The starting point of William’s strategy outlined in his first letter was the notion that New England was the core of the rebellion, and a decisive victory there would guarantee victory in the war. Since the start of the conflict in April 1775, there had been a plan to invade the rear of New England, using both the Lake Champlain waterway, extending down from Canada, and the Hudson River, thrusting upward from New York, that connected with it. An attack from both sides would sever the region’s links to the other colonies, which were thought to be less committed to the rebellion.
At the end of November 1776, flush with his successes around New York, William proposed that ten thousand men should push up the Hudson to Albany, meeting the army under Carleton that would march southward from Quebec. A further ten thousand would march against Boston from Rhode Island, five thousand would defend New York City, and eight thousand would be stationed in New Jersey, keeping Washington in fear for the safety of Philadelphia.29
The problem with this plan was that it required a reinforcement of fifteen thousand men, which William proposed could “be secured from Russia or Germany.” William did not realize how very unwelcome this appeal for reinforcements was to Germain, who the previous year had sent William more men than he had requested for the New York campaign. But, as we have seen, the extra troops sent in 1776 had arrived too late for William to attack the city before the rebels could get dug in.30 And it was the recollection of this delay that was behind the change of strategy in William’s next letter.
By December 20, the situation around New York had shifted again. Lord Cornwallis had chased Washington’s dwindling army across New Jersey and the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. This looked very well, but the expectation had been that Washington would retreat north into New England, where he retained the strongest civilian support. Instead, he had gone south, spreading the war. Before William had received a reply to his November letter, he sent a replacement plan in which he proposed to assemble ten thousand men and follow General Washington to Philadelphia, “where the enemy’s chief strength will certainly be collected.” Boston could wait. Leaving smaller holding forces to defend New York, Rhode Island, and the Hudson, William would now need only nineteen thousand men to start the campaign. He still expected reinforcements, but they, and any additional campaigning, could come later in the season. “By this change,” he wrote to Germain, “the offensive plan towards Boston must be deferred, until the proposed reinforcements arrive from Europe.”31
William was considering advancing on Philadelphia as early as possible, perhaps as soon as the Delaware River froze over. But on December 26, just days after William had dispatched his second plan, Washington struck back. In what has been called one of the iconic moments of the Revolutionary War, the American commander and his troops recrossed the Delaware in extreme winter conditions of ice, sleet, and snow and captured a garrison of Hessian troops in Trenton. Their commander, Colonel Johann Rall, was probably not drunk from Christmas revelries as the legends claim, but he was certainly taken by surprise and lost his life in the attack. The British were forced to draw in their forces, retreating from most of New Jersey.32 A second successful American attack on a British garrison in Princeton followed swiftly.
In letters dated December 31 and January 20, William grimly related these setbacks to Germain: “The rebels have taken fresh courage upon this event,” he wrote, adding ominously, “I hear French officers flock to them fast.” But he concluded on an optimistic note, urging that if the reinforcements he requested arrived by spring, the rebellion could still be stopped—provided the Americans still saw no sign of any real assistance from France.33
The pains William had taken to appear as an irresistible force were being eroded, and his future successes were starting to rely upon that dangerous word if. The British army would be on the defensive for the remainder of the winter, constantly harassed by the enemy. In a foretaste of what was to come, William reported that on January 18 a body of rebel militia moved within cannon shot of a British force at King’s Bridge and had the “presumption” to demand the surrender of the British troops stationed there. This was mere showmanship, and the adversaries stared at each other from a distance in the freezing January weather until the Americans, lacking cover, were driven off by the cold.34
William was facing the identical dilemma that had confronted him at the start of the war: How would he get irregular troops to stand and fight? “Philadelphia being now the principal object,” in the same letter he suggested mounting an attack by land and sea on that city. The main body of the British army would march overland through New Jersey to Pennsylvania, and another would go by sea, reaching Philadelphia via the Delaware River. By this pincer movement, he hoped to force Washington to fight. The double offensive, writes one historian, “might well have caught the American army between its jaws.”35
As the war spread south, William’s gaze was turning away from New England. By the end of 1776, he was surely thinking—for it also occurred to the ministers in London—that if the Canadian army were going to join with his own, it might just as well go by sea from the St. Lawrence River. There was no point in undertaking the arduous business of capturing the Lake Champlain corridor unless it were a prelude to invading New England, and that looked less and less likely. It seemed to make sense on the map, for the forts dispersed along that waterway were the only inland strongholds of any military significance in the American colonies. But operations in New England, guarded by its militarized inhabitants and protected by hilly terrain, posed great problems for the British forces. These problems were obvious enough that one of Washington’s aides-de-camp, trying to guess British strategy in April 1777, reached the same conclusion as William regarding the feasibility of a linkup overland between the two British armies, commenting, “[I]t would require a chain of posts and such a number of men at each as would never be practicable or maintainable but to an immense army.”36 Yet, as William knew, it was not likely that any immense army would readily be forthcoming.
