As always, Germain’s enemies could count on Minden to raise his ire. Germain leaped to his feet, grabbed the pommel of his sword and challenged the younger man to a duel. There was a scuffle as Luttrell marched out of the chamber to give Germain satisfaction, only to be hustled back by his colleagues. For two hours the House was in an uproar.
Invective, outrage, threats of violence: George Germain was back. He had survived Minden, and now, apparently, he had survived Saratoga. Both were failures, dramas of humiliation that had played out before the whole nation, but still he stood, like a tree battered by hurricane winds that could not be uprooted.
He got down to business. He was now, in effect if not in name, promoted to secretary of war. His enemies howled at the outrageous irony that the very failure of Germain’s leadership would result in his being assigned an even grander role, but such was the nature of politics. He marched back to Whitehall to refashion the British strategy. Even before Burgoyne had returned to defend himself, General Howe had offered his resignation, making a similar charge that he had not been adequately supported in London. Germain accepted the resignation with pleasure, and installed Henry Clinton as his successor.
The matter of a general in charge of ground forces was important, of course, but the focus of action now lay elsewhere. The French were sending a fleet. The next stage of the war would be conducted at sea.
The British leaders knew that a French fleet had left the port of Toulon in April. There was some disagreement about where it was headed and what its intentions were, but Germain felt certain both of its goal and of the stakes. The French vessels were bearing down on “our Fleet and Army and our possessions in North America,” he declared, and he pressed his colleagues to appreciate that not just the colonies but the “fate of the country” hung in the balance. He convinced other members of the government, and they drafted their new strategy for winning the American war. They would send a comparable British fleet across the Atlantic: thirteen ships of the line. They would raid ports in the American north, crippling the economy and the shipbuilding capabilities there. When that was accomplished, General Clinton’s army would invade the southern colonies and take control of them. With the northern ports destroyed and the south in British hands, the northern colonies would have no choice but to give up the fight.
Germain wrote to General Clinton, in Philadelphia, apprising him of the new plans. He informed the general, who after all had only recently taken command, that “the generality of the people” in America wanted only “their rights and liberties under the British constitution. Part of the reason for shifting toward the southern colonies was his conviction that most of the inhabitants there were loyalists, who could be relied on to aid the army.
But Germain was acutely aware of the situation that had led to the loss at Saratoga. He knew now how impossible it was for orders to be followed to the letter from across the ocean. So he told his new general that what he was giving him were guidelines, that he wanted him to “use your own discretion in planning as well as executing all operations. . . .” Indeed, he noted that his own preference was that all of his guidance be rendered unnecessary by an altogether different move on Clinton’s part as the spring fighting got underway: “to bring Mr. Washington to a general and decisive action early in the campaign.”
Washington got the news of the French alliance while he was in the midst of drilling his men in the spring sunshine of Valley Forge. He had been pondering which way to attack the British, and had been giving serious thought to marching right into Philadelphia. Now everything changed. He told his officers the wondrous news. Lafayette, who always seemed oblivious of the perimeter of frosty reserve that Washington kept about his person, grabbed his commanding officer and kissed him on both cheeks. Washington ordered a general assembly and addressed his army with a rare burst of spirituality:
It having pleased the Almighty ruler of the Universe propitiously to defend the Cause of the United American-States and finally by raising us up a powerful Friend among the Princes of the Earth to establish our liberty and Independence upon lasting foundations, it becomes us to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the divine Goodness & celebrating the important Event which we owe to his benign Interposition.
Then, with his customary fastidiousness for detail, he announced the precise manner in which the army would celebrate the alliance with France, right down to dictating how the men would cheer:
Upon a signal given, the whole Army will Huzza! “Long Live the King of France”—The Artillery then begins again and fires thirteen rounds, this will be succeded by a second general discharge of the Musquetry in a running fire—Huzza!—“And long live the friendly European Powers”—Then the last discharge of thirteen Pieces of Artillery will be given, followed by a General runing fire and Huzza! “To the American States.”
The army was now fired up, and so was Washington. Not long after, General Sir Henry Clinton, having decided against Germain’s suggestion of a direct attack at Washington’s army, prepared to evacuate Philadelphia and head for Sandy Hook, where ships would be waiting for his troops. Washington got word of his intentions and sounded out his officers on what to do. Should they attack? Most were against it. But Washington had endured a string of losses and a long, grueling winter, and he was deeply impressed by the work done in a few short months by a Prussian officer named Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben, who had arrived in camp in late February, powerful astride his horse (one soldier remarked that he looked like “the ancient fabled God of War”), and established a revised mode of military discipline, which included new drills and training the men in the proper use of the bayonet.
So Washington wanted to go at Clinton. Though Charles Lee, his senior-most officer, opposed it, his young bucks, Hamilton and Lafayette, sided with the chief. Clinton’s army left Philadelphia and headed northeast, following the Delaware River. Washington proposed to send an advance guard to harass the British troops and keep them occupied until he could bring the rest of the army up. Lee at first dodged the assignment to lead the advance, then, when Washington gave the command to Lafayette, Lee decided he would do it after all. Such vacillation was strange behavior in a seasoned officer, but Washington reassigned Lee the task. Lee rode off at the head of 5,000 men.
