by John Ferling
Jefferson and his family spent most of that summer at Poplar Forest, an estate some eighty miles southwest of Monticello that he had long before inherited. There was not the slightest possibility that the British would strike there. Still reeling from the heavy burdens and misfortunes that had been his fate as governor, Jefferson decided during that summer to take his “final leave of every thing” concerned with public life.45 His political career had seemed to come to an end before his fortieth birthday.
But politics would not leave him be. The legislature, which had also been on the run, reconvened in Staunton on the same day that Jefferson left the Roses to return to Monticello. With passions still at a fever pitch, the assemblymen wasted no time before adopting a motion to investigate Jefferson’s “Catalogue of omissions, and other Misconduct.” The inquiry was to take place at the autumn session of the House of Delegates. George Nicholas had introduced the motion, but Patrick Henry, once Jefferson’s friend, was the guiding light behind the probe. Jefferson was livid. He suspected that some were seeking to settle old scores and others were looking for a scapegoat. He seethed that the legislature would “stab a reputation … under a bare expectation that facts might be afterwards hunted up to boulster it.”46 (Ironically, two days later the United States Congress selected Jefferson to be part of the five-member team of commissioners to negotiate peace with Great Britain, if and when negotiations commenced.)47
During the summer, Jefferson was made aware of the details of the inquiry. The questions to be answered revolved about Arnold’s January 1781 raid. The legislature proposed to investigate the steps that Jefferson had taken, or failed to take, including the following: Had he put in place adequate lookouts, post riders, and a system of signals? Had he ignored Washington’s warning? Had he acted slowly in summoning the militia? Had he made inadequate preparations for the transport of heavy artillery? Had he abandoned some installations without a fight? Was he responsible for a “total want of opposition to Arnold.”48
Jefferson fumed for months as he awaited the probe. Nicholas, a “trifling” man of “natural ill-temper,” was “below contempt,” he said privately. But he was merely the “tool” of Henry, an individual who flourished in political “turbulence,” and who had pushed the investigation to further his own ends. So indignant was Jefferson that despite his vow to leave politics forever, he successfully sought reelection to his old Albemarle County seat in the legislature. He was determined to defend his reputation and honor, and no less passionate about a face-to-face confrontation with Nicholas, Henry, and all other detractors.
What Jefferson could not know in July was that by December, a decisive military event would occur that would change everything.
About three weeks after Jefferson fled the British, Alexander Hamilton departed Albany, where he had spent a month with his pregnant wife, and rejoined Washington’s army. He sped back when he learned that Rochambeau’s army was marching from Rhode Island to rendezvous with its ally outside Manhattan.
Hamilton had been in limbo since quitting as Washington’s aide back in February. Though no longer officially an aide, he nevertheless had continued to work for the commander through the winter and spring. But when he returned to the army in June, Hamilton had no official duties. Subsequently, he claimed to have written to Washington to resign his commission, though it seems improbable that he would have taken such a rash step, especially with the allied armies gathering and a campaign at last seemingly about to occur. True, he had told his wife that marriage had “intirely changed” him, stripping away “all the public and splendid passions,” leaving him “absorbed” only with his family. But more than anything, Hamilton during the spring and summer of 1781 appears to have been conflicted, torn between a desire to be with his family and an enduring passion for acclaim. If he did write to Washington, it was probably as a last effort to persuade the commander to give him a field command. All that can be known for certain is that early in July, through an intermediary, Washington assured Hamilton that he would receive a command. Three weeks later, on the last day of the month, Hamilton was given command of a New York light infantry battalion.49
During the preceding six weeks, Hamilton had confessed that there was nothing of “importance to occupy my attention.” However, he was never an idler.50 He spent the time writing four long essays titled “The Continentalist” for a New York newspaper. In them, Hamilton reflected on America’s decentralized political system and enervated national government. It was his first public swipe at the Articles of Confederation, and the beginning of his ceaseless endeavors to establish a more powerful national government. Composed while he anguished over the unlikely prospect of obtaining glory in the coming military campaign, Hamilton’s rancor toward Washington was evident at times, though he was careful never to mention the commander by name.