From the very start of the war, William Howe had always sought to concentrate all the British forces posted in America. He had advised against the ill-fated expedition of General Henry Clinton and Sir Peter Parker to South Carolina. He had tried to argue in early 1776 that the greatest share of reinforcements should go to New York rather than to Quebec. Quebec, he knew, could in any case not be held for long by the rebels, even if they should capture it, because they could not keep it without a substantial naval force. William well understood its vulnerability from his own experience there in the winter of 1759–60. But the ministry did not take the advice of its own commander in chief.37
Years later, preparing his testimony for a parliamentary inquiry into the war, William wrote, then deleted, a passage pointing out that it would have been simpler and more effective if General Burgoyne and his army had gone by sea to New York in 1777. But he had drawn back from proposing the idea to Germain, wary of appearing to seek the command of the entire British armed forces in America for himself: “A scruple of Delicacy which I confess had weight with me at the time.”38 Sitting at his desk in New York, William Howe was unable to tell Germain what was really on his mind. Canada was, after all, a separate command. It was not for him to dispose of the army there.
The problem that had been raised at the start of the war was coming back to haunt the British. In 1775, Generals Howe and Burgoyne had called for a viceroy to be appointed in America. A centralized command, on the spot, was the only realistic way to coordinate troop movements on the continental scale, far remote from the mother country. These warnings had been ignored, and the men now commanding the major British forces in America were the ones who stood to lose the most from this error of judgment.
Back in London before Christmas, Burgoyne found his way into Germain’s office the very day after he arrived. His thinly concealed ambition was to displace Governor Carleton and command the northern army in Canada. On Christmas Day of 1776, Burgoyne famously placed a fifty-guin
ea bet at the fashionable Brooks’s Club in the West End, wagering that in a year’s time he would return victorious from America. He had a weakness for high-stakes gambling; he was also not a man to be modest. His swashbuckling manner ingratiated him with Germain, who by now was disappointed with Howe and Carleton for failing to deliver a decisive victory in America. The king also thought that Carleton, despite his merits, was not sufficiently resourceful. Burgoyne spoke of the necessity for bold strokes.39 This was the sort of language that Germain wanted to hear, and by March Burgoyne had the command he coveted. The lackluster Carleton was to put his army at Burgoyne’s disposal and remain behind to defend Canada. Carleton naturally took this as a signal to offer his resignation.40
The fifty-three-year-old John Burgoyne was a handsome, elegant man. His portrait by Joshua Reynolds, painted ten years earlier, shows him in his regimentals and clasping his sword, his chin lifted to give him a dashing air. He could hardly have been more different from the Howes. An amateur playwright who loved an audience, he occasionally trod the boards himself. He enjoyed self-dramatization and moved in the sparkling company of the Duchess of Devonshire’s circle.41 As a young man, he had eloped with Lady Charlotte Stanley, daughter of the Earl of Derby.