June 28 was a blisteringly hot and humid day. An aide rode up to Washington after dawn to report that the British lines were on the move. Washington got his men up and marching. They stripped off their shirts in the heat. On and on they marched; some of the men fainted; those who couldn’t continue were left by the side of the road. Finally, Washington heard the sound he had been waiting for: cannon fire. Lee was doing his job.
A short while later they passed a farmer. Washington rode his white charger up and asked what news he had. At first he assumed the man didn’t know what he was talking about, for the farmer reported that the Americans were in retreat. But it turned out to be true. Clinton had left a small force behind at a place called Monmouth Court House, and Lee had attacked it, but then another force, under Charles Cornwallis, had doubled back and surprised the Americans. In the confusion Lee had pulled back.
Washington spurred his horse; when he found Lee, he was in a fury. He had chosen this moment, this place, because the British were hemmed in by a marsh and a steep defile. Such opportunities couldn’t be wasted. And here was Lee with 5,000 men, not pressing the advantage but in full retreat. He thundered up to Lee’s side. “What is the meaning of this?” he roared. “What is all this confusion for, and retreat?” Lee looked bewildered, wounded, as if he felt he were being criticized unjustly for taking the proper action. “Sir?” he asked. “Sir?”
Everything was undone. But the action was underway. Washington looked around, saw the land sloping down toward the British troops; he had this advantage, at least. Hamilton, at his side, noted the general’s “coolness and firmness” as he took stock. Anthony Wayne, one of his generals, appeared, at the head of a column, ready for action. W
ayne had been eager for this fight, had, in pressing for it, coined a verb: “Burgoyning Clinton” was what he’d advocated. They could yet do this.
Wayne’s men charged ahead. Washington ordered Nathanael Greene to his right and Brigadier-General Lord Stirling to his left. A line of British cavalry came charging at them; the American rifles opened fire and men and horses slammed to the earth. Then in a steady roll came the British infantry. His officers, Washington later remarked, “seemed to vie with each other in manifesting their zeal and bravery,” and the behavior of the troops “was such as could not be surpassed.” The battle wore on through the long hot day. Washington’s horse collapsed under him and died. Night fell, and the fighting ceased. Washington spied the British campfires in the distance and plotted a dawn raid. But when morning came they saw the fires had been a ruse: the enemy was gone. Each side lost hundreds of men. Washington chose to call the battle at Monmouth Court House a victory. But the British army had escaped, and continued on its way to Sandy Hook. There, the soldiers boarded ships that would redeploy them, as General Clinton began executing the new strategy that George Germain had dictated.
Three days later and 150 miles away, Cornplanter and his fellow Seneca war captain Old Smoke were leading more than 400 Iroquois fighters, armed with muskets and tomahawks and stripped and painted for violence, in surrounding a fort called Wintermute in the Wyoming Valley of eastern Pennsylvania. With them was Major John Butler and 110 of his Rangers, who included loyalists and runaway slaves. Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga had changed the nature of the war in the north. In place of a classic offensive, the British were now relying on raids, and on their Iroquois allies. The Indians were armed with muskets and ammunition supplied by the British.
The serene setting—broad meadows astride a wide lazy stretch of the Susquehanna River—contrasted strikingly with the business of death. This was farm country; the objective was both to plunder and to stop supplies from going to the American army. Inside the fort, militiamen huddled with their wives and children. The attack would be easy work, and the Indians prepared to do it quickly. But Butler wanted to see if they could accomplish the task without violence. He asked the men inside the fort to surrender; if they did, he said, their lives would be spared. Somewhat to his surprise, they agreed. The same thing happened at the next fort. But when they reached the third, a place called Forty Fort, which had been named after the number of men who had built it, the terms were rejected.
Cornplanter had an idea. The fort sat right on the riverbank; a hill rose above it. He took ten of his men and crept to the top. From here they were able not only to see inside, but actually to count the militiamen and observe their preparations. When, at two o’clock in the afternoon on July 3, 1778, the gate creaked open and the 400 militiamen inside rushed out, weapons raised, intending to surprise the attackers, Cornplanter’s men were ready. Iroquois and Rangers alike were belly-down on the ground, several hundred yards distant, undetectable. They waited until the militiamen had advanced a distance from the fort and had shot three rounds. Then the Senecas and their British allies opened fire as the Indians moved to outflank the enemy. The battle was short and horrifically one-sided. Three hundred Americans were killed. The Senecas lost five men.
Americans in the region quickly put out the news that the “savages” had conducted a “massacre.” In fact, what Cornplanter led was a crisp, decisive military action against armed combatants. While the disinformation was meant to excite Congress into sending troops their way, more immediately it served to alarm other settlers, enough that four more forts in the Wyoming Valley surrendered the next day. Cornplanter had an understanding of the agreements the white men valued. The Senecas freed the militiamen in the forts on the condition that they not engage in future military action against Indians.