When governments are too weak, he began, “the ruin of the people” was inevitable. Implying that a law of centrifugal force was at work, he said that a weak government would “continually grow weaker,” destroying the “general interest” of the Union. This evil was already apparent. Even during the present desperate war, some states had not complied with Congress’s demands. Worse still was the economic collapse, which had occurred because “Our whole system is in disorder.” America was shackled with this toxic threat even as “a force under Cornwallis [remained] still formidable to Virginia.” (Never mentioning the British in New York, Hamilton, like Jefferson, seemed to be saying that America’s most pressing military concerns were in the South.) America, he continued, now found itself in its greatest crisis. In what likely was a criticism of Washington’s years of inactivity, Hamilton wrote that America had underestimated “how difficult it must be to exhaust the resources of a nation … like that of Great Britain.” Those in power had not only erroneously gambled that time was America’s ally, but they had also “never calculated the contingencies” that could arise in a long war. The bright prospects brought about by the victory at Saratoga were long gone; the enemy had retaken two colonies in the Lower South. But matters could be saved if “without delay” it was agreed “to ENLARGE THE POWERS OF CONGRESS,” providing it with the authority to tax and create a sovereign national government, steps which alone could lead to the “restoration of public credit.”51
By the time Hamilton completed the four essays, he had finally received his field command. Thereafter, he turned his attention to readying his battalion for the looming campaign, wherever it might be. In May, Washington and Rochambeau had agreed on an attempt to retake New York. Six weeks later—one week after Jefferson fled from Monticello and while Hamilton vacationed in Albany—Rochambeau divulged to the American commander that de Grasse had consented to bring his fleet northward. Where, Rochambeau asked again, did Washington wish it to sail? Aware by then that Cornwallis was in Virginia with a large army, Washington was more flexible. He told his French counterpart that the Chesapeake perhaps offered the best opportunity for a decisive allied victory. Once again, Rochambeau pleaded with de Grasse to sail for the Chesapeake, not New York. But in mid-July, two weeks before Hamilton was given an independent command, Washington changed his mind. New York, he told Rochambeau, should be “our primary Object.” At month’s end, the indecisive American commander changed course yet again. The allies’ best bet lay “to the Southward,” he said.”52
No one was sure where the fight would be, or if it would even occur. Everything hinged on where, or whether, de Grasse arrived. Any number of things might prevent, or delay, his coming. Hamilton was not confident that there would be an action, but when he took charge of his battalion, he likely guessed that if a campaign materialized, it would be to retake New York.
The sweltering days of July passed. The heavy, heat-filled days of August set in. A week passed, then another. Suddenly, on August 14, came the long-awaited word. De Grasse had sailed from Haiti eleven days earlier with a squadron of twenty-nine ships of the line. His destination: Virginia. The allied armies did not linger. Withi
n five days French soldiers and their American brethren—7,300 strong—were on the march. Meanwhile, Washington ordered Lafayette, together with the Virginia militia, to keep Cornwallis from escaping back into North Carolina. If Lafayette succeeded, the fight would be in Virginia. In that event, the only question would be whether the allies would have to cope with only the redcoats already in Virginia, or whether Sir Henry Clinton would take his army in New York southward to rendezvous with Cornwallis. In a very short time, the allied commanders had their answer. Clinton opted to remain in New York, convinced that de Grasse lacked the naval superiority to prevent Cornwallis’s withdrawal by sea. Washington and Rochambeau thought otherwise. The feeling that something very big was occurring had set in by the time the armies made the now familiar crossing of the Delaware River. By September 2, when the allied armies staged a grand parade through Philadelphia’s dusty streets, Washington sensed that an epic event was playing out, for he had learned that beyond question de Grasse’s fleet would be considerably larger than anything the Royal Navy could muster. Within two or three days of departing Philadelphia, Washington was beside himself with joy. He knew that Lafayette had succeeded. Cornwallis was bottled up on the peninsula below Richmond in the little village of Yorktown.53