Lady Charlotte Burgoyne was part of Caroline Howe’s circle. She was of a type with the Howe women, managing her husband’s military reputation and circulating extracts of his letters when he was on campaign. She was an intelligent woman who, like Caroline, followed the political and social scene and maintained an extensive correspondence. Charlotte Burgoyne did not, however, always approve of her husband, who promoted a flamboyant image of himself and deliberately courted publicity. But she was unable to restrain him in this latest war in America, because she was ill when he left for Boston in 1775. By the time he returned to London more than a year later, she was dead.42
The plan Burgoyne pitched in London for his campaign of 1777 was to lead a force down the Lake Champlain route, but with one significant change from the previous expedition—he intended to force his way to Albany. He would not turn back, as the timorous Carleton had done. Burgoyne had already loudly criticized Carleton in 1776 for being overly cautious. He promoted himself as a bold officer who would do things differently. What he would do once he reached Albany was less certain. He might form a “junction” with Howe’s army from New York, if that was to be Howe’s primary objective, or he might provide a diversion if the commander in chief went south. He even optimistically suggested that Albany could be a jumping-off point for invading New England.
It is revealing that Burgoyne also briefly considered abandoning the whole “line of the Hudson” plan and simply joining Howe’s army in New York by sea, obvious idea that it was. Yet he dismissed that without offering any real explanation, merely asserting, “I do not conceive any expedition from the sea can be so formidable to the enemy or so effectual to close the war as an invasion from Canada by Ticonderoga.”43 The fact was that Burgoyne wanted an independent command, and as both he and William Howe knew, sailing straight to New York would have placed him under the orders of the commander in chief. Operating overland would give General Burgoyne the chance to show his mettle.
Certainly Burgoyne’s style, once he began his southward advance through New England in mid-June 1777, was more in keeping with Germain’s ideas. Not for him were the offers of pardon and forgiveness proclaimed by the Howes. Instead, he loftily demanded that the inhabitants come forth and beg for mercy, warning that he had only “to give stretch to the Indian forces under my command” to unleash “Devastation, famine and every concomitant Horror.”44 When his proclamation was reprinted in London, it was “universally ridiculed,” as Jane Strachey reported to her husband. Horace Walpole was quick to point out that Burgoyne would be a laughingstock if he failed, and he compared him unfavorably to the Howe brothers: “Have you read General Burgoyne’s rodomontade [boasting], in which he almost promises to cross America in a hop, step and a jump? I thought we were cured of hyperboles. . . . I own I prefer General Howe’s taciturnity, who at least if he does nothing does not break his word.”45 We shall see the impact that Burgoyne’s arrogant decrees had on backwoods New Englanders.
General Henry Clinton also returned home in early 1777, reaching London at the end of February. Even before he arrived, it was known in Caroline’s circles that he was dissatisfied with his commander in chief. His indiscreet criticisms of General Howe during the New York campaign had been repeated to William himself.
Henry Clinton’s character contrasted sharply with that of the confident Burgoyne, who was his senior by six years. Always ready to disparage the command decisions of the Howes in private, Clinton himself was highly sensitive to criticism and had a prickly, aloof nature. Once he replaced William as commander in chief in 1778, he discovered that planning bold campaigns from the sidelines was much easier than actually carrying them out, as he himself proved to be a circumspect and cautious military leader.
