The lack of faith infiltrated even family circles. William had always been a favorite with his mother-in-law, Lady Anne Conolly, who was now “a good deal hurt to find people dissatisfied with Sir William.”117 These people included her own brother, William Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Wentworth was tactless enough to go to MP George Byng, a brother-inlaw of Fanny Howe, to ask whether it were true that Sir William was using his command for personal profit. The Wentworths must have experienced considerable family tension, for some strongly suspected that the Howes had dodged the opportunity to end the war in New York in 1776 in order to push their peace commission, and that they had thereafter strung out the war to make money.118
In September, when, unbeknownst to the people of Britain, General Howe and his army were confronting George Washington in the fight for Philadelphia, and when Burgoyne’s troops were fast approaching Saratoga, Caroline left Battlesden to stay at her mother’s home in Richmond. “No news yet,” she reported to Lady Spencer, “nor is any body at all certain where my brothers have gone; as usual the newspapers will know more, than I thank God they possibly can.” Charlotte was in tolerable health, although her eyesight continued to trouble her. Julie and Fanny, the least resilient of the Howe women, had gone for a stay in the countryside. Caroline coined a new word to describe her own mood: humgrumcious. She managed, however, to fill four sheets of paper with society news. She was not staying at home; she and Lady Mary Howe were the public faces of the family. Lady Mary attended the royal drawing rooms and conversed with their majesties, monitoring the tone in that all-important sphere. Caroline’s task was to stick close to her enemy. “I am often with Lady George Germain,” she wrote to Lady Spencer.119
Caroline by now had reason to see Lady Germain’s husband, the American secretary, in the light of an enemy, for it was widely reported that he was behind the newspaper attacks on her brothers. By July 1777, the London Evening Post was publishing accusations that Germain’s “creatures” were the authors of the abuse aimed at General Howe.120 The accusations were plausible, since it was normal practice for government staff to hire writers to argue their cases before the public. Ministers had been known to contend with generals indirectly via the press over responsibility for failed military operations.121 Certainly if Germain was not behind the media attacks, he did nothing to discourage them.
Conspicuous among the government writers in the American War of Independence was Israel Mauduit, a London cloth merchant, religious dissenter, and lobbyist who had risen to prominence as a pamphleteer during the Seven Years’ War. Mauduit would become one of William Howe’s most virulent critics, and his pamphlet attacks would be passed down to posterity. Historians have agreed that he most likely was writing at the instigation of Germain.122 The Howe family and the rest of the world needed no proof; they assumed that Germain was using the press to discredit his disappointing and vexing commander in chief.123 Meanwhile, Caroline exchanged pleasantries with Germain in his home and played cards with his wife.
For the Howe brothers, the one sure way to silence censure was to win the war. In July, while Caroline was parrying criticism at polite gatherings in London, William was still in New York, impatient to get his army aboard ship and begin his campaign in the south. It required several weeks to load the transport ships. Seeking to galvanize his men, he ordered them to carry only a minimum of baggage, in the manner of the light infantry pioneered by George Lord Howe twenty years earlier. Company commanders were told to sell their mounts, as only a limited number of riding horses would be accommodated.124 For William, the hectic preparations were unpleasantly interrupted by the arrival of General Clinton from England. The two generals, who never saw eye-to-eye, engaged in bouts of arguing over the campaign plan. Clinton didn’t like it. He was worried that once William and his army were at sea, Washington might turn back to New York and pounce on Clinton’s garrison forces, or decide to attack Burgoyne in the north, rather than defend Philadelphia. He urged William to consider moving up the Hudson at the start of the campaign and leaving Philadelphia to the last.
Clinton’s arguments, which he carefully recorded, have added to the impression that William’s move on Philadelphia was counter to the intentions of the British government. But William’s plan had been approved by Germain, and Clinton knew it. Nor were Clinton’s protests a premonition of what was to happen at Saratoga. Both generals assumed that the Americans could put only one large army in the field. William would never have acted the part of a willing bystander in the face of such a disaster for British arms in America.125 William waited until he received the news that Burgoyne had captured Fort Ticonderoga, which reached New York by express messenger on July 17. That very day, he boarded his brother’s flagship, HMS Eagle.126 The Howe brothers embarked for Philadelphia on July 23 with a fleet of almost three hundred warships, transporting fourteen thousand troops.
A month later, the armada of British warships entered the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. The sea journey had been delayed by storms, and by a pause at the Delaware River, where General Howe had investigated the possibility of landing. He had also used it as an opportunity to touch base with developments inland, in order to ensure that Washington was still after him, and not headed north toward Burgoyne. After receiving faulty intelligence that Washington had already crossed the Delaware River and had made “uncommon preparations” to oppose a British landing, William proceeded to his first choice of disembarkation, the Chesapeake Bay. This turned out to be a serious mistake, delaying his campaign and lessening the chance of his having time to go north to help Burgoyne. At the end of August, he wrote to Germain, warning him that he would not be able to fulfill his objectives in time to cooperate with the northern army.127
British troops landed at Head of Elk on Maryland’s Eastern Shore on August 25, 1777. Nine days later, light infantry and Hessian soldiers moving north toward Philadelphia clashed with a rebel advance guard at Cooch’s Bridge. Morale within the British forces was high, and only the swampy terrain that bordered the Christina River prevented the light infantry from crossing the waterway and attacking the Americans from the rear.128
William was in a confident mood. Traversing the extensive Christina River watershed with his army, he knew that Washington would try to stop him again at Brandywine Creek, a natural defensive barrier blocking the route to Philadelphia. In fact, Washington had concentrated his troops at Chadds Ford, where the main road to the city crossed the Brandywine. What Washington didn’t know, and what local loyalists had volunteered to General Howe, was that there were other fords beyond the far right of Washington’s line. As at Brooklyn, William planned a flanking attack.
