event.”62 It was Washington’s decisive moment, but he had long since perfected the role of bashful hero. “In performing my part towards its accomplishment,” he said, “I consider myself to have done only my duty and in the execution of that, I ever feel myself happy.”63 That evening, taking the high road, he threw a dinner for the French, British, and American general officers. Although Cornwallis was invited, he pleaded poor health and sent the sociable O’Hara in his stead. Commissary Claude Blanchard picked up the resentment of the Americans as the British and French officers fraternized on cordial terms. These officers shared an identity as Europeans, aristocrats, and members of the same professional military caste. Such camaraderie could only have strengthened Washington’s view that French involvement in the Revolution had been motivated less by ideological sympathy than by realpolitik. On the other hand, he knew that the Yorktown victory had depended upon the French skill at sieges, backed up by French naval supremacy. From an emotional standpoint, Yorktown couldn’t have been an entirely satisfying climax for Washington, who had been consigned to a somewhat secondary role.
The next day Cornwallis made a courtesy call on Washington, and the two established a rapport based on mutual respect. They toured the Yorktown defenses on horseback to oversee the demolition of defenses that had been erected with meticulous care. The Yorktown victory netted more than eight thousand prisoners, who would be ordinary prisoners of war; their officers would be allowed to return to Europe or New York or any other port that Britain controlled. Washington dealt leniently with Tory sympathizers who had found sanctuary with Cornwallis and faced patriotic reprisals. He didn’t want to give them a formal reprieve, but neither did he wish to condone vigilante actions against them. He solved the dilemma with a subtle compromise: he allowed the British to send a ship to New York, which the Tories could clamber aboard as an escape route.
Yorktown struck a stirring blow for American liberty with one exception: those slaves who had flocked to the British side to win their freedom were now restored to the thrall of their owners. Washington retrieved two young house slaves—twenty-year-old Lucy and eighteen-year-old Esther—who had been among the seventeen who had escaped aboard the British sloop Savage six months earlier, thinking their freedom assured. He was determined to recover the remaining fifteen slaves he had lost.
In retrospect, the Yorktown victory dealt a mortal blow to British aspirations in America. When Lord North, the portly prime minister, digested the news at 10 Downing Street, he went wild with despair. “O God!” he repeated, pacing the floor. “It is all over!”64 The unreconstructed King George III refused to accept this reality and wanted to throw even more resources into prosecuting a hopeless conflict. The victory encouraged a skeptical world to believe in American independence, and the Dutch would grant diplomatic recognition in the spring. It isn’t clear whether Washington grasped the full import of the victory. He praised the battle as “an interesting event that may be productive of much good if properly improved, but if it should be the means of relaxation and sink us into supineness and [false] security, it had better not have happened.”65 As reports drifted back from London that the British had conceded the war was hopeless, Washington remained cautious, since the enemy’s presence in North America was still formidable. Throughout the conflict he had resisted wishful thinking, and now dreaded that the Yorktown victory might waylay people into premature complacency. Along with Lafayette, he went out to the Ville de Paris to see if he could parlay the great triumph into joint action against Charleston, South Carolina, or Wilmington, North Carolina, but de Grasse declined any follow-up operation.
Washington was sufficiently vexed by the Frenchman’s fitful cooperation that he decided to send Lafayette to France to agitate for a more durable naval presence. “A constant naval superiority would terminate the war speedily,” Washington told Lafayette in mid-November. “Without it, I do not know that it will ever be terminated honorably.”66 Washington also hoped for more French generosity in the form of a large loan or grant. “Adieu, my dear general,” Lafayette wrote from Boston before his departure. “I know your heart so well that I am sure that no distance can alter your attachment to me. With the same candor, I assure you that my love, my respect, my gratitude for you are above expression.”67
A coda to the Yorktown campaign must have mortified Lord Cornwallis. On October 17, the day of the surrender, General Clinton and his fleet of six thousand troops began their departure from New York, hoping to rescue him. When they arrived off Chesapeake Bay a week later, they encountered three people in a small craft who apprised them of the calamity that had occurred. Having no desire to do battle with thirty-three French ships still lingering off the Virginia coast, they turned around and went back to New York. The French admiral stayed in the area long enough to protect the Continental Army as it gathered its supplies and set sail up the bay, then headed for the long trip back to its familiar northern haunts.
