For the Common Defense

by Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski

  When Cornwallis entered the Old Dominion, Greene marched southward to reclaim the Carolinas and Georgia, where 8,000 enemy troops under Francis Lord Rawdon remained in scattered garrisons. At Hobkirk’s Hill, Greene fought Rawdon, who won another hollow British victory. While the American main army kept Rawdon occupied, guerrillas picked off isolated British posts. In early September, Greene tangled with Rawdon’s successor, Alexander Stewart, at Eutaw Springs in a three-hour slugfest. If the militia failed at Camden, it now redeemed itself by fighting splendidly. As at Guilford Courthouse and Hobkirk’s Hill, the British won the battlefield but suffered irreplaceable losses. Eutaw Springs was Greene’s last battle. He could not claim a single victory—Morgan deserves credit for Cowpens—but he and the partisans had reconquered all the south except Savannah and Charleston. Greene’s operations rank with Washington’s performance at Trenton and Princeton as the war’s most brilliant campaigns.

  As Greene’s activities diminished, the war’s final drama unfolded in Virginia. In December 1780, Clinton sent Benedict Arnold—now a British general after his treason—to Virginia with 1,200 men, and Washington countered by dispatching the Marquis de Lafayette’s division. Like a magnet Virginia attracted reinforcements on both sides, and when Cornwallis arrived in the spring of 1781, he assumed command of the British forces there. As Lafayette’s army expanded, Cornwallis fortified Yorktown in order to have access to the sea should he need to receive reinforcements—or escape.

  Far to the north the French expeditionary force finally left Newport and united with the Continental Army in July 1781. Washington and Rochambeau knew that a powerful fleet commanded by the Comte de Grasse had departed France under orders to cooperate with them. Washington hoped de Grasse would come to New York and seal it off so that the Franco-American army could capture Clinton, but on August 14 Washington received a message from de Grasse saying he was sailing for Chesapeake Bay. Bagging Clinton was thus impossible, but perhaps Cornwallis could be cornered. Washington ordered the army southward and directed the French naval squadron still at Newport to bring siege artillery and provisions.

  The movement of land and naval forces to Yorktown was unique in the war because nothing went wrong. Lafayette kept Cornwallis from fleeing to the Carolinas; de Grasse fended off a British fleet at the Battle of the Virginia Capes, preventing seaborne succor from reaching the garrison at Yorktown; the Newport fleet arrived unscathed; and the army rapidly reached Virginia. The concentration of two naval squadrons and 5,700 Continentals, 3,100 militiamen, and 7,000 French troops at Yorktown was a tour de force that trapped Cornwallis, whose situation was hopeless. On the fourth anniversary of Burgoyne’s capitulation, surrender negotiations began, and two days later 8,000 British troops marched out of Yorktown and stacked arms. The southern phase of the war ended with a British disaster comparable to Saratoga.

  Fighting on the Frontier and at Sea

  Like the colonial wars, the American Revolution involved the Indians, although they played a minor role compared to the main armies. Resenting the aggressive expansionism of Americans and desiring English trade goods, Native Americans generally supported the British. Frontier warfare took place in three distinct theaters: a central front in the Ohio Valley and Kentucky, a southern front in the Carolina and Georgia backcountry, and a northern front in western New York and northern Pennsylvania. Indian wars in the Ohio country actually began in 1774 when the Shawnees resisted the land encroachments of Virginia settlers. In order to force the Indians to cede their lands, Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, organized an expedition into Shawnee territory. Lord Dunmore’s War involved only one battle, when 1,000 Indians attacked an equal number of militiamen at Point Pleasant on the Ohio. The assault failed to prevent Dunmore’s column from penetrating to the Shawnee villages, which compelled the Indians to give up extensive land claims. An uneasy peace prevailed until 1777, when the British commander at Detroit, Henry Hamilton, dispatched raiding parties to Kentucky to divert American attention from Burgoyne, forcing the Kentucky pioneers to huddle together in Harrodsburg, Boonesborough, and other strongholds. The Indian raids continued into 1778, making life on the Kentucky frontier dangerous and miserable.