The action began at midmorning on September 11, 1777, with a feint at Chadds Ford that appeared to the Americans to be the main British offensive. While the Americans were distracted by the Hessians under Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, eight thousand men under General Cornwallis, accompanied by General Howe, began a long flanking march. Washington, receiving mixed intelligence reports during the day, ignored the danger on his flank; he was convinced that the Hessian combatants at Chadds Ford were the real threat. It would be an eighteen-mile march in the heat for William and his men before they stopped at 3 p.m. at a hill that hid them from the view of the enemy.
While Howe, Cornwallis, and several officers of the light Hessian Jaeger Corps climbed the hill to survey the Americans fighting in the midst of noise and dust, the British troops had a moment to rest and eat before the battle to come. Their commander in chief descended from the lookout and joined them, and an officer left a description of William Howe sitting on the grass with his light infantry officers, his composure charming the men around him: “Everyone that remembers the anxious moments before an engagement may conceive how animating is the sight of the Commander-in-chief in whose looks nothing but serenity and confidence in his troops is painted.”129
The Battle of Brandywine has been called Howe’s finest battle, and it was assuredly a victory. It demonstrat
ed his skill as a tactician. Washington was taken by surprise, and after two hours of fierce fighting—with the Hessians pushing across Chadds Ford and an intense American firefight gradually forced to give way to the enemy that had materialized on the right—Washington conceded defeat and withdrew, having lost at least a thousand men wounded, killed, or captured. It was in some ways a reprise of Brooklyn, and yet it was not. The Americans, more experienced now, had retreated in orderly fashion; their morale remained high. A lack of cavalry and the fatigue of his troops meant that Howe was unable to harass the retreating Americans. Even the so-called Paoli Massacre ten days later—in which British Major General Sir Charles Grey made a surprise attack on sleeping continental soldiers in Paoli, Pennsylvania, killing or wounding three hundred of them—did not deter Washington’s fighting men from their cause.130 As many British observers had predicted in 1775, the lengthening conflict had given the Americans time to form themselves into a professional army.
William and his army marched into Philadelphia on September 26, two weeks after Brandywine. In advance of his arrival, the Continental Congress and hundreds of prominent patriots had fled the city. Hundreds more, unable to escape in time, were arrested when they were identified by local loyalists, who were happy to provide the British army with good intelligence. Philadelphia merchants, many of them Quakers, who always had had mixed feelings about the rebellion, welcomed the prospect of a return to stability. Young men signed up for newly formed loyalist army units. As in New York, there were many fine houses vacated by rebels for the British officers to occupy, and wealthy Philadelphians entertained the redcoat heroes with dinners and dances.131 Philadelphia would become the winter quarters for the British army.
William found greater favor with the citizens of Philadelphia than those of New York. His conduct in Pennsylvania, in the opinion of many, was “very proper, except in one or two instances.”132 During the nine months that his army occupied the area, recreations that had been suppressed by the Continental Congress were revived. Cockfights and horse races were put on, and a theater troupe called “Howe’s Strolling Players” was organized, with British officers taking to the boards. Henry Strachey wrote to Jane of seeing performances of The Minor and The Deuce Is in Him, in company with General Howe. It was as good as the London theaters, he enthused. All the roles performed by officers of the army and navy were excellent, and only the actresses, most of whom were officers’ mistresses, were “insufferable.”133 A casino was established at Philadelphia’s City Tavern, described as the center of a social whirl. William hosted concerts and dances, and at least two balls were held at his headquarters. He was very popular. When he left, a Pennsylvania loyalist wrote with affection, “The civilities and attention of the noble Brothers to many of us at Philad’a. ought never to be forgot.”134
But, as with everything in this complicated war, it was not to be an unmitigated triumph. On the night of October 3, just a week after the British army marched into Philadelphia, Washington unexpectedly led a counterattack at nearby Germantown. He was repelled by redcoat forces, but only after great confusion, and he had shown that he could strike back. When news of the attack reached William, he was said to have exclaimed, “That cannot be!” Washington and his army were growing in experience and confidence.135 Now the British army was confined to Philadelphia and cut off from supplies in the surrounding countryside.
It was not until November, after protracted, exhausting fighting, that William’s army and Richard’s navy managed to open the sea route to Philadelphia via the Delaware River. By this time, news of disaster in the north had reached them. Burgoyne’s early victory at Ticonderoga in July diverted him from his planned route in order to chase the fleeing American garrison. A few days later, he and his men scattered the retreating rebels but found themselves in thickly forested territory, running short of supplies and hiking overland toward their next target, Fort Edward.
