Chesapeake

by James A. Michener

  Belatedly the English admiral responded. His prey had sprung the coop, but there were tested maneuvers for countering the move. “Wear all ships!” he signaled, and the men aboard the Whisper gazed in grudging admiration at the manner in which the heavy English battleships responded. At one moment they were headed directly into the mouth of the Chesapeake, a minute later they were jibing, and four minutes after that they had turned inside their own wake to head in precisely the opposite direction, taking a course which must produce a collision with the French ships, unless the latter bore away.

  By this maneuver the English regained their advantage. They had the wind off their larboard quarter; their heavy guns bore down upon the French; they retained the choice of movement. “Watch!” Captain Turlock whispered to his son. “You’ll never see this again.”

  Majestically, ponderously the two lines of ships drew together; at top speed they moved at less than three miles an hour, but their weight was so formidable that Matt could almost hear the crunching of spars.

  Each line was about five miles long. At the rear they were four miles apart, which meant that these ships would not close fast enough to participate in the battle. But the lead ships moved ever closer ... four hundred yards apart ... two hundred ... a hundred ... and finally close enough for pistol shots.

  “When are they going to fire?” Matt asked.

  “Soon enough,” his father said, and of a sudden a massive burst of flame exploded from the English ships, and cannonballs ricocheted with fearful effect across the French decks. The battle for the future of America had begun.

  Matt would never forget the impact of that first English salvo. Wooden cannonballs had been used in hopes they would throw jagged splinters through the bodies of French sailors, and that is what happened. Before the smoke had cleared, the decks of the French ships were red, and young sailors sped about with buckets of sand to help the gunners maintain their footing, but before the latter could prepare their guns, a second volley of wooden balls exploded, adding to the devastation.

  “Why don’t they fire back?” Matt cried in frustration.

  “They fight different,” his father explained. “Watch the English spars.” And when Matt did, he saw that whereas the French gunners accomplished little in disrupting the decks of their enemy, they were beginning to knock down their masts and sails.

  “Who’s winning?” Matt cried.

  “No one knows,” his father replied, and for two agonizing hours under a dying summer sun the guns roared, and the implacable ships moved ever closer; even pistols reverberated. The lead ships of the English line created unimaginable devastation on the French decks, already undermanned, and for a while it seemed that the French must crumble. But toward dark the terrible efficiency of their gunfire began to take its toll. Down came the soaring English masts, down fluttered the gallant sails. One English ship after another began to limp, and then to falter, and finally to fall away.

  It was a curious fact that in this culminating struggle of the revolution, this engagement foreseen by Washington as the one which would determine everything, not a single American participated. Gunners from Marseille and Bordeaux took part and young officers from Kent and Sussex, but no Americans. There were no sailors from Nantucket, nor sharpshooters from New Hampshire, nor sloops nor frigates from Boston. The fate of America was being determined by Frenchmen engaged in mortal collision with Englishmen.

  When the day ended, neither fleet had won. No colors were struck. No ship was sunk. Of course, the English admirals decided to burn the Terrible, sorely damaged, but later this was held to be a craven act. Captain Turlock, who was close enough to see the Terrible while she lay wallowing, gave it as his opinion that “six watermen from the Choptank could have sailed that ship to the Channel and captured four prizes on the way.” But she was burned.

  This engagement was one of the decisive battles of history, for when it terminated, with the French line of battle still impregnable, the English had to withdraw, leaving the Chesapeake open to the French fleet. Rochambeau was now able to bring thousands of French soldiers south for the final thrust against Cornwallis; the iron blockade of the Atlantic ports was broken.

  It became a battle without a name, a triumph without a celebration. It accomplished nothing but the freedom of America, the establishment of a new system of government against which all others would eventually compare themselves, and a revision of the theory of empire. The only American in a position to perceive these consequences as they happened was a barefooted waterman from the Choptank who watched on the morning of September 6, 1781, as the great ships of the English line turned slowly north in retreat.

  “Now we can go home,” he told Mr. Semmes. “They won’t be back.”

  Among the French soldiers unloaded by Admiral de Orasse’s fleet was a young colonel bearing the illustrious name of Vauban, a collateral descendant of that Marshal Vauban who in 1705 had laid down the rules for siege warfare. Young Vauban had come to America to embellish his reputation, and was overjoyed to discover that General Cornwallis had retreated into a fortified position from which he could be expelled only by a protracted siege. Throwing himself upon General Washington, he proclaimed, “Mon General, I shall show you how to subdue this Englishman!” And before permission was granted, this energetic young man had put together a makeshift team whose bible would be Rule of Siege, a handbook compiled by himself on the principles of the great Vauban and printed in Paris. As soon as he saw where Cornwallis had holed up, he knew what had to be done.

  “General Washington, it’s all really very simple. A classic siege.”

  On his own recognizance he crossed the Chesapeake to enlist the aid of Simon Steed. “I need an interpreter so that I can talk with the men, and you speak French. I need a hundred more workmen who can also fire rifles, and I have been told that your Choptank men are the best.”

