Louis Gottschalk in Lafayette and the Close of the American Revolution describes how American cannonballs passed through the house in which General Phillips lay dying, insisting that Lafayette “had not, in fact, known that Phillips was sick,” p. 231. Lafayette writes, “We have everything to fear from [the British] cavalry,” in a May 18, 1781, letter to NG in LAAR, 4:112. Tarleton writes of how favorable news about the war in South Carolina “eased” Cornwallis’s anxiety and “gave him brilliant hopes of a glorious campaign” in Virginia in A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781, p. 291. Michael Kranish in Flight from Monticello cites Cornwallis’s claim that “[t]he boy cannot escape me,” p. 264. Johann Ewald compares Cornwallis’s army and its huge number of horses and escaped slaves to “a wandering Arabian or Tartar horde” in DAW, p. 305; he also discusses the terrible heat and “the torment of several billions of insects,” p. 314, and how the British army has “made people miserable by our presence,” p. 302. On Tarleton’s raid on Charlottesville and his almost seizing Jefferson, see Kranish’s Flight from Monticello, pp. 279–89. Lafayette complains that Baron von Steuben “is so unpopular that I do not know where to put him” in a June 16, 1781, letter to Luzerne in LAAR, 4:188. Ewald cites the confiscated letter by Lafayette in which he writes, “You can be entirely calm with regards to the rapid marches of Lord Cornwallis,” in DAW, p. 302. Jefferson’s May 28, 1781, letter to GW assuring him that his appearance in Virginia would “restore full confidence in salvation” is in his Papers, 6:33. Richard Henry Lee’s June 12, 1781, letter to GW claiming he would “bring into immediate exertion the force and recourse of this state,” as well as his June 12, 1781, letter to James Lovell of the Continental Congress, in which he proposes that GW be granted “dictatorial powers” (and which he included with his own letter to GW), is in his Letters, 2:237. GW hypothesizes that Cornwallis’s activities in Virginia have been motivated by Britain’s hope to “urge the plea of uti possidetis in the proposed mediation” in a June 8, 1781, letter to Jefferson in WGW, 22:189. John Ferling discusses the principle of uti possidetis and how the territory of the United States might have been divided up between the Americans and British in the event of a peace conference in “John Adams, Diplomat,” pp. 241–42. GW writes of “acting on the great scale” in a June 7, 1781, letter to Joseph Jones in WGW, 22:179.
CHAPTER 6 ◆ “A RAY OF LIGHT”
For information on Admiral George Rodney I have relied on David Spinney’s excellent biography Rodney. According to Spinney, as a result of Rodney’s pursuit of the French fleet in the winter and spring of 1780, Admiral de Guichen “broke down under the strain,” p. 336. Spinney cites Samuel Hood’s claim concerning Rodney that “the lures of St. Eustatius were so bewitching as not to be withstood by flesh and blood,” p. 363. According to Karl Tornquist in The Naval Campaigns of Count de Grasse During the American Revolution, de Grasse’s “brutal character agreed with his grim appearance,” p. 42. Spinney cites Hood’s claim that during their encounter off Martinique, de Grasse had, “I thank God, nothing to boast of,” p. 371. In a letter to French naval minister Castries about his encounter off Martinique with the fleet commanded by Hood, de Grasse complained “that it was only too true that the sailing of the English was superior to ours,” cited in Charles Lee Lewis’s Admiral De Grasse and American Independence, p. 110.
As Jonathan Dull writes in “Mahan, Sea Power, and the War for American Independence,” “France was absolutely dependent on the 50 ships of the line Spain could contribute . . . which in turn left France no choice but to acquiesce in Spain’s war aims and strategy. . . . [H]er assistance . . . could be obtained only through the promise of territorial acquisition,” p. 62. Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis writes of gaining “the goodwill of the general officers, not with artifices or intrigues . . . but with a frank and impartial policy” in his Journal, p. 109. Saavedra writes of how Bernardo de Gálvez “knew better than I the insufficiency of his resources” in his Journal, p. 116. In addition to Saavedra’s Journal, my account of the Battle of Pensacola is based, in part, on Kathleen DuVal’s Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution, pp. 188–218. Saavedra writes of the “terrifying claps of thunder” accompanying a tornado on May 6, 1781, in his Journal, p. 167. He writes of how the British fortification exploded on May 8, 1781, “with a terrifying noise,” p. 170. Gálvez’s personal motto of “Yo solo” appears on the monument to him at Pensacola, Florida. Saavedra writes of how he was instructed to confer with de Grasse “about the operations that must be executed” in his Journal, p. 191.
