Victory at Yorktown: A Novel

by Newt Gingrich

  When the dispatch had been sent forward, de Grasse was nearly three thousand miles away. Who knew what he might have encountered since then to thwart his promise?

  To make a decision based on this one letter? He stood up and stared out the upper panes of the window not concealed by the shutters. Could he ask this army to endure one more winter without any hope of an end in sight? Then another Valley Forge, another Morristown, when nearly half the army had mutinied because of no pay and lack of food, or even shoes, and had afterward deserted by the hundreds, declaring the cause was lost? What Lafayette and Greene had positioned against Cornwallis in Virginia could in no way stop him if he decided to launch an early fall spoiling campaign to ravage the harvests from Fredericksburg to Petersburg and perhaps, as well, lure Lafayette into a defeat against superior odds.

  It all came down to this letter.

  There was a polite tap on the door. Colonel Laurens, whose father was president of Congress and who had just returned, himself, from service as ambassador to France, entered, followed by his secretary William Smith and Peter Wellsley, who again handled spying and intelligence in his native state of New Jersey.

  Hamilton, invoking the strictest confidentiality, read de Grasse’s dispatch to them and all stood silent, awed.

  He could see Colonel Wellsley barely able to contain his excitement, like a child gazing at a long anticipated missive that promised some great reward.

  “Your thoughts, Colonel?” Washington asked.

  “It is exactly as General Greene had hoped for after the battle at Guilford. To drive Cornwallis north and now into this trap,” he quickly looked over at Rochambeau, “that our gallant French allies now give unto us the opportunity to complete.”

  He did not add in front of Rochambeau that it was what he hoped Thomas Paine and Laurens would urge the French king to do as well. Perhaps they had played a hand in this as well.

  Washington nodded deferentially to Rochambeau, then turned to those gathered and uncharacteristically, he smiled.

  “Gentlemen, in light of this startling news, I propose the following plan.”

  Six

  NEW YORK

  AUGUST 16, 1781

  The day was already turning scorching hot as Lt. Colonel Allen van Dorn, of the staff of General Clinton, slowly rode up the “Broad Way” of New York City. It was a typical marketing day. During the night, drovers from New Jersey and Long Island had ferried across pigs, goats, sheep, and a score of cattle, and were driving them to the holding pens where they would be slaughtered. This evening, they would be on the plates of the seven thousand men of His Majesty’s army who occupied this city and the ten thousand sailors idling at anchor aboard the score of ships of the line and dozens of lesser craft, from light sloops to frigates, lying in the lower harbor off Staten Island.

  Carts, loaded with the early harvest of late summer and drawn by slow oxen, made their way up the road, piled with Indian corn, cabbages, and other fresh vegetables. Also sacks of wheat for the bakeries of the army and the nearly thirty thousand civilians who lived under military occupation and military law.

  It was nearly five years ago that His Majesty’s army had occupied this city after the pathetic resistance of Washington’s rabble. A fair part of the city had burned only days after Washington’s retreat. Both sides blamed the other for the conflagration, but after five years, with the king’s money pouring in, the trade created by an occupying army, and the need to support and supply the armada of war and supply ships, the city had actually prospered under military rule. The hundreds of burned houses, mansions, taverns, dives, brothels, and warehouses had long since been rebuilt, and with each passing year the city spread another block or two northward up from lower Manhattan.

  The only signs of war here were the fortifications and batteries in what even before the war was called “Battery Park,” the ever-present ships of war at anchor, the hundreds of red British uniforms and blue Hessian garb of soldiers granted leave for a day to quench their thirst for rum, beer, schnapps, or women. Officers, far more refined, had taken to early morning or evening carriage rides with their mistresses, and even, in some cases, their new American wives. They rode up from their quarters to the lush countryside around the Harlem Heights for a dignified picnic and to watch the sunset beyond the Palisades of New Jersey.