  As to the former request, Steed pointed out that he was fifty-one years old and scarcely the man for hand-to-hand combat, to which young Vauban said airily, “My great-great-grandfather conducted major sieges when he was seventy. All you have to do is talk and find me a hundred men.”

  For enlistment of the sharpshooters, Steed sought the help of Captain Turlock, who said, “Hell, we got a hundred Turlocks who love to fight.” Actually, when he loaded the Whisper with men and ammunition, there were eleven Turlocks aboard, a collection of scoundrels so mangy that Colonel Vauban said, “You’re bringing me rats.” When Steed translated this, Turlock said, “Muskrats. Wait’ll you see them dig.”

  From all parts of the Eastern Shore similar contingents set out for Yorktown, and when Vauban assembled them he said in flowery exuberance, “Men, we’re about to show America what a siege is.”

  He wore a white-and-gold uniform which he studiously protected from smears, so that the ragged and often shoeless watermen scorned him, but when they had finished digging the trenches he devised, they found to their surprise that approaches to the English fortifications had been so cleverly planned, they could move with impunity, for the English marksmen could never get a good shot at them.

  It became apparent to Simon Steed that General Cornwallis was doomed; the French soldiers, who dominated the action, had only to march in and take the place, and in staff meetings with General Washington he said so. This infuriated Colonel Vauban. “Gentlemen! We must conduct the siege properly,” and out came the handbook explaining how a gentleman behaved in the final stages of a siege. “We must show force,” he said, “and then we must breach the wall.”

  “We don’t have to breach the wall,” one of Washington’s aides protested. “We can starve them out.”

  “Starve!” Vauban exploded. “Gentlemen, this is a siege!” And he proceeded to position his watermen outside the walls of the English fort and lead them in a manual of arms which he had devised. The men were bearded, filthy, ragged and insolent, but they went through the motions on the grounds that “this one knows something.” When English marksmen on the parapets
began firing at the ragtag colonials, Vauban ignored them haughtily and continued his drill. At the conclusion he said, “Now they know our strength. They’re cringing.”

  He told the committee of generals that according to the rules, they must now expect certain developments: “General Cornwallis is obligated to try a sortie. Tonight.”

  “That would be suicidal!” a rough-shirted American general protested.

  “But he must!” Vauban said. And leafing through his manual, he found the passage regulating the deportment of the commander being besieged:

  “The honor of arms requires that the officer besieged make at least one honest effort to break through the lines of the besieging enemy and to inflict as much damage on the siege installations as practical. To avoid such sorties is to surrender any claim to honor.”

  “But we’ll shoot his ass off,” the American said.

  “That’s no concern of his!” Vauban said, aghast. “It’s a matter of honor.”

  “Honor hell, he’s whipped.”

  Such a statement was outside the pale, and Vauban ignored it. “The second obligation is ours. We must attempt to breach the fortifications. I shall start in the morning.”

  “We don’t need any breach,” the Americans argued, and they were right. With the Chesapeake under the control of Admiral de Grasse’s ships, Cornwallis was doomed. Within a week he must surrender, and breaching the fortifications was a senseless exercise, but again Vauban produced his Rule of Siege:

  “For the attacking general to refrain from breaching the fortifications, or at least attempting to do so, is to disclose a deficiency in honor. To win the siege with any show of dignity, he must assault the walls.”

  That night, as Vauban had predicted, General Cornwallis mounted a sortie. His men marched straight into American fire, and they kept coming until they reached a battery of cannon, which they spiked. They then marched back inside their walls, and the siege continued. By noon the next day the cannon were back in operation, and only eleven Englishmen and four colonials were dead.

  To Vauban’s disgust, the breaching of the fortifications was not necessary. He had his men primed for it, all eleven Turlocks ready with charges of powder, and the clever trenches dug, but before the men could swing into operation, General Cornwallis surrendered. Now came Vauban’s finest hour.

  The question arose as to how the English should turn over their fort and their guns to the victors, and fiery debate ensued, at the center of which stood Colonel Vauban, aided by his interpreter, Simon Steed. General Cornwallis demanded full military honors, including the traditional right of marching his men, flags unfurled and muskets ashoulder, out through the fortifications while the English band played some American time to show respect for the valor of those who had forced surrender.

  “No! No!” Vauban protested, and with Steed supporting him in a mélange of French and English, he whipped out his book and turned to one of the profound passages:

  “At the end of the siege, if it be successful, the defeated general is entitled to march his men through the walls, their flags proudly unfurled, their arms in position, and it is traditional for the band of the defeated side to play, as the men march, some military time treasured by the victors, as testimony to the valor of the assault.”

  The English at the meeting jumped on this as justification for just what General Cornwallis was demanding, but now Vauban asked Steed to read the rest of that passage:

  “But this tradition is honored only if the defeated army can march through the walls using a breach which they forced the attacking army to make. If the surrender takes place while the walls remain unbreached, this can only mean that the defenders showed a lack of determination in defending their position, and they surrender all claim to honors. They march unarmed, with flags furled. Their band is not allowed to play a time of the victors, for they have proved themselves deficient in military honor.”