In early 1777, Clinton, like Burgoyne, sought an independent command, but his meetings with Germain proved less satisfactory. Clinton’s natural diffidence prevented him from pushing hard enough to oust his more assertive rival, who had already worked his way into Germain’s favor. Instead, Germain promised Clinton in early April that if he would return to America as second-in-command to Howe, he would be made a Knight of the Bath—the “red ribbon,” as it was called.46
In a sample of Lord George Germain’s managerial style, he made sure that Clinton felt grateful to him alone for the knighthood. He privately insinuated to Clinton that General Howe would be jealous, but “Mr. H[owe] had no right to monopolize all the red ribbons or anything else.”47 Lord George clearly perceived Clinton’s resentment of his commander in chief, and he understood how to manipulate it. Germain knew well that William Howe did not feel remotely possessive of the red ribbon. He had received a letter from Howe, stating frankly that he did not want the knighthood.48 Even before the arrival of that letter, Major Balfour was blunt over dinners in London about his general’s attitude, saying, “Sr. Willm. Howe will be rather displeased wth. the red ribband than otherwise, as he always express’d great contempt for it.”49 Clinton never suspected; he was mollified, believing he had been offered the red ribbon over the implied objections of the unappreciative William Howe, giving it even greater value in his eyes.50
Clinton’s gratification at being installed as a Knight of the Bath exposed him as something of an outsider. The Order of the Bath was not highly prized by those in the know. Horace Walpole, on hearing the news, observed cattily: “a paltry way of [Clinton] retrieving his honour, which he had come so far to vindicate.”51 General Burgoyne had already refused one while he was in London planning his expedition to Albany. To make sure it was not foisted on him in his absence, Burgoyne left instructions with his relatives in England that if it were offered again, it should be politely declined.52 Lady Louisa Conolly, upon hearing of the news of William’s knighthood, spoke for the Howe women when she wrote that the king had accompanied the honor with a personal letter of congratulations, which, she wrote grudgingly, “makes it something, or else I am provoked at his having it.” She trusted that something more would be done for General Howe in due course.53
The Howe women knew how to guard the backs of their men in society. The Clinton women did not; they belonged to a lower social level, and the effect of this on Clinton’s career provides a telling example of the difference well-connected kinswomen like Caroline could make to a man’s ambitions in Georgian England.
Henry Clinton boasted only a single great connection, the 2nd Duke of Newcastle. But the duke was merely a cousin by marriage. His own marriage should have been the means of consolidating his rise into the highest ranks, but Clinton had chosen a wife without money or connections. Harriet Carter, whose family members were minor gentry, died in 1772 after five years of marriage and as many children. Harriet’s sisters moved in to keep house for the widower.54
One of the sisters,
Elizabeth Carter, kept a diary that revealed the style of the Clinton household. The Carter women lived the life of prosperous, genteel landowning farmers—tea drinking, haymaking, and other country pursuits were the reigning concerns of each day. The domestic diary registered the war an ocean away only through periodic entries of “dreadful news” and “cruel reports”—tales of warfare and violence that intruded on the peace of the little household. The Carter ladies did not go to court or participate in high society; they did not pick up drawing-room gossip or political trends. Instead, Aunt Elizabeth dutifully recorded the forays made by Clinton—her “dearest general”—into the world of the fashionable while he was home on leave in 1777: to royal levees, to Lord Germain’s office at Whitehall, and to the dinner tables of the great.
Only occasionally did Clinton’s set overlap with that of the Howes: a dinner with General Conway, a single evening at the D’Oylys’. At the end of April 1777, Clinton took his leave amid the sighs of “his miserable Family” and returned to America, taking with him his red ribbon, the prospect of a promotion, and a much better idea of what was expected of the army in the next campaign than William could possibly have.55
But no British commander in America in 1777 could claim to have a clear understanding of the overarching plan of that campaign. While William’s evolving strategy was turning him toward the south and Philadelphia, Burgoyne was seated face-to-face with Germain, hatching a plan that presumed his army and the army in New York would be acting together in some undefined way in the wildernesses of the upper Hudson River. Germain knew both plans, yet, inexplicably, he did not reveal to Burgoyne what William was thinking. Burgoyne reached Canada in early May 1777, expecting that some sort of coordination between his army and William’s would occur, although he was never sure what form this would take. British grand strategy lacked the precision needed for success.56
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