But the men of the Wyoming Valley were in a stew of rage and hurt following the deaths of so many of their brothers and neighbors. Several weeks later, Thomas Hartley, a thirty-year-old lawyer who had served under Washington at Brandywine Creek, organized a raiding party that would make a counterstrike against the Indians, which he declared was meant to stop “the Barbarians from Deluging our Country with the Blood of Helpless Mothers & Infants.” That the strike was against Delaware Indians who lived in the region, and not the Senecas who had attacked Forty Fort, did not matter. His 200 men burned down a string of Indian villages and killed a number of inhabitants, including killing and scalping “a very important Indian Chief.”
Cornplanter was back in his home village of Conawaugus when Delaware messengers arrived with news of the raids and requests to help. It was October, the time for drying beans and harvesting corn rather than making war, but many Senecas were angry that they had been accused of committing a massacre under circumstances that, had they involved a white army, would have been considered normal warfare. Cornplanter knew perfectly well that while in formal councils the Americans referred to the Iroquois as a noble civilization, outside the council fire they considered them little more than beasts. In using the term “massacre” to whip up support against them, they were playing on an existing image. The Senecas had no choice but to act. Cornplanter’s son was now four years old. As a father, he had to protect the boy. As a leader, he had to protect the Seneca people. Once, he had held out for neutrality. Now he wanted to fight.
He led more than 300 Senecas eastward. They met up with Mohawks under Joseph Brant, and a contingent of John Butler’s Rangers led by his son, Walter Butler. The place of attack, the settlement of Cherry Valley, was another area of farmland that Washington’s army relied on for supplies.
The fort here was strong, and well defended, but the leader was stupid. Despite warnings of the enemy’s advance, Colonel Ichabod Alden stayed in town rather than in the fort, together with his officers, in the comfortable home of a man named Robert Wells. Butler and Cornplanter, leading the advance party, captured four people on their way into the town, and learned from them where the leaders were staying. Cornplanter sent a party of Indians led by the Seneca Little Beard to surround the Wells house. They waited through an all-night rainstorm, and attacked at dawn. Alden came charging out, dodging arrows and musketballs in a desperate run for the safety of the fort. Just before he got there someone threw a tomahawk; the blow to the head killed the man. The Indians swarmed into the house and killed everyone inside, soldiers and family members alike.
The main party of attackers had been trying to gain entry to the fort. When it was clear they could not, groups of Senecas broke away into the town, where they avenged the attacks on the Delaware villages, and, as if feeling it necessary to show the Americans what a real Indian massacre was, set about marauding. Besides American soldiers, the Indians and their allies murdered 32 civilians. Cornplanter and Brant tried to stop the attacks on unarmed villagers. Quite apart from morality, they knew that wanton ugliness would eventually reflect on them.
And the wantonness could not have been more ugly. The wife of one of the Indians later dispassionately declared that “they plundered and burnt every thing that came in their way, and killed a number of persons, among whom were several infants, whom Hiokatoo butchered or dashed upon the stones with his own hands.” Hiokatoo was her husband.
The news from Cherry Valley reached George Washington as he was grappling with two other issues. Suddenly, he had three decisions to make that, together, brought him to a historic crossroads. The outcome of the war, and of much else in America’s project for freedom, was at stake.
The war had gone on now for three years and seven months. As it progressed, he found that two sources of worry were in some ways deeper and more insidious than the threat from the British. He was increasingly worried about slaves. And now his fears of what the Indians might do had been realized.
The next phase of George Germain’s strategy was unfolding, as news reached Washington that British ships had landed in Georgia and a force of 3,000 men had taken the city of Savannah. The English were changing their focus to the sout
hern states; Washington would need soldiers there.
At the same time, one of Washington’s aides, John Laurens, a twenty-four-year-old lieutenant colonel, offered up a plan that, he stressed, could simultaneously add the needed soldiers in the South and end the scourge of slavery. Washington knew that Laurens, like Lafayette and Hamilton, wanted the war to result in both independence from Britain and a new American society in which all inhabitants were free. Laurens hailed from a family of South Carolina slaveholders, but he had been educated in England. When he returned to America, the naked reality of the institution was like a slap in the face, and he became obsessed with trying to “reconcile our spirited Assertions of the Rights of Mankind” with “the galling abject Slavery of our negroes.” He proposed that the army offer 3,000 southern slaves their freedom in exchange for military service.
Washington could not help but be fond of Laurens. After the young man had overheard the continuously troublesome General Charles Lee speaking of Washington “in the grossest and most opprobrious terms of personal abuse,” he challenged the general to a duel. The two men squared off in a wooded area near the army’s camp; Laurens’s pistol shot wounded the older man slightly, ending the matter. The affair left Washington even firmer both in his dislike for Lee and in his affection for Laurens. Laurens then pressed his plan for turning slaves into soldiers on Washington, as well as on his father, Henry Laurens, who was a member of the Continental Congress and had recently taken over from John Hancock as its president.
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