  Before the horrific affair with his friend Andre, Allen’s missions often carried him across the river to those heights and beyond, venturing at times as far as the Watchung Hills and the Short Hills a dozen miles west of Elizabethtown, especially when Washington’s army was encamped but twenty miles farther on at Morristown.

  He had been present at the disastrous Battle of Springfield in June of last year, the last foray with significant troops into New Jersey. It was a bungled affair—humiliating, actually—as Continentals led by Mad Anthony Wayne, still thirsting for revenge for what they called the “massacre” at Paoli, along with a swarm of Jersey militia had driven them back. He had barely escaped with his own life when Light Horse Harry Lee had led the Rebel cavalry in a charge around the flank. That, and the base capture of his friend John Andre, had led General Clinton to order him to remain in Manhattan for fear of his own capture or death. Among the New Jersey militia in particular he was recognized as “that damn Loyalist from Trenton,” and contrary to the profile he needed, all knew that he was now responsible for coordinating efforts of British spying and the blocking of Rebel spies in what had once been his home colony.

  Before dawn, he had met with his “usual agents” in an upper story room of a slop house just off of Battery Park, typically frequented by drunken sailors and those who preyed upon them. The crowd included the drover known to him only as “Crazed George,” a slatternly woman, “Fat Dianne,” from Elizabethtown, an honest preacher from Chatham disgusted with the God-cursed depredations of the Rebels upon honest men and women still loyal, and a shrewd lad simply known as Edward, who did odd chores around the militia camps occupying Elizabethtown and Newark, and would then slip across the river at night for his half crown pay in exchange for the latest gossip.

  Allen had labored over his daily reports, now neatly tucked into his breast pocket. He trotted past a couple of carriages at the edge of the city, filled with officers and their “ladies,” more than a few already in their cups though it was not even midmorning but observant to salute a superior when necessary. After all, even after five years of service, and his known friendship with Andre, all knew he was “merely” a Loyalist—a colonial—and the slightest breech of etiquette would surely be spoken of loudly within earshot of Clinton.

  Sprawled under an apple tree just outside the limits of the city he saw two soldiers passed out cold. He edged off the road and approached them, wondering for a moment if they were dead. It was a common enough occurrence, usually blamed on Rebel scum and spies, but more often than not it had been a “soldier’s fight” to settle a score over a hand of cards or some woman. Other times, the notorious cut-purses and thieving gangs, who did not give a damn which army was in this city, would fall upon a couple of drunks to rob.

  These two were simply drunk and sleeping it off.

  “You two, wake up!” he snapped.

  One half-opened his eyes, shading them against the early morning sun, and groaned.

  The man sat up, kicking his companion in the side as he came to his feet, looked at Allen, and realized he was an officer.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he said as he offered a wobbly salute.

  “Get back to your regiment.”

  “And the time, if I may ask, your honor?”

  “Long past morning roll.”

  “Christ in heaven,” the second soldier sighed, barely able to stand. “’Tis a flogging for sure.”

  “Worse, if you don’t get back now,” Allen replied without rancor. If they were lucky, maybe a sergeant had covered for them at morning roll and the usual bribe paid afterward. If not, it was twelve lashes for being drunk and absent without leave.<
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  He rode on, looking back over his shoulder at the two pathetic men, one of them stopping to lean over and vomit, the other then pulling him along. From the sound of them, they were Irish, had taken the king’s shilling to escape the poverty of that isle, with little heart in this war other than the fact it was what they were paid to do.

  As he rode on and crested a low rise, morning mist was rising off the Hudson to his left, and the East River to his right. The view to his right was not a pleasant one. There were the prison ships, in which thousands of men had died of starvation, disease, and neglect. His old friend Peter had legitimately spoken of them with heartfelt bitterness when last they met, on the day John Andre died.