  After hearing these harsh words, one of the English generals leaped forward and struck the book from Steed’s hands. “There was no deficiency of honor, sir.”

  But Colonel Vauban interceded. Going to the Englishman, he said, “I tried my best to breach the walls for you. But they wouldn’t help.” He indicated the Americans. “And your Cornwallis was too quick with the white flag. One more day and I would have made the breach.” He kissed the general and retired, his eyes filled with tears, but he would not allow the English to come through the undemolished gates with military honors. Their guns were stacked, their flags were furled, and their band had to play one of their own tunes, The World Turned Upside Down.

  But the English generals had their revenge. That night they refused to dine, as the honors of war demanded, with the American victors. “The Americans didn’t defeat us. The French did.” They dined with Rochambeau and his staff, but as they drank wine afterward Colonel Vauban said, “The barefoot men I brought across the bay are a sad lot. Filled with lice, and not one of them could read. But they had their own kind of virtue. I doubt that free America will be a pleasant place. But it will develop its own virtue.”

  Victory should have brought Simon Steed honors and reward. It didn’t.

  In Nantes he had served the colonies well, and in smuggling needed supplies he had been most ingenious, sacrificing four of his ships in doing so. Also, he had brought more than a hundred men to the final siege, where he had served with General Washington, and when offices were being handed out at the end of the war he felt entitled to one in which he could at least recoup the costs of his four schooners. He got nothing.

  There were too many rumors that he had profited outrageously from the war; his speculation in the various paper issues was known and in some quarters grudgingly admired, for consistently he had guessed right, doubling his investments whenever he did so. But his dealing in soldiers’ scrip was another matter, for here he was making profit on the heroism of others.

  Actually, the charge was unfair, as the case of Wilmer Turlock proved. He had fought through the first five years of the war, always complaining but always present. He had also volunteered for the final siege at Yorktown and for his services had received a printed promise from the Continental Congress that at some future date he would receive $480. The trouble began when he told his Uncle Teach, “I need the money now.”

  “They ain’t payin’ it now.”

  “How’m I goin’ to get it?”

  “There’s men buyin’ the notes on speculation,” the captain said.

  “Who?”

  “Sam Deats, upriver.”

  Turlock had gone to Deats, a miserable man, who snarled, “I’m payin’ one for eight.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “For your four-eighty I give you sixty.”

  “That’s robbery!”

  “I didn’t ask you to come here. I’m takin’ the risk, not you.”

  “But Congress will pay.”

  “Then wait for Congress and don’t bother me.” And when Wilmer went to other speculators, he found them offering one for ten.

  It was then that his uncle suggested, “Go to Devon. Simon Steed’s a difficult man but he’s honest,” and the young soldier sailed down to the island, where Mr. Steed drew up a paper on which Wilmer made his mark:

  On January 19, 1785, I approached Simon Steed, begging him to accept my Warrant of Pay. Mr. Steed advised me three times to hold on to it, assuring me that Congress would pay, but when I said I had to have my money now, he warned me that he could pay me only one in six. I told him others were paying only one in eight or one in ten, so he took my Warrant for $480 and handed me $80, which I willingly accepted.

  Steed had a pile of such receipts and they proved that he had invariably advised the young soldiers to hold on to their scrip, and then paid better than the going price. But in the end one fact stood out: because he had hard money when the soldiers had none, he had been able to buy their scrip for one sixth its value. And when Congress redeemed the scrip at par, as he always predicted it would, he
earned six-hundred-percent interest for what amounted to a loan of fourteen months.

  But even this tight-fisted action would not have been disqualifying; throughout Maryland and the other new states many financiers had profited in this manner, but Simon’s case was tainted by his larger dealings with the government itself. In 1777 in the city of Nantes, Benjamin Franklin had proposed that Simon serve as purchasing agent for the fledgling government, and commissions had been issued appointing him to this post.

  All agreed that Steed had performed ably, smuggling in necessary supplies in his various ships. Indeed, his Whisper had become legendary for her feats in slipping into and out of St. Eustatius; her contribution was heroic, and without the sinews of battle she delivered to Baltimore and Boston, the course of the war might have been altered.

  But now it was being divulged that whenever one of Steed’s schooners put in at St. Eustatius, this kind of transaction took place: Two bales of prime cordage from the Low Countries, purchased at £ Sterling 50. Same sold at Baltimore for £ Sterling 120. Commission to Simon Steed for procuring and handling same, 33-1/3% or £ Sterling 40. Thus, on one shipment of cordage costing 50, Steed made a final profit of 110. True, he took risks with the Whisper and he did have to pay the captain and crew, but even with those deductions, his profit had been stupendous.

  When calculations were completed, Congress found that this unassuming Eastern Shore gentleman had milked the government of more than four hundred thousand pounds sterling, and his name became anathema: “Richer than Simon Steed.” “Patriotism for sale at six cents on the dollar.” Any hope that he might have had for preferment in the new government vanished.