George Washington

by Stephen Brumwell

Washington’s fears of further unrest were well founded. The Pennsylvanians’ success encouraged several hundred of the New Jersey Continentals, based at Pompton, New Jersey, to mutiny on January 20. Although they had recently received $5 in cash in a gesture toward their arrears of pay, these veterans were also angry at the better terms being offered to recruits. The New Jersey troops, who had been urged to march on Congress by their leaders, were swiftly appeased by concessions, and the upheaval at Pompton subsided. Unlike the Pennsylvanians, they didn’t escape punishment. Braced for fresh unrest, Washington was determined that the “dangerous spirit” running through the ranks must now be “suppressed by force.” Unless it was, he warned the president of Congress, “there is an end to all subordination in the Army and indeed to the Army itself.”5

  To hammer home his message, Washington sent a 500-strong detachment under Major General Robert Howe to chastise the New Jersey units. By dawn of January 27, after a punishing march through the snow, they were in view of the soldiers’ huts. Howe harangued his own New Englanders to remind them of their duty, then closed in on the unsuspecting erstwhile mutineers. Surrounded and faced with loaded cannon, they quietly submitted. According to Dr. James Thacher, who accompanied Howe’s command, three ringleaders were tried on the spot, “standing on the snow,” and sentenced to be shot immediately. A dozen of their comrades were forced to form the firing squad, shedding tears as they primed their muskets and rammed down cartridges. But they obeyed orders. After two men had been shot to death, the third was pardoned. Thacher believed that the “tragical scene produced a dreadful shock, and a salutary effect on the minds of the guilty soldiers.” He regretted the severity of the punishment inflicted upon men with “more than a shadow of [a] plea to extenuate their crime,” who had “suffered many serious grievances . . . with commendable patience” before finally losing “confidence in public justice.” Echoing Washington’s own mantra, Thacher added: “But the very existence of an army depends on proper punishment and subordination.”6

  The latest storm had dissipated, but another was already brewing. In the last days of 1780, the renegade Benedict Arnold, now a brigadier general in the British Army, had arrived off the coast of Virginia with 1,200 men. He had been sent south by Clinton to establish a British naval base in the Old Dominion and mount raids that would divert attention from Lord Cornwallis in North Carolina. Arnold relished his new assignment. Virtually unopposed, his troops sailed up the James River and on January 5 marched into Richmond, now the state capital. The next day, Arnold’s raiders made a pungent bonfire of public buildings and tobacco warehouses. Despite the best efforts of Baron Steuben, who was in Virginia to help rebuild the shattered army of the Southern Department, the militia failed dismally to check the destruction. Reembarking aboard their transports, the British sailed back down the James and began fortifying Portsmouth, near Norfolk.

  So far Arnold had rampaged with impunity. The first challenge to his position came in mid-February, when a small French flotilla—one sixty-four-gun ship and a pair of frigates commanded by Captain Arnaud le Gardeur de Tilly—slipped through the British blockade of Newport to reach the Chesapeake. This move was totally unexpected, and Tilly exploited the surprise to capture several British craft, including the forty-four-gun Romulus. His presence suggested that a joint Franco-American attack on Portsmouth was looming, and Arnold was sufficiently concerned to concentrate his forces within its new defenses. But when one of Tilly’s frigates grounded while attempting to get upriver, the Frenchman opted to withdraw before the precarious balance of naval superiority tilted against him. By February 24, he was back at Newport.7

  While disappointing in its results, the miniature expedition demonstrated the potential for another, heavier blow at the same target. This held strong appeal for Washington. Before Tilly’s command had sailed, he’d suggested that the entire French squadron at Rhode Island should go south, along with 1,000 of Rochambeau’s soldiers. Washington would contribute a supporting force of American troops under Lafayette, who would make for the Chesapeake overland. By the time Washington sent out his orders to Lafayette, Tilly’s ships were already at sea. After their return, however, no time was lost in forging ahead with plans for a far more ambitious expedition along the lines Washington had envisaged, to be led by the new squadron commander, the Chevalier Destouches.