  George Rogers Clark proposed to end the Indian menace by first attacking British-controlled settlements in the Illinois country, then assaulting Detroit. Virginia, the parent state of Kentucky, authorized the expedition, and in 1778 Clark captured Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. With a small force that included Indians allied to the British, Hamilton marched from Detroit and recaptured Vincennes in December. Clark immediately left Kaskaskia to retake the town. To discourage Hamilton’s Indian allies, Clark had six captured Indians tomahawked to death in sight of the British defenses. “It had,” he said, “the effect that I expected.” Vincennes surrendered, but it was Clark’s last important triumph. He never received enough reinforcements to attack Detroit, and Kentucky was on the defensive after 1779, as intermittent Indian raids scourged the Ohio Valley.

  In the south, the Cherokees rose against white settlers in May 1776, but the uprising was ill-timed. With no British forces in the region, Georgia and the two Carolinas could concentrate on subduing the Indians. The three states committed 4,500 militiamen to a three-pronged campaign that inflicted severe devastation on the Cherokees, forcing them to sue for peace. The display of American might dampened the warlike ardor of other southern tribes, and for the next two years England received much sympathy but little military aid from them. With the capture of Savannah and the subsequent British conquests in the south, England persuaded a few Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws to assist them. The rebels responded in late 1780 with a punitive expedition against the Cherokees, who again endured the loss of villages and crops. This second chastisement of the Cherokees, combined with England’s deteriorating position in the south throughout 1781, ended Indian participation in the southern war.

  In the New York–Pennsylvania region the war shattered the Iroquois Confederacy, as the Oneidas and Tuscaroras supported the United States and the other four tribes assisted the British. Joseph Brant, a well-educated Mohawk chief, led the pro-British Iroquois and worked closely with Loyalist leaders. In 1778 Tory-Indian raiding parties operating out of Niagara terrorized the frontier, destroying the communities of Wyoming Valley, German Flats, and Cherry Valley. Pleas for protection resulted in General John Sullivan’s 1779 expedition. Washington told Sullivan he wanted Iroquois country not “merely overrun, but destroyed.” Aside from punishing the Indians, Washington had a second motive: He did not want the United States confined to the seaboard, and Sullivan’s activities, like Clark’s, might allow America to acquire the west during peace negotiations. Sullivan’s force was powerful, consisting of some of the best Continentals and commanded by excellent officers. Unprepared for such a massive invasion, Brant and the Loyalists made only one effort to stop Sullivan. At the Battle of Newton they fought briefly before fleeing, leaving Iroquois territory open to the invaders. Although Sullivan inflicted extensive damage, the campaign was not decisive. As one participant observed, “The nests are destroyed, but the birds are still on the wing.” They roosted that winter at Niagara, more dependent than ever on British aid, and in the spring they returned to the frontier bent on revenge. Northern wilderness warfare pitting rebels against Loyalists and Indians continued until the war’s end, although it never again matched the scope of 1778–1779.

  If frontier warfare saw the repetition of a familiar—and frightening—theme, Americans also fought on a new frontier, the sea. During the colonial wars Americans helped man the Royal Navy and served as privateers, but they never tried to maintain a separate navy. As soon as the Revolution began, some men contemplated confronting Britain on the ocean as well as on land. No one advocated building a fleet to challenge British supremacy, since in 1775 the British navy included 270 ships of the line, frigates, and sloops (the three largest categories of warships), while America did not have a single warship. Although the Royal
Navy could not be directly challenged, an American naval effort could still hurt England by attacking its lucrative seaborne commerce and disrupting its military lines of supply and communication. Drawing upon its extensive shipbuilding experience, vast timber supplies, large seafaring population, substantial merchant and fishing fleets, and strong maritime tradition, the United States floated not just one navy, but four distinct types.