In a letter cited by Spinney, Rodney refers to his “complaint” as “a stricture,” which a doctor friend of his later claimed “must have killed me if I had stayed on a month longer in the West Indies,” p. 383; Spinney also cites Hood’s reference to “the unsteadiness of the commander in chief,” p. 376. According to Barbara Tuchman in The First Salute, “The consequences of Rodney’s failure to pursue [when he encountered the French fleet off Barbados] was that de Grasse was not halted and reached America according to plan,” p. 231. On Rochambeau’s march from Providence to White Plains, see Robert Selig’s The Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route, pp. 60–66. GW complains of how “[t]hings drag on like a cart without wheels” in a July 10, 1781, letter to Joseph Jones in WGW, 22:354. GW writes of not being “highly sanguine in my expectations” about the July 2 operation against the British fortifications along the north edge of Manhattan and of “the exceeding great advantage” that would be gained if the operation should be successful in a July 1, 1781, letter to Rochambeau in WGW, 22:307. French Ensor Chadwick, in his preface to The Graves Papers, writes of how after Graves’s departure from New York on July 21, 1781, New York was “from a naval standpoint, wholly defenseless,” p. lxi. GW writes of the futility of “urging a measure to which [de Barras’s] own judgment was opposed” in the July 29, 1781, entry of his Diaries, 2:247 (he had begun keeping one that spring). Cornwallis’s July 8, 1781, letter to Clinton, in which he questions “the utility of a defensive post in this country, which cannot have the smallest influence on the war in Carolina,” is cited in Clinton’s own The American Rebellion, p. 35. Clinton describes Portsmouth as a “sickly post,” while urging the superiority of Yorktown as “a naval station for large ships as well as small,” in a July 8, 1781, letter to Cornwallis cited in The American Rebellion, pp. 541–42. Lafayette refers to the “devil Cornwallis” in a July 9, 1781, letter to Vicomte de Noailles in LAAR, 4:241; he writes about the rumor that Cornwallis will be sailing for England and how he will “rejoice for it” in a July 20, 1781, letter to GW in LAAR, 4:255. Lafayette wonders whether the British are sailing for “some other quarter” than New York since they did not leave their moorings even though the wind was favorable for sailing out of the Chesapeake in a July 29, 1781, letter to Thomas Nelson in LAAR, 4:283. Lafayette wonders whether the British troops that just landed at Yorktown are a feint to draw him “very low down” the peninsula between the York and James rivers in an Aug. 4, 1781, letter to Anthony Wayne in LAAR, 4:294.
On the possibility that a copy of the royal navy’s signal book was procured by the British spy James Rivington in New York and sent to Luzerne and ultimately de Grasse, see Richard Peters’s letter to GW, in which he writes, “I some time ago procured a copy of the British signals for their fleet and gave to the Minister of France to transmit to Comte de Grasse,” cited by Todd Andrlik in “James Rivington: King’s Printer and Patriot Spy?,” https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/03/james-rivington-kings-printer-patriot-spy/. Rochambeau’s June 11, 1781, letter to de Grasse, in which he warns the admiral that “the Americans are at the end of their resources,” is cited by Lewis in Admiral De Grasse, pp. 123–25. The concern that de Grasse’s decision to sail to the Chesapeake “would not be reproached by all in case of failure” is from an anonymous officer’s journal and is quoted in John Shea, ed., The Operations of the French Fleet Under the Count de Grasse, p. 150. Saavedra recounts how he and
de Grasse discussed “the cordiality and good faith with which the Spaniards and the French must cooperate,” as well as the hope that a British defeat in the Chesapeake would force “the English cabinet [to] lose the hope of subduing” the Americans, in his Journal, p. 200. Saavedra tells of de Grasse’s concerns about finding “five or six” ships to protect Haiti and how Saavedra’s proposal to use Spanish warships stationed in Havana “pleased the comte enormously” in his Journal, pp. 201–2. Saavedra describes how the bread ovens in French warships create a “foul-smelling smoke,” as well as the sailors’ love of wine and tafia, in his Journal, p. 190. Tornquist describes how the brick bulkhead in the Intrepide created “[a] fortune in this misfortune” by providing the crew with time to reposition the ship and throw some of the vessel’s gunpowder into the harbor in The Naval Campaigns of Count de Grasse, p. 51. Chevalier de Goussencourt, in an account reprinted by Shea in The Operations of the French Fleet, describes how “Sauve qui peut!” was cried out before the Intrepide exploded, as well as how “the sun disappeared from us” because of the black smoke and how the waterfront “received her whole broadside” from the ship’s cannons, p. 60. Tornquist describes how the ship’s stern “sprang into the air” in The Naval Campaigns of Count de Grasse, p. 52. De Grasse’s July 28, 1781, letter, in which he writes of how he has decided “to take everything on myself for the common cause,” is in Lewis’s Admiral De Grasse, pp. 138–39. In Shea’s Operations of the French Fleet, Goussencourt describes Cap François as “the Paris of the isles,” p. 57. For information about the horrific conditions of African slavery in eighteenth-century Haiti, I have relied on Madison Smartt Bell’s Toussaint Louverture, pp. 6–16. Saavedra writes of how the refusal of the island’s planters to lend de Grasse money threatened to leave the French fleet “idle in port,” as well as how de Grasse eventually agreed to go through with what he deemed a “risky operation” and send Saavedra on a “swift frigate” to Havana, in his Journal, pp. 208–9.
Rodney’s July 7 dispatch, in which he promises to “keep as good a look out as possible” on the movements of the French, “by which my own shall be regulated,” is cited in Chadwick, The Graves Papers, p. 39. Chadwick traces the series of British miscommunications in July 1781, crowned by Rodney’s failure to inform Hood of intelligence indicating that the Chesapeake was de Grasse’s destination, in The Graves Papers, pp. 39–60. Spinney writes of Rodney’s hope that his health would improve enough that he could rejoin the British fleet as it made its way up the coast of North America in Rodney, p. 378. GW’s June 28, 1781, letter to Henry Knox, in which he writes of being “more and more dubious of our being able to carry into execution the operations we have in contemplation,” is in WGW 22:272. GW writes to Lafayette that “it is more than probable that we shall also entirely change our plan of operations” in a July 30, 1781, letter in WGW, 22:433. GW writes of having “turned my views more seriously (than I had ever before done) to an operation to the southward” in his Diaries, 2:249. According to Lee Kennett in The French Forces in America, GW “most likely evaded the subject [of marching to the Chesapeake] for the same reason that Rochambeau wanted to open it. The French would want to make advance preparations . . . [that] could well be disastrous, since news of the preparations would soon reach Clinton. As usual, Washington placed great emphasis on secrecy and surprise,” p. 129. On Allan McLane’s secret mission to Haiti aboard the Congress, see Fred Cook’s “Allan McLane: Unknown Hero of the Revolution,” www.americanheritage.com/content/allan-mclane-unknown-hero-revolution. GW’s Aug. 2, 1781, letter to Robert Morris, in which he discusses the possibility of securing the vessels he needed in Philadelphia to transport his troops “at the moment they may be wanted,” is in WGW, 22:450. Richard Borkow in George Washington’s Westchester Gamble cites Richard Peters’s account of how GW responded to the news that de Grasse was sailing to the Chesapeake and not Sandy Hook with “expressions of intemperate passion,” as well as how he appeared at breakfast soon after “as composed as if nothing extraordinary had happened,” p. 141. According to Borkow, “Washington’s initial irritation was no doubt due to the summary cancellation of his plans and the sudden narrowing of his options. . . . [H]e had requested, even if the allies were to turn to a southern operation, that de Grasse’s fleet arrive first in New York Harbor. The American army could then, he hoped, be transported to Virginia aboard de Grasse’s ships and the dangers associated with a long march avoided,” p. 141. GW’s quartermaster, Timothy Pickering, also witnessed GW’s anger over the news about de Grasse and recorded this remarkable cry of anguish from his commander in chief: “I wish to the Lord the French would not raise our expectation [of] a cooperation, or fulfill them!” in Octavius Pickering and Charles Upham’s The Life of Timothy Pickering, 2:55.