  For his mission, Lafayette was given command of a 1,200-strong detachment of Continental Light Infantry. Working in conjunction with the hard-pressed Steuben, the Virginian militia, and the anticipated French ships, the marquis was to curb Arnold’s depredations and ensure that he did not evade the just desserts for “his treason and desertion.” Indeed, should the traitor fall into Lafayette’s hands, Washington directed, he must receive his punishment “in the most summary way.” Even the fearless Arnold was momentarily unnerved by the prospect of the noose that Washington clearly longed to tie around his neck: Captain Ewald, who served alongside him in Virginia, noticed that when the appearance of Tilly’s ships caused anxiety for the security of Portsmouth, Arnold’s “former resolution” was “mixed with cautious concern due to his fear of the gallows if he fell into the hands of his countrymen.” To escape such a fate, Ewald noticed, Arnold “always carried a pair of small pistols in his pocket as a last resort.”8

  Meanwhile, Washington held high hopes for Destouches’s expedition and, to speed it on its way, traveled to Newport himself. This visit gave the French officer corps a first sight of their illustrious ally. Thanks to his well-publicized exploits, Washington already enjoyed a tremendous reputation in Europe, especially among Britain’s inveterate enemies. Far from being disappointed by the reality, his allies found him even more impressive in the flesh. As one young officer, Napoleon Bonaparte’s future chief of staff Louis-Alexandre Berthier, observed: “The nobility of his bearing and his countenance, which bore the stamp of all his virtues, inspired everyone with the devotion and respect due his character, increasing, if possible, the high opinion we already held of his exceptional merit.”9

  Berthier was not alone. Rochambeau’s Bavarian aide-de-camp, Baron Ludwig von Closen, was no less impressed when he met Washington at Newport that March and never altered his opinion of him:

  Throughout my career under General Washington, I had ample opportunity to note his gentle and affable nature; his very simple manners, his very easy accessibility; his even temper; his great presence of mind, in sum, it is evident that he is a great man and a brave one. He can never be praised sufficiently. In military matters, he does not have the brilliance of the French in expression, but he is penetrating in his calculations and a true soldier in his bearing. This is the opinion of the entire army, which no one can applaud more sincerely than I.10

  Washington’s combination of gentleman and warrior had once again served him well, swiftly forging bonds with the aristocratic Old World professionals. His prolonged exposure to the assured gentility of the English-born members of the Fairfax dynasty at Belvoir during his formative years had bequeathed a lasting and vitally important legacy: as another of Rochambeau’s aristocratic aides, Baron Cromot du Bourg, observed that summer, Washington’s “manners are those of one perfectly accustomed to society, quite a rare thing certainly in America.”11 Whatever else worried the French about their allies—their folksy lack of sophistication, their threadbare and undermanned regiments, and their chaotic finances, for example—Washington’s character and conduct did much to redress the balance, leaving an overwhelmingly positive impression; here was a man they could relate to and work with. Indeed, Washington’s reception at Newport resembled a triumph: French soldiers in full parade dress lined the streets, while warships in the harbor fired thirteen-gun salutes in his honor, just as they would have done for a full marshal of France: the “assassin of Jumonville” had come a long way since 1754.12

  Destouches’s squadron sailed from Newport on March 8, 1781. It carried fourteen field pieces and more than 1,100 men, many of them grenadiers and “chasseurs,” as t
he French called their light infantry. Yet it never reached its destination. In another demonstration of the vagaries of sea power, Destouches arrived off Virginia’s Cape Henry on March 16 to find the entrance to Chesapeake Bay blocked by Arbuthnot’s roving squadron. The fleets were evenly matched, and although the British admiral enjoyed the advantage of a following wind—the prized “weather gage”—the ensuing encounter was indecisive. Unable to penetrate the Bay, Destouches called a council of war, then took its advice to return to Newport.13 Clinton meanwhile reinforced Arnold with another 2,000 men under a new commander, Major General William Phillips, a highly experienced officer who had distinguished himself by his skillful handling of the British artillery in Germany during the Seven Years’ War; it was his guns that had killed Lafayette’s father at Minden in 1759.

  Despite Destouches’s failure—the latest in a lengthening list of disappointments—that spring, Washington apparently sensed that the seemingly stalemated war was entering a new and potentially decisive phase. On May 1, he recommenced his diary, or more precisely “a concise journal of military transactions etc”: apart from a terse record of the brutal weather at Morristown in early 1780, he had written nothing since his last entry on June 19, 1775, just days after his appointment as commander in chief.14

  Events in the Carolinas, hitherto the source of little save gloom for Washington, now gave him some badly needed encouragement. Finally freed from his punishing, thankless, and distinctly inglorious stint as the Continental Army’s quartermaster general in October 1780, Nathanael Greene had succeeded the tarnished Horatio Gates as commander of the Southern Department. Greene quickly made his mark. Boldly splitting his army at Charlotte in December, he sent about 700 Continentals and militia under Daniel Morgan westward to gather provisions and test British strength in the South Carolina backcountry. Cornwallis ordered his vigorous light cavalry leader Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton in hot pursuit with a sizable detachment, including his own crack formation of Loyalists, the British Legion. “Bloody Ban” caught up with the reinforced Morgan at Hannah’s Cowpens on January 17, 1781. There, the wily “Old Waggoner” drubbed the impetuous dragoon in a devastating encounter that demonstrated the potential of well-handled militia when working in conjunction with dependable Continentals. Faced by oncoming British bayonets, the militia fell back as usual, but only after inflicting significant casualties with their muskets and rifles. Breathless and disordered from their pursuit of the retreating militiamen, Tarleton’s infantry were then caught off guard when Morgan’s well-drilled Continentals, who had staged a disciplined withdrawal, launched a decisive counterattack: of Tarleton’s 1,100 men—mostly British regulars—more than 800 were killed or captured, a grievous loss to Cornwallis’s command.15