  Washington created a private navy during the siege of Boston. His army was destitute, while the besieged enemy received ample supplies via the sea. Capturing supply ships would reduce American distress and increase enemy logistical problems. In September 1775 Washington chartered the schooner Hannah, put a few cannons and a volunteer crew aboard, and sent it into Massachusetts Bay. During the next few months he chartered another half-dozen small ships. Before the enemy evacuated Boston, Washington’s ships had captured fifty-five prizes, providing valuable cargoes of muskets, gunpowder, flints, and artillery to the rebel army.

  All the colonies except for New Jersey and Delaware organized state navies, primarily for coastal defense. The state navies generally consisted of shallow-draft barges, galleys, and gunboats, but a few states, such as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, also commissioned small deep-water vessels that could prey upon British merchantmen. Often the navies acted as maritime militia, fending off British naval raids to gather provisions and preventing Loyalists from supplying ships lying offshore. Occasionally a state navy saw more dangerous action. Pennsylvania’s navy, for instance, participated in the defense of Forts Mercer and Mifflin during Howe’s Philadelphia campaign in 1777.

  A third type of navy consisted of privateers, which were privately owned armed ships sailing under a commission or letter of marque authorizing the vessel to attack enemy merchantmen. Privateering was licensed piracy, and it had great appeal. The proceeds from the sale of captured ships and cargoes went to the privateer’s owner, officers, and crew, so the capture of a few merchantmen could make everyone rich. Before the war ended, an estimated 2,000 privateers had sailed under commissions from Congress, state governments, and diplomats abroad. They harmed Britain more than any other facet of the American naval war. England’s losses exceeded $65 million; maritime insurance rates skyrocketed; and to protect merchantmen, England resorted to convoys, which siphoned warships from other vital tasks. The privateers also disrupted communications between England and its forces in America.

  The fourth navy was the Continental Navy, established by Congress in the autumn of 1775, when it created a Naval Committee and authorized the acquisition of armed ships. The first were eight converted merchantmen commanded by Esek Hopkins, who had limited qualifications but was the brother of a member of the Naval Committee. Nepotism played a role in the selection of commanding officers for all the vessels. Symptomatic of the officers’ questionable competence was the infant fleet’s first voyage, which, as it turned out, was the only fleet operation by the Continental Navy during the war. Hopkins disobeyed orders to cruise in Chesapeake Bay and instead raided Nassau in the Bahamas. On the return voyage the fleet encountered HMS Glasgow, which, though outnumbered and outgunned, outfought the Americans.

  Congress was not content to rely on converted merchantmen. In December 1775 it voted to build thirteen frigates and eventually authorized construction of approximately thirty more vessels. But shipyards, hindered by shortages of cannons, iron, canvas, and seasoned timber, never completed the authorized vessels, and the fate of most ships that slid down the ways was dismal. For example, of the thirteen frigates, the Americans burned three to keep them out of enemy hands, the British burned two and captured seven, and one sank in battle.

  The Continental Navy’s worst handicap was a shortage of trained seamen. Privateering was more attractive than naval service because crews received a greater share of prize money, discipline was lax, and it was relatively danger-free, since privateers avoided enemy warships. Continental ships often sat in port for lack of crewmen, and squadron operations became difficult. Thus ships usually sailed alone and, like privateers, concentrated on commerce raiding. Several captains carried the commerce war to European waters with spectacular success. Lambert Wickes and Gustavus Conyngham captured dozens of ships at England’s doorstep, and John Paul Jones won his renowned victory over Serapis while trying to plunder a convoy off Britain’s coast.