  Allen, as a Loyalist now trusted by Clinton himself, had appealed several times, trying to persuade the commanding general that removing the surviving men to dry land, to offer good rations, clothing, and medical care, to parole home those men who were obviously too infirm or injured to ever fight again, and to symbolically burn those damn ships to the waterline would be a message of reconciliation that would echo far and wide. It would even serve as an indicator that their side wished for this war to end with a fair peace.

  His last appeal had been met with incredulous disbelief, mockery, and even reproach. General Grey, under whom he had served at Paoli, had snapped, “I thought you were Andre’s friend? After what they did to him, I thought you’d want to see every damn Rebel hanged, or are you growing soft, van Dorn?”

  From an officer of equal rank, not just the remark but also the taunting voice would have required a challenge of honor. Received from a superior, he had just fallen silent.

  He turned away from that place of agony and let his gaze linger on the Palisade Heights. Thin coils of smoke rose every mile or so, marking the forward picket lines of the Rebels. He paused for a moment, dismounted, took out his telescope, and focused on one after another. Several had observation towers of rough hewn timbers, rising twenty to thirty feet to offer a better view of the city. Every few months a raiding force of light infantry and grenadiers would be sent across during the night, to scale the heights and scatter them, and try to bring back a few prisoners. It served little purpose other than to add a few more names to the casualty lists of this war.

  As he let his gaze linger on one of the towers, he saw a man leaning over a tripod-mounted telescope that appeared to be aimed straight at him. On impulse he raised a hand to wave, and the gesture was repeated back by the Rebel a few seconds later.

  He sighed, closing his telescope. Who was the man? Jersey militia, from the look of him. On random chance, one in a thousand he thought, they might even know each other from before the war. Now they waved back and forth in a friendly manner, but up close, neither would hesitate to kill the other.

  Strange, how war is. Before this started or afterward, if he had met this man, perhaps down on his luck, he would have offered him a pint and even a shilling out of a sense of charity, yet now he would kill him if need be.

  That, at least, was one thing he was somewhat sure he had never done. Though in action in the major battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, and a score of smaller skirmishes, the last being Springfield, he was never really sure if he had actually killed a man. In all the smoke and confusion he had fired many a shot, but kill a man? Some of his comrades boasted of the dozens of Rebels they had put in the grave, but any real veteran looked at them with disdain. Unless you actually drove a blade into a man, which was actually rather rare except for the cavalry—that when unleashed in pursuit could be heartlessly vicious—few knew for sure what they had done in all the smoke and confusion of a major action.

  He thought of Peter Wellsley. At Monmouth, he was part of a unit overrun as it retreated in the suffocating 105 degree heat. Peter had captured him, stood with musket leveled, then turned it aside and told him to run.

  Peter.… Could he kill him?

  After what they did to John, he knew he could, if need be.

  He mounted back up, pulling out the silver pocket watch, imported from London, which had cost him two months’ pay. In a few minutes he would be late for the morning briefing and he urged his mount to a loping gallop, glad for the cooling air, the pleasure of riding, of letting go of the war for a few minutes as he rode past the rich farmlands of Manhattan Island. At last the headquarters of General Clinton was in sight, down near the banks of the East River.

  It was, indeed, a strange location the commanding general of all His Majesty’s troops in the Americas occupied this day, a mansion a good four miles north of the city. Clinton had five such homes at his beck and call, a couple within the city, the others out here in the countryside. Some said it was in a vain attempt to conceal his liaisons with one of several mistresses, the deference of a gentleman since his favorite was married to a wealthy merchant in the city. A few said it was actually a wise move, for with every summer the city became a breeding house of contagion. For every man killed on the battlefield in the last five years, half a dozen had died here of disease, especially in mid to late summer. Others whispered, though never in the general’s presence, that he actually harbored a morbid fear of Rebel plots to assassinate him, and thus moved his headquarters, suddenly and without notice, to throw off such plots. None would ever dare to say that out loud. Allen was one who tended toward this belief.