Twenty years earlier, George Howe had trained with Robert Rogers and his rangers in these woods. One of those rangers, John Stark, who had been with George when he fell at Ticonderoga, led a successful attack on one of Burgoyne’s detachments, sent on August 16 to secure supplies at Bennington.136 This marked the beginning of a reversal of Burgoyne’s good fortune. He began to sprinkle his letters to Germain with excuses for not withdrawing to the safety of Fort Edward or Fort Ticonderoga, pointing to Germain’s positive orders not to turn back as a pretext for forging ahead.
Burgoyne crossed the Hudson River on September 14, a disastrous decision that severed his 200-mile-long supply line from Montreal. He only had sufficient provisions for thirteen days. Several major historians of the war have delivered unsparing verdicts on this ill-fated move, with Piers Mackesy putting it most succinctly: “The choice of Burgoyne was the worst ministerial error of the campaign.”137 It may be that Mackesy’s opinion of the flamboyant general was shared by the inner circle of the Howe brothers, for Henry Strachey, always close to the two commanders in chief, declared rather enigmatically to an associate a full year before the catastrophe at Saratoga that Burgoyne was a man “under whose orders no consideration on Earth shall ever induce me to serve.”138 Henry did not consign his reasons to paper.
Led by General Horatio Gates, the rebel troops waiting to meet Burgoyne had been reinforced steadily as New England militiamen poured in. The backwoods inhabitants had been inflamed by Burgoyne’s June proclamation, which had threatened to unleash Native American warriors against all who opposed him. Even in Britain, there was an outcry against Burgoyne’s enlistment of indigenous allies. All recalled that during the Seven Years’ War, Native American fighting techniques had become a byword for barbarity. Burgoyne’s army of more than seven thousand men included, in addition to regular soldiers, Native American scouts, German auxiliaries, and French Canadians, giving it the appearance of a foreign invasion in the eyes of the New Englanders.139
For the Native American nations themselves, the civil war within the English-speaking colonies imposed a choice between the upstart entity of the United States, and Great Britain. Long-standing and essential trade ties with the latter, as well as the fact that encroachments on Native American lands were typically made by colonists, while protection against those encroachments was typically provided by British authorities, meant that the vast majority of Native fighting men during the war—approximately thirteen thousand in total—fought for the British.140
Nevertheless, when Burgoyne crossed the Hudson on September 14, most of his Indian scouts deserted him, leaving his army uncertain of enemy movements in an unfamiliar landscape. The series of conflicts that culminated in Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga began five days later, after a British foraging party collided with an American patrol. The ensuing Battle of Freeman’s Farm, and the Battle of Bemis Heights several weeks later (also called the first and second Battles of Saratoga), convinced Burgoyne of the perilousness of his situation. General Clinton recalled that it was not until the end of September that he received notification from Burgoyne that he required help; even then, his letter did not project a real sense of urgency.141 Yet Burgoyne’s army was outnumbered and hungry, with more than a third of his men unfit for action.
General Gates had nearly twice as many troops as his opponent. At Saratoga on October 12, after grueling intermittent fighting and heavy losses, Burgoyne opened negotiations with Gates. He obtained liberal terms for his surrender, because Gates mistakenly thought reinforcements from General Clinton were coming up the Hudson and were not far away. In fact, they had been blocked from reaching their goal. The melancholy ceremony of surrender took place on October 17. Defeated British troops piled up their weapons as the Americans played “Yankee Doodle.”142 Burgoyne’s poor judgment would bring France into the war, transforming it into a worldwide conflict.
Rumors that Burgoyne’s army was in danger began arriving in London by late October 1777, and confirmation of the surrender at Saratoga appeared in the press by December 2. A newspaper described the astonis
hment and gloom on the faces of MPs when Lord George Germain was obliged to report the disaster in the House of Commons.143 Lady Mary Coke was in town the very next day and recalled hearing “terrible news from Burgoyne.” “[T]his is a terrible blow,” she wrote without exaggeration, “& has sunk the spirits of the friends to Government.”144
William’s victory at Brandywine was officially announced in London just ten days after the news of Saratoga, but of course it was overshadowed by the disaster of Burgoyne’s defeat. Lady Mary bemoaned a rumor that the French had signed a treaty with the Americans.145 In fact, they had not done so yet, but treaties between France and its new ally, the United States, would be concluded by February 1778. That April, a dozen French warships departed from the French naval base of Toulon for New York, bent upon capturing that city from the British.
With the news of Saratoga in December, the British press went to work apportioning blame among Burgoyne, Germain, and General Howe. Burgoyne was ridiculed for overconfidence and poor judgment and Germain was blamed for incompetence, poor planning, and failure to ensure that the necessary reinforcements reached Burgoyne. For William, the falsehood that had been peddled during the summer—that he had ignored direct orders to join with Burgoyne on the upper Hudson River—resurfaced. Those who did not accuse him of this grave charge nevertheless blamed him for leaving Burgoyne’s army in the lurch by being too dilatory during his southern campaign.146
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