Graham in GJG describes the incident at Torrence’s Tavern, pp. 296–98; he also describes the encounter between the militia and O’Hara’s Guards on the banks of the Yadkin at Trading Ford, pp. 300–301. Daniel Morgan writes of being “violently attacked with the piles” in a Feb. 6, 1781, letter to NG in PGNG, 7:254. Buchanan in The Road to Guilford Courthouse cites NG’s statement “There are few Morgans to be found,” p. 351. Don Higginbotham in Daniel Morgan recounts how Morgan was whipped by a British officer during the Seven Years’ War, pp. 4–5. Lawrence Babits in A Devil of a Whipping cites Thomas Young’s account of how Morgan told his men “the old wagoner would crack his whip over Ben [Tarleton],” p. 55. On NG’s council of war at Guilford Courthouse, see PGNG, 7:261–62. According to Henry Lee, Edward Carrington was so involved in scouting the Dan that he did not join NG’s army until just two days before it arrived at Guilford Courthouse, in Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, 2:298. According to Carrington “when the retreat was determined on, it was predicated on the certain knowledge that there was but one boat at Dix’s Ferry . . . and that between there and Boyd’s ferry inclusive, five more were to be found. . . . There were then no other boats in the river, other than the wide and shallow flats at the ferries, which it was impossible to carry against the current,” in PGNG, 7:271. Lawrence Babits and Joshua Howard in Long, Obstinate, and Bloody describe Otho Williams’s flying army as “both a decoy and a blocking force to delay and harass Cornwallis’s army,” p. 29. Henry Lee recounts the routine developed by Williams’s flying army of three hours, sleep per man every night with a 3:00 a.m. wakeup to “secure breakfast” once they’d moved some distance from their night’s campsite, in Memoirs, 2:279. Lee also describes how “[t]he demeanor of the hostile troops became so pacific” (p. 290), as well as the speed advantage enjoyed by the American cavalry; according to Lee, much of it also had to do with the superior riding ability of the Americans raised to the south of Pennsylvania: “The boys from seven years of age begin to mount horses, riding without saddle and often in the fields when sent for a horse, without bridles. . . . Thus they become so completely versed in the art of riding by the time they reach puberty as to equal the most expert horsemen anywhere,” p. 324. Lee makes the claim “Only when a defile or a water course crossed our route did the enemy exhibit any indication to cut off our rear” in his Memoirs, 2:290.
William Davie in The Revolutionary War Sketches describes how he and NG would study the map each night at midnight to determine how to best provide the army with provisions, p. 41. The correspondence between NG and Otho Williams during Feb. 13–14, 1781, as they approached the Dan River is in PGNG, 7:285–87. Lee writes of how the “horses were turned into the stream, while the dragoons, with their arms and equipments, embarked in the boats,” in his Memoirs, 2:292. John Buchanan in The Road to Guilford Courthouse writes of how Cornwallis pushed his army 40 miles in thirty-one hours while also pointing out that NG’s army had covered that same distance in only twenty hours, p. 358; according to Buchanan, the closest British supply base to Cornwallis once he reached the edge of the Dan River was in Camden, South Carolina, about 250 miles to the south. Cornwallis complains of “our intelligence” being “exceedingly defective” and how the Americans had managed to collect more boats on the lower fords of the Dan “than had been represented to me as possible,” in a March 17, 1781, letter to Germain in DAR, 20:88. Henry Lee describes NG’s orders to himself and Pickens as being to “repress the meditated rising of the loyalists” in his Memoirs, 2:303. Cornwallis describes how he “erected the King’s standard” and sent Tarleton to help bring in “a considerable body of friends” who lived between the Haw and Deep rivers in his March 17, 1781, letter to Germain in DAR, 20:88. Henry Lee tells how he passed Pyle’s loyalists “with a smiling countenance” in his Memoirs, 2:311; he also recounts how the loyalists “rejoiced in meeting us,” p. 308. While Lee claimed that Pickens’s militia were responsible for starting the melee (by not sufficiently concealing themselves), Joseph Graham in GJG insists that the cavalry officer Captain Joseph Eggleston struck the first blow after a loyalist claimed he was “A friend of his Majesty,” pp. 318–19; see also the account in PGNG, 7:359, which refers to the loyalists crying out, “To the king!” Buchanan in The Road to Guilford Courthouse cites the reference to Andrew Pickens being so guarded that “[h]e would first take the words out of his mouth . . . and examine them before he uttered them,” p. 299. Pickens’s enthusiastic claim that the Pyle’s Massacre had “knocked up Toryism altogether in this part” is in his Feb. 26, 1781, letter to NG in PGNG, 7:358.