My account of Cuba and the Old Bahama Channel is based largely on the 2015 Sailing Directions of the Caribbean Sea, published by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 1:45–65. In Admiral De Grasse, Lewis writes of how the Old Bahama Channel provided de Grasse with “a safer rendezvous” point with the Aigrette while making it less likely “the British would learn of the probable destination of the fleet,” p. 140. Goussencourt, in Shea’s Operations of the French Fleet, writes of the “unsupportable contrariety of winds” and how the Northumberland was almost lost on a reef while in the narrowest portion of the Old Bahama Channel, pp. 62–63; an anonymous officer, whose journal is also in Shea, refers to “the old channel, the famous dreaded channel, where no French fleet had ever passed,” p. 152. Saavedra writes of how “[a]midst all this difficulty a decision urgently had to be made” when he heard that a recent convoy to Spain had taken most of the public money off the island in his Journal, p. 211. In “Las Damas de la Havana, El Precursor, and Francisco de Saavedra,” James Lewis explains the reasons that Saavedra was able to raise the money so quickly in Havana and dispels the myth of “las damas de la Havana,” while listing those who contributed the 500,000 pesos, pp. 96–98. The reference to this money providing the basis “upon which the edifice of American independence was raised” is in the notes to Saavedra’s Journal, p. 213. Lafayette’s Aug. 6, 1781, letter to GW, in which he explains the reasons for the “fluctuation in my intelligences” about Cornwallis’s activities in the Chesapeake and speculates about the “happy turn” American fortunes would take with the appearance of the French fleet, is in LAAR, 4:300. Edmund Morgan in The Genius of George Washington cites GW’s 1777 letter to Thomas Nelson about the dangers of positioning an army on the “narrow neck of land” at Yorktown, p. 8. GW writes of the epiphany he experienced when he learned that Cornwallis had taken up a position at Yorktown (“as clear to my view as a ray of light”) in a July 31, 1788, letter to Noah Webster, available at Founders Online, National Archives, last modified March 30, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-06-02-0376.
CHAPTER 7 ◆ “THE SPUR OF SPEED”
Major Samuel Shaw’s angry July 12, 1780, letter, in which he claims “’Tis really abominable, that we should send to France for soldiers, when there are so many sons of America idle,” is in John Lamb, Memoir of the Life and Times of General John Lamb, p. 243. For an excellent account of how an eighteenth-century siege was conducted, see the chapter “Siege Warfare” in James Falkner’s Marshall Vauban and the Defense of Louis XIV’s France, pp. 21–45. On how d’Estaing’s 1778 decision to abandon the attack on Newport and sail to Boston instead forced American forces under General Sullivan (with some help from NG) to retreat across Rhode Island’s Aquidneck Island, see my Valiant Ambition, pp. 218–19. GW’s Aug. 15, 1781, letter to de Barras, in which he encourages the French admiral to abandon his plans to sail for Newfoundland and “form the junction, and as soon as possible, with Admiral de Grasse in Chesapeake Bay,” is in WGW, 22:500. Douglas Southall Freeman writes of Hamilton’s sending in his commission and GW’s use of Tilghman to assure Hamilton that he would receive the field position he desired in George Washington, 5:310. I cite GW’s description of th
e New England militiamen he inherited at Boston as “an exceeding dirty and nasty people” in Bunker Hill, pp. 241–42. Baron von Closen observes, “Three quarters of the Rhode Island regiment consists of negroes, and that regiment is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers,” in his Revolutionary Journal, p. 92; von Closen also makes the remark about how “incredible” it is an army of “men of every age, even of children of fifteen, of whites and blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed” can “withstand fire so steadfastly,” adding, “I admire the American troops tremendously,” p. 92. In The Genius of George Washington, Edmund Morgan quotes GW’s advice to be “not too familiar, lest you subject yourself to a want of that respect, which is necessary to support a proper command,” while making the observation “The remoteness that still surrounds him was a necessary adjunct of the power he was called upon to exercise,” p. 7. Von Closen writes of “[t]he calm and calculated measure” of GW in his Revolutionary Journal, p. 92.
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