As the armies marched south, past lines of curious spectators, Hamilton wrote to Betsey that his health was “perfect.” His ecstasy at the prospect of battle was tempered only by his separation from her. “I am unhappy because I am so remote from you…. I am wretched at the idea of flying so far from you,” he told her. When the armies stepped off, Hamilton thought the odds of finding Cornwallis still in Virginia were about ten to one. As the days passed, however, Hamilton, like Washington, came to think that a decisive action loomed. At Annapolis, he boarded a vessel for the voyage to the Virginia peninsula. By then, Hamilton knew there would be a siege operation in Yorktown. Not to worry, he told Betsey. Sieges are “so conducted, as to economize the lives of men.” He arrived in Williamsburg late in September and was reunited with Lafayette and John Laurens. A couple of days later he was in the allied siege lines in Yorktown, from which he wrote with considerable accuracy that “our affairs seem to be approaching fast to a happy period.” He predicted on October 12 that in five more days, ten at the most, Cornwallis would have to surrender.54
Nearly every plan, by either side, in this long war had gone awry. At Yorktown, however, everything seemed to fall effortlessly into place. With his overarching numerical superiority, de Grasse frustrated the Royal Navy’s attempts to rescue Cornwallis. In the meantime, Cornwallis’s men dug entrenchments while French and Continental sappers gouged the first parallel out of Virginia’s sunbaked earth. It was two miles long. Once they completed their work, other soldiers dragged heavy artillery into the gun emplacements that had been burrowed. The allies, as Hamilton had tried to tell Betsey, held all the cards. De Grasse promised to stay through October. Cornwallis did not have sufficient provisions to sustain his army for such a long period. The allies had more than 19,000 men against some 8,500 men under Cornwallis. The allies possessed one-third more cannon than their adversary. As the French engineers planned the siege operation, Rochambeau assured Washington that it was “all reduced to calculation.” An American general exalted that the allies had “the most glorious certainty of victory.” On October 9 the thunderous allied bombardment began. A hundred field guns banged away. It continued day and night. Some 3,600 shells exploded in the tiny village of Yorktown every twenty-four hours. Cornwallis took refuge in an underground bunker. His men huddled in trenches and wet, debris-filled basements. By October 16 digging began on a second parallel closer to the tiny village, and only 150 yards from the nearest British lines.
Work on the second parallel was impeded by the existence of two British redoubts. Redoubt No. 9 was on the French side of the allied siege lines. Redoubt No. 10, a square-shaped installation defended by forty-five enemy soldiers, was on the right, or the American side, of the siege lines. Both redoubts housed a battery of mortars—which the British called “royals”—capable of lobbing shells directly into the allied parallels. Neither men nor artillery were safe so long as the redoubts functioned. Their presence was dragging out the siege. De Grasse would have to leave in a couple of weeks, and there was no time to waste.
Clearly, each redoubt would have to be taken by direct assault. The fighting would be hand-to-hand. The allied commanders decided that the French would carry out the attack on No. 9 and the Americans would conduct the strike on No. 10. Washington permitted Lafayette to select an officer to lead the American assault, and he chose his aide, Jean-Joseph Sourbader de Gimat. Lafayette’s choice meant that French officers would be leading both assaults.
Hamilton stepped up. He knew that the attack on the redoubt was likely to be nearly the last act of the siege. Almost certainly, too, Yorktown would be his last venture in the war. He had told his wife that he would leave the army when this campaign concluded. “Every day confirms me in the intention of renouncing public life…. Let others waste their time and their tranquility in a vain pursuit of power and glory,” he had told her.55 Despite his pretense of mocking those who chased after acclaim, Hamilton was desperate to close his days of soldiering with a shot at glory. In numerous earlier engagements, he had been eager to be part of a hazardous operation. It was the price one had to pay in the quest for splendid recognition and honor. As an adolescent, he had dreamed of becoming a military hero. He had never stopped dreaming the dream. Now was his final chance.