In his April 20, 1781, letter, O’Hara writes of how “the two armies were never above 20 miles asunder, they constantly avoiding a general action, and we as industriously seeking it,” in “Letters to the Duke of Grafton,” p. 177. Gordon tells of how NG “took a new position every night and kept it as a profound secret with himself where the next was to be so that Lord Cornwallis could not gain intelligence of his situation in time to avail himself of it,” in The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America, 3:172–73; Gordon also reports that each soldier in NG’s army received a gill of rum on March 13, as well as that NG was “fearful lest Lord Cornwallis should not attack them in front, but change his position and fall upon their flanks,” p. 173. Babits and Howard, in Long, Obstinate, and Bloody, cite Williams’s description of “[t]he roar of musketry and cracking of the rifles,” p. 125. Cornwallis writes of how “[t]he excessive thickness of the woods rendered our bayonets of little use,” in his March 17, 1781, letter to Germain in DAR, 20:91. Lamb describes how he saved a disoriented Cornwallis from riding into the midst of the Virginia militiamen in his Journal, p. 362. Buchanan cites Nathaniel Slade’s description of how the muzzle flashes of the British Guards and the First Maryland “seemed to meet,” in The Road to Guilford Courthouse, p. 378. Henry Lee recounts the exchange between Cornwallis and O’Hara before Cornwallis ordered a cannon be fired on Washington’s cavalry, even though it meant some British Guards would inevitably fall to friendly fire, in his Memoirs, 2:353. Although Babits and Howard, in Long, Obstinate, and Bloody, insist that the conversation never took place (p. 162), I, like, Buchanan in The Road to Guilford Courthouse, see no reason to doubt the gist of Lee’s account, especially given the earlier demands Cornwallis had made on his men. As Buchanan writes, Cornwallis “did what he had to do. What he did was terrible but what choice had he?,” p. 379. O’Hara recounts the terrible toll of the battle as well as the sufferings the British army endured during their “two days and nights” on the battlefield after the fighting in his April 20, 1781, letter to the Duke of Grafton, p. 177. Lamb in his Journal describes the “complicated scene of horror and distress” and how an estimated fifty men died of their wounds during the rainy night after the battle, p. 357. NG’s March 18, 1781, letter to Joseph Reed, in which he refers to the battle as “long, obstinate, and bloody,” is in PGNG, 7:450. In his Correspondence, Cornwallis writes of being “quite tired of marching about the country in quest of adventures” in an April 10, 1781, letter to William Phillips, p. 88. NG writes, “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again,” in an April 28, 1781, letter to Chevalier de la Luzerne in PGNG, 8:167–68. NG writes of his hopes for “universal joy through America” in a March 18, 1781, letter to Caty Greene in PGNG, 7:446–47. GW writes of how NG deserved “the honors of the field” in an April 18, 1781, letter in WGW, 21:471. He advises “not to look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors” in a March 26, 1781, letter to John Armstrong in WGW, 21:378.
CHAPTER 5 ◆ THE END OF THE TETHER
In a Feb. 28, 1781, letter, GW advises Jacky Custis to “hear dispassionately and determine coolly” in WGW, 21:318; he continues: “To be disgusted at the decision of questions because they are not consonant to your own ideas, and to withdraw ourselves from public assemblies . . . upon suspicion that there is a party formed who are inim
ical to our cause . . . is wrong because these things may originate in a difference of opinion.” GW’s March 21, 1781, letter to Benjamin Harrison, in which he discusses the effort to establish a pension for his mother and the “want of duty on my part” that implies, is in WGW, 21:341. GW’s April 30, 1781, letter to Lund Washington, in which he writes of the Savage incident and how “[i]t would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard that in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burnt my house and laid the plantation in ruins,” is in WGW, 22:14–15. On the Savage incident, see George Grieves’s “Notes on Conversation with Lund Washington” in Chastellux’s Travels in North America, 2:597. GW’s April 5, 1781, letter to John Laurens, in which he speaks of the country having reached “the end of our tether,” is in WGW, 21:437–39. GW’s March 27, 1781, letter to Benjamin Harrison, in which he insists that “[t]he most powerful diversion that can be made in favor of the Southern states will be a respectable force in the neighborhood of New York,” is in WGW, 21:381–83.