  Nearby, the headquarters of a battalion of troops, Clinton’s personal guards, were enduring their morning inspection. Sergeants barking out orders, dressing down a man if there was the slightest smudge to the lily white strap of his cartridge box, or the slightest speck of rust on sparkling gun barrel or bayonet. He thanked God fate had not cast him as a soldier of “the line.” Discipline and humiliation were constant, relentless, and he wondered if the two soldiers he had roused from under the apple tree, at this moment were enduring similar treatment, or perhaps were already stripped to the waist and being caned or flogged for their drunken offense.

  He circled along the now graveled lane that led to the mansion. The guards, familiar with who he was, came to attention at his approach. A black orderly ran up to take the bridle of his horse as he dismounted. He took his watch out, realizing he was barely in time, and as he mounted the front steps, from the distant city he could hear church bells ringing out the hour.

  Clinton was holding court in his usual location in this house, the dining hall of which had a massive mahogany dining table, imported, most likely at great expense, all the way from the East Indies before the war. A servant who was leaving the room as he entered slowed, and whispered “tea, sir?” Allen nodded his thanks. The ever-present William Smith, Clinton’s secretary, sat to one side, gazing out the window while absently munching on a slice of toast. Clinton looked up from his own repast of coffee and fresh baked ham, his morning glass of sherry half drained. Peter snapped to attention and with absent wave of his free hand, the general motioned for him to be seated by his side, the servant returning only seconds later with a steaming cup of tea—no toast, ham, or breakfast. He was here to report, not to join in the social circle of a general and his staff and friends.

  On the table there was a scattering of maps. After years of the type of work Allen did, he could not help but scan them with a quick glance. It was, after all, his job to gather intelligence. Only one map was of their tactical situation here in New York, and there were no changes or notes upon it, indicating shifting positions. The others, though, were of the Atlantic coast clear down to the Sugar Islands of the Caribbean.

  Clinton caught his glances and cleared his throat.

  “Your morning report, sir,” the general said.

  He was, as always, a polite man. Rare was the dressing-down of a fellow officer, a display of the kind of rage or tantrum for which General Grey was somewhat infamous. He was always calm, almost too calm, even deferential for a general in command. Whenever a question of the moment arose, he tended to counsels of war, with his various brigade commanders and the admiral of the fleet anchored in the harbor. That
was hard to keep track of at times. There were Hood, Rodney, and others, who had kept the sea lines open, moving back and forth between Halifax, this harbor at New York, and clear down to Jamaica.

  Of the ships in the harbor there had been some movement back and forth in the last few weeks, and he had picked up rumors in the taverns from drunken young midshipmen and lieutenants that something was afoot at sea. Reports of a battle lost in the Caribbean and that the main French fleet could not now be found. One was so open with his blathering that a major fight was in the offering, right here outside of New York harbor, that he had learned the young man’s name and sent over a report to his captain the following morning. If a Rebel agent had been in the tavern and if the boasting was true, busting his rank to common sailor and time “before the mast” would be light discipline, indeed, for such open and foolish talk that the Rebels could expect their French allies to appear off the coast any day now.

  He doubted if his advice was taken. The ever-existing tension between the navy and army was as old as history, both looking down on the other, both claiming always that if there was victory they were responsible for it and if there was defeat it was the fault of the other. He had learned after five years that, hidebound though this army was with its tradition and rituals, the navy was far worse. Every captain was terrified of offending his admiral, and the admirals, often frozen like a rabbit, would be pointing to the printed manuals of instructions from the admiralty office in London, which tied their hands no matter where they were at sea. All were ever-mindful of the fate of Admiral Byng, a generation before, who had actually been executed because he had won a battle but failed to prosecute the victory effectively. There had been little daring in this navy ever since. All strictly followed rules and procedures, from common seaman to admirals, never with a creative thought or taking chances. It was the safe bet to be sure, but it was not the kind of thinking that won wars.