Hamilton appealed to Lafayette to permit him to command the assault. Pleading that Washington had already approved his choice of Gimat, Lafayette refused. Hamilton went directly to Washington. One can only guess what Hamilton said, though he surely must have pointed out that he had seniority over Gimat. He likely argued, too, that it was essential for the new nation that America share the credit with the French for the pending victory at Yorktown, and he may have reminded Washington, as he had in his April letter requesting a field command, that he had loyally served his commander at a desk while others were given opportunities to be “useful to the United States” in combat roles.56 Whatever he said, he succeeded. Washington intervened and put Hamilton in charge of the operation. Washington never said why he made the decision, but, as it would become clear on many occasions in the future, Hamilton understood the commander perfectly and was aware of how to bring Washington around to his way of thinking.
The attacks were set for the night of October 14. Hamilton would have three infantry battalions, one under Laurens. The officers would wield swords. Some men were armed with axes to clear the abatis—a tangle of logs and branches, some with sharpened ends capable of impaling a charging soldier—that ringed the breastworks. All others carried unloaded muskets. Their bayonets would be their only weapon. Hamilton’s force outnumbered the enemy by nearly ten to one, but not all of his men could descend into the redoubt. For those who did, the odds would be more equal, and the fight would be desperate and infinitely dangerous.
In the final hours before the attack, before the soot-black night deepened, Hamilton wrote what could have been his last letter. Seated in a parallel redolent with the rancid scent of smoke, gunpowder, and freshly turned earth, Hamilton told Betsey how he longed to hold his child, which was due in a few weeks. “In imagination I embrace the mother and embrace the child a thousand times. I can scarce refrain from shedding tears of joy.” He added that in a few days Cornwallis would have to surrender, “and then I fly to you. Prepare to receive me in your bosom. Prepare to receive me in all your beauty, fondness and goodness.”57
October 14 was a dark, moonless night. As Hamilton’s men had to race nearly five hundred yards to reach the redoubt, the sable evening was a welcome ally. When all was ready, Hamilton gave the signal to charge. The men emerged from the parallel and sped toward their target, with Hamilton in the lead. It was impossible for hundreds of men to pound noiselessly across the terrain. Some, in fact, fell with a clatter into undet
ected shell holes. Alerted that they were under attack, the British defenders opened fire. Men all around Hamilton were hit. But the attackers kept charging, and in an instant, the first to reach the redoubt surged inside and went after their adversaries. Hamilton must have been among the first to penetrate the abatis. The fight was brief but wild, blind, and bloody, as determined, bold, frightened, and daring men struggled at close quarters, lunging with bayonets, wielding muskets as if they were clubs, pummeling and choking other men, desperately seeking to prevail, and to stay alive. “We carried it in an instant,” Hamilton said later, and in fact the fighting ended ten minutes after it began.58 He also said subsequently that all enemy soldiers who surrendered were spared. Forty of Hamilton’s men were dead or wounded. Eight of the enemy were killed and several more were casualties. Gimat was wounded, as were four other officers, two of whom were bayoneted as they scrambled into the redoubt. Hamilton escaped unscathed. Washington, in his official report, lauded the “bravery” of Hamilton and his men, adding that there had been “Few cases” during the war in which his soldiers had “exhibited stronger proofs of Intrepidity, coolness and firmness.”59
By dawn, the second parallel had been completed. It stretched to the blood-soaked Redoubt No. 10. The allied artillery now blasted away at point-blank range. Cornwallis made his men endure the merciless bombardment for thirty-six hours, hoping against hope for a miracle. But nothing could save him and his beleaguered army. At last, having already lost 556 men in the three-week siege, the British commander signaled a willingness to talk. The negotiations were brief. The end came on October 19, six years and six months to the day since the war had begun at Lexington and Concord. On that lovely, bright, historic autumn day, while Hamilton stood watching the proceedings, the British surrendered what remained of the army that had first splashed ashore along the lower James River on New Year’s Eve. In all, more than eight thousand men who had tried to crush the American rebellion in Virginia laid down their arms and went into captivity.