In Portrait of a General, William Willcox cites Cornwallis’s description of a retreat to Charleston as “disgraceful,” p. 386; according to Willcox, Cornwallis’s decision to march to Virginia “seems to have been the act of a man driven beyond the limits of clear thinking, for the arguments against it were as obvious and cogent then as they are today.” In an April 10, 1781, letter to Clinton, Cornwallis writes of how “[t]he rivers of Virginia are advantageous to an invading army” in Benjamin Stevens, ed., The Campaign in Virginia, 1:399. The phrase “taking possession of places at one time and abandoning them at another” is in Germain’s May 2, 1781, letter to Clinton in DAR, 20:133. Piers Mackesy in The War for America cites Samuel Graves’s comparison of the movements of the British army to “the passage of a ship through the sea whose track is soon lost,” p. 252. Cornwallis writes of how after “the experiment I had made [in North Carolina] had failed,” the only option he felt he had was to take the war to Virginia in a June 30, 1781, letter to Clinton in Clinton’s American Rebellion, p. 535. Cornwallis makes the declaration that “[i]f we mean an offensive war in America, we must abandon New York and bring our whole force into Virginia” in an April 10, 1781, letter to Clinton in Stevens, The Campaign in Virginia, 1:399. With hindsight inevitably informing his memory, Clinton claimed he believed it was in his country’s best interests “to assemble our whole force at New York and remain upon the defensive, as the commander in chief was then fully persuaded . . . that rebellion in America was at its last gasp; and a very few more months’ escape from disaster on our side promised us every good effect of the most decisive victory, by insuring to Great Britain the future dependence of the revolted colonies on a firm and permanent basis” in his The American Rebellion, p. 293. Germain writes of being “very well pleased to find Lord Cornwallis’s opinion entirely coincides with mine of the great importance of pushing the war on the side of Virginia with all the force that can be spared” in a June 6, 1781, letter to Clinton in DAR, 20:157. Cornwallis writes of how “the return of General Greene to North Carolina . . . put a junction with General Phillips out of my power” in an April 23, 1781, letter to Clinton in Stevens, The Campaign in Virginia, 1:425. In “The British Road to Yorktown,” William Willcox writes of how Cornwallis’s decision to bolt to Virginia was influenced by the knowledge that Clinton’s dispatches were on their way from Charleston: “Rather than return to being a subordinate, Cornwallis would force his own design on his superiors. . . . Cornwallis was playing for vast stakes in a game which he did not fully understand,” p. 14.
Lafayette refers to General Phillips’s “having killed my father” in an April 17, 1781, letter to NG in LAAR, 4:40. Lafayette proclaims that “Phillips is my object” in a May 4, 1781, letter to GW in LAAR, 4:82–83. NG advises Lafayette “not to let the love of fame get the better of your prudence” in a May 1, 1781, letter in LAAR, 4:74. Lafayette writes of the likelihood of his tiny army’s being “completely thrashed by the smallest of the two armies that do me the honor of visiting” in a May 9, 1781, letter to Luzerne in LAAR, 4:79. Rochambeau writes that “[m]y private letters informed me that if I had been in France the king would have appointed me Minister of War” in his Memoirs, p. 44. The Duc de Lauzun recounts Rochambeau’s anger on learning “that men whom he had treated most kindly had by no means spared him in their letters” in his Memoirs, p. 199. Charles Lee Lewis in Admiral De Grasse and American Independence cites a letter written by the French minister of war, the Marquis de Segur, over the period of Feb. 25 to March 19, 1781, to Rochambeau in which he explains the French government’s instructions concerning “the conduct of the war in America,” which contains the caveat, “If through unseen events . . . Washington’s army may disintegrate and cease to exist, the king wishes you then to disobey the orders and requisitions that the admiral might make for you to leave the coast, for in that case it will be prudent to conserve your means . . . to retire to the Antilles, if it is possible or to St.-Domingue [Haiti], depending on the season,” p. 129. Chastellux writes of how Rochambeau “sees everything darkly” in his May 28, 1781, letter to Luzerne in Randolph Adams’s The Burned Letter of Chastellux, p. 6. William Smith records Clinton’s insistence that Rochambeau was “utterly against the American Alliance,” in an Aug. 23, 1781, entry in his Memoirs, p. 434. Chastellux tells of Rochambeau having “taken an aversion to this whole country” in his May 28, 1781, letter to Luzerne in Adams’s Burned Letter, p. 6. Chastellux’s May 21, 1781, letter to GW, in which he reveals that the de Grasse fleet sailed from Brest in March and speaks of “the secrecy of your excellency, as one of [your] numerous virtues,” is in Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-05733. On the Wethersfield Conference and GW’s intercepted letters discussing the conference’s outcome, see Lee Kennett’s The French Forces in America, pp. 104–7. GW writes of the “insurmountable difficulty” of transporting the army to Virginia by land and the possibility that the allies might “extend our views to the southward” in a May 22, 1781, entry of his Diary, in which he recorded the results of the conference, p. 218.