  One aspect of the naval war deserves special mention. In 1772 David Bushnell, a brilliant mathematics student at Yale, proved that gunpowder would explode underwater, and by 1774 he had developed a submarine mine. He then designed and built the Turtle, the world’s first submarine. This one-man craft could be used to deliver a mine to an enemy warship’s hull. When Howe’s force appeared at New York in 1776, Washington consented to let Bushnell try the Turtle against Eagle, Lord Howe’s flagship. Although Ezra Lee, who operated Turtle, positioned the submarine under Eagle, he was unable to attach the mine to the hull. Two subsequent efforts against other ships also failed. Despite the Turtle’s failure, Bushnell’s efforts foretold the future. Not only did submarines eventually become potent weapons, but Bushnell had also mated engineering science to war.

  Approximately fifty ships saw service in the Continental Navy, most of them small and of limited usefulness. By 1780, with only five warships in commission, the navy had practically disappeared and America was relying totally on privateers and the French navy. Indicative of the navy’s negligible role was Yorktown, where de Grasse had forty ships of the line and the United States did not have a single ship. Had there been no national navy, its absence would not have affected the war’s outcome. John Adams, one of the navy’s earliest proponents, provided its epitaph when he wrote that, looking back “over the long list of vessels belonging to the United States taken and destroyed, and recollecting the whole history of the rise and progress of our navy, it is very difficult to avoid tears.”

  After Yorktown

  Although no one was thinking about the navy, few dry eyes could be seen in Fraunces Tavern in New York during the afternoon of December 4, 1783. Washington had assembled a small group of officers to bid farewell before departing for Congress to submit his resignation. The commander offered a brief toast to his subordinates, thanking them and wishing them well. Then, one by one, the battle-hardened veterans filed by to embrace Washington in an emotional scene suffused with that special affection that develops among soldiers who have triumphed against seemingly impossible odds. Washington did not greatly exaggerate the sense of wonderment at their own success that many of the revolutionaries felt when he wrote to Nathanael Greene:

  If Historiographers should be hardy enough to fill the page of History with the advantages that have been gained with unequal numbers (on the part of America) in the course of this contest, and attempt to relate the distressing circumstances under which they have been obtained, it is more than probable that Posterity will bestow on their labors the epithet and marks of fiction: for it will not be believed that such a force as Great Britain has employed for eight years in this Country could be baffled in their plan of Subjugating it by numbers infinitely less, composed of Men sometimes half starved; always in Rags, without pay, and experiencing, at times, every species of distress which human nature is capable of undergoing.

  The fighting had ended unexpectedly. No one, least of all Washington, believed Yorktown would be the war’s last campaign. The British had already lost one army at Saratoga and the Americans two armies in the south, yet both sides were able to persist. England still held Charleston, Savannah, and New York with more than 20,000 troops, which was more men than Washington had. He expected that the spring of 1782 would see new campaigns, but none took place in America. The war was going badly for England around the globe. In the Caribbean, the French captured several important islands and threatened Jamaica. Minorca in the Mediterranean fell to the French, Gibraltar was under siege, Spain conquered West Florida, and in India the British precariously held on in the face of intense French pressure. Yorktown broke Parliament�
��s will to continue the American war, thereby reducing a drain on England’s resources that could be used to preserve the rest of its empire. Carleton, who replaced Clinton, received orders to remain on the defensive. Peace negotiations, which began in 1780, intensified, and on September 3, 1783, the combatants signed the Peace of Paris. The liberal terms England granted the United States astounded Europeans and Americans alike. The former colonies achieved not only independence but also the right of navigation on the Mississippi, access to the Newfoundland fisheries, and enormous territorial acquisitions in the west.

  It had been a long and costly war, resulting in at least 25,000 American war-related deaths, which represented almost 1 percent of the entire population. Except for the Civil War, which killed 2 percent of the population, no other United States war took such a frightful toll.4 Like most revolutionaries, Americans improvised with extraordinary ingenuity. Starting from scratch they organized a government, a navy, and an army, and they conducted diplomacy with an astuteness that achieved the indispensable French alliance and an incredibly favorable peace. Even though England confronted great difficulties fighting in its distant colonies, especially after 1778, the American performance was still remarkable.