The presence at Yorktown of Jacky Custis as a volunteer aide to Washington has sparked a certain cynicism among historians. Before then Jacky had contributed only modestly to the war effort, serving for two years as a delegate in the Virginia assembly, where he showed a grandiosity that sometimes vexed his stepfather. He had also invested with Washington in a privateer that prowled the Atlantic in quest of British merchant ships. Yet he had never placed his life in jeopardy, leading to snickers that he went to Yorktown to bask in a major victory without having paid his dues. If it irked Washington to see the raffish Jacky mingling with brave, hard-bitten men who had sacrificed years to the cause, he never admitted it openly.
Amid the unsanitary conditions at Yorktown, Jacky Custis contracted camp fever. Since the condition often proved fatal, Jacky expressed a last wish to witness Cornwallis’s surrender and was lifted to a high spot atop a redoubt, giving him a panoramic glimpse of the ceremonies. Then he was carted thirty miles to Eltham in New Kent County, the estate of his uncle, Burwell Bassett. Martha Washington and Jacky’s wife, Eleanor (Nelly) Calvert Curtis, were summoned to attend him. Preoccupied with the aftermath of victory, Washington couldn’t extricate himself from Yorktown until November 5, when, alerted to Jacky’s perilous condition, he hastened to Eltham. By the time he arrived, he learned that the doctors’ ministrations had failed and that Jacky Custis was dying. The young man expired a few hours later, three weeks before his twenty-seventh birthday.
For a disconsolate Martha Washington, it was an indescribably sad moment. Having already lost three children, she had doted on Jacky, and Washington alluded to her “deep and solemn distress.”68 By some accounts, Washington had a profound emotional response to Jacky’s death, clasping his bereaved widow to his bosom and proclaiming that henceforth he regarded Jacky’s two youngest children as his own. One French observer described Washington as “uncommonly affected” by the death and said his friends “perceived some change in his equanimity of temper subsequent to that event.”69 In a less sentimental vein, biographer James T. Flexner wrote bluntly that Washington expressed “no personal grief.”70 If Washington reacted deeply to the death, it is not surprising, for it meant that he would have no chance to improve his strained relationship with his stepson. It was also a sobering reminder that, after years of war, he might not return to the happy home life he had pictured.
After spending a week at Eltham and attending to Jacky’s funeral, Washington
escorted Martha and Nelly back to Mount Vernon, where they dealt with the fate of the three small girls and baby boy who had lost their father. The Washingtons decided to adopt informally the two youngest children, Eleanor Parke Custis, then two years old and like her mother called Nelly, and George Washington Parke Custis, seven months old. Such informal adoptions were commonplace in the eighteenth century, when life expectancy was shorter and children often lost parents. A gay, whimsical child, Nelly would turn into a vivacious, dark-haired little girl, while the baby boy, nicknamed Washy or Tub, had blond hair and blue eyes and inherited both his father’s charm and his wayward nature. With his solemn sense of responsibility, Washington took seriously his duties toward the children and wrote in his will that it had “always been my intention, since my expectation of having issue has ceased, to consider the grandchildren of my wife in the same light as I do my own relations.”71
These two adopted children reciprocated the intense love they received and treated George and Martha more as adored parents than as grandparents. In later years, when she had to spend time with her biological mother, Nelly expressed her absolute devotion to her surrogate parents: “I have gone through the greatest trial I ever experienced—parting with my beloved grandmama . . . Since my father’s death, she has been ever more than a mother to me and the president the most affectionate of fathers. I love them more than anyone.”72 Two years later Jacky’s widow, Nelly, married David Stuart of Alexandria, a physician trained in Edinburgh. They brought up the two eldest girls from the earlier marriage, Elizabeth Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, and added more children to the rich private lives of the Washingtons. Despite being a childless couple, George and Martha Washington had extensive experience in raising children and actually had much more of a family life, over a longer period, than most other married couples.