Flora Fraser in The Washingtons cites the reference to the “plain Dutch house” that served as GW’s headquarters in New Windsor, p. 241. GW writes of Martha’s illness and her still being “weak and low,” as well as his hope that his stepson can accompany her back to Virginia, in a May 31, 1781, letter to John Parke Custis in WGW, 22:142. Ron Chernow discusses GW’s decision to return the medicinal gifts to Martha from a loyalist in Washington, p. 400, as does Fraser in The Washingtons, p. 244. GW writes of how “Our allies in this country expect, and depend upon being supported by us in the attempt we are about to make” in the May 24, 1781, document “Circular to New England States” in WGW, 22:110–11. It was no accident that just as had occurred the previous month with GW’s letters about the failed Destouches expedition, his letters about the Wethersfield Conference were confiscated by the British; as James Flexner writes in George Washington in the American Revolution, GW “was anxious that the information should be leaked to the enemy. . . . He felt that the possibility of an actual attack on New York was very remote. The objective visibly achieved was to take pressure off the south by frightening Clinton. The captured letter served this end to perfection,” p. 431. In addition to capturing Washington’s letters, the British also apprehended several French letters, including one from Chastellux to Luzerne in which he complained of Rochambeau’s “incredible ignorance.” As Adams writes in The Burned Letter of Chastellux, pp. 6–8, Clinton made sure the letter got into the hands of Rochambeau, who recognized that Clinton’s “intention had not been most assuredly to set my wits at ease” (Memoirs, p. 47), and after letting Chastellux know he had the letter in his possession, proceeded to burn it. According to Rochambeau in his Memoirs, moving the French fleet to Boston rather than keeping it in Newport “might have delayed for a whole month the junction of our fleet to that of de Grasse,” p. 48. Lauzun claimed
in his Memoirs that the delivery of Rochambeau’s letter proposing that de Barras’s fleet remain in Newport “put [Washington] in such a rage that he refused to answer it,” p. 200. GW’s June 4, 1781, letter to Rochambeau, in which he insists that “I must adhere to my opinion and to the plan which was fixed at Wethersfield as most eligible,” is in WGW, 22:157.
George Mason writes of his fears that the French were purposely “spinning out the war” to his son George in a June 3, 1781, letter, available at http://consource.org/document/george-mason-to-george-mason-jr-1781-6-3/. GW’s June 7, 1781, letter to Rochambeau about the newspaper story referring to de Grasse’s activities in the Caribbean is in WGW, 22:170. Rochambeau’s May 28, 1781, letter to de Grasse, in which he suggests, “The southwesterly winds and the state of distress in Virginia will probably make you prefer Chesapeake Bay,” is in Lewis’s Admiral De Grasse, p. 121. Rochambeau’s June 12, 1781, letter to GW, in which he admits to having been in correspondence with de Grasse and having suggested that it would be “a great stroke to go to the Chesapeake Bay,” is reprinted in a note in WGW, 22:206. GW’s June 13, 1781, letter to Rochambeau, in which GW reminds the French general “that New York was looked upon by us as the only practicable object under present circumstances” and speaks of the benefits of “coming suddenly” to New York, is in WGW, 22:208. GW talks about how “it could not be foreknown where the enemy would be most susceptible of impression,” as well as the importance of using naval superiority to “transport ourselves to any spot with the greatest celerity,” in a July 31, 1788, letter to Noah Webster—see Founders Online, National Archives, last modified March 30, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-06-02-0376. Although GW’s insistence “that it was never in contemplation to attack New York” was clearly a bit of after-the-fact revisionism on his part, the letter nonetheless provides valuable insights into the importance GW placed on transporting the allied army by water. GW’s insistence that “I will not lament or repine at any act of Providence” is cited in my Bunker Hill, p. 287.
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