  Goaded by news of Cowpens, Cornwallis gave chase to Greene, pursuing him north all the way to the Dan River. Greene won the frantic “race to the Dan” and crossed into Virginia, while Cornwallis pulled back to Hillsborough in hopes of rallying the North Carolina Loyalists. They failed to materialize in worthwhile numbers. When Greene recrossed the Dan, Cornwallis advanced to meet him. Carefully shunning battle until he had been reinforced, Greene finally stood his ground on March 15, 1781, near Guilford Court House. Although his 4,400 men outnumbered Cornwallis’s troops by more than two to one, the wary Greene adopted a defensive position, intended, like Morgan’s at Cowpens, to extract the maximum value from his shaky militia: they formed his first two lines, with Continentals in the third. Although the militia crumpled under the British assault, before taking to their heels they inflicted enough damage to ensure that the redcoat line was thinner than ever when it reached the veteran Continentals. Even then, by dint of sheer hard fighting, Greene was forced to retreat after a savage seesawing engagement. Cornwallis held the field, but it was another costly victory, with the British suffering twice as many casualties as their enemies. Washington noted the outcome with approval, informing Greene that he was “truly sensible of the merit and fortitude of the veteran bands” under his command and that war was a chancy business, with the “most flattering” prospects deceptive, especially when militia were involved.16

  Despite Washington’s own abiding distrust of militia, both Morgan and Greene had demonstrated that the contribution of such part-timers was not confined to the kind of harassing, irregular warfare that had flared in New Jersey in 1777 or to the intimidation of Loyalist civilians. Indeed, by 1781, many American militiamen had already completed a tour of duty in either the Continental Army or the regular regiments raised by the individual states for their own defense and were more seasoned than their amateur status suggests. In addition, at a time when every redcoat or Hessian casualty was increasingly difficult to replace, the Americans’ ability to boost their own itinerant Continental forces with short-term transfusions of local manpower was starting to tell. Also, while the Continental Army was always far below its theoretical strength, often at barely a half or even a third of the figures voted by Congress, the militia drew many more Americans into the revolutionaries’ armed struggle, albeit for shorter periods and at less risk of death or disability; indeed, the relative attractiveness of militia service strongly discouraged enlistment in the Continentals.17 Some indication of the extraordinary level of involvement is provided by the response to 1832 legislation that belatedly offered pensions for all Revolutionary War veterans who could prove at least six months’ service in any formation—Continental, state regular, or militia: half a century after the end of the conflict, some 65,000 eligible claimants were still alive; taking into account wartime fatalities of perhaps 25,000 and those who had died since 1783, it has been estimated that between 175,000 and 200,000 Americans saw some kind of military service in the revolutionary cause. Based upon the total population of whites and blacks—and allowing both for Loyalists and a widespread reluctance to permit mass enlistment of slaves—almost one in two of all males of “fighting age” served. This was a truly revolutionary scale of mobilization—but one that makes the efforts of Washington’s hard core of long-service Continentals even more remarkable.18

  While Cornwallis recuperated from his blooding at Guilford Court House, Greene seized the initiative, marching against vulnerable British outposts in South Carolina. Greene, like Washington, was naturally aggressive; although forced by circumstances to adopt an essentially defensive strategy, he hankered for the crowning glory of battle that he’d read about as a youth. But the decisive victory that Greene craved continued to elude him: on April 25, 1781, as he advanced against the British base at Camden, the young Francis Lord Rawdon marched out to confront him at Hobkirk’s Hill. Rather than await the attack, Greene boldly attempted to envelop Rawdon’s flanks, sending in his veteran Virginian and Maryland Continentals with fixed bayonets. By lengthening his own line, Rawdon baffled Greene’s plan and after another fierce fight obliged him to retreat. Cornwallis rated Rawdon’s victory as “by far the most splendid of this war” although he knew from hard experience that in the Carolinas such tactical successes, however glorious, meant all too little in broader strategic terms.19

  Within weeks there were the first hints of a development that would decide the conflict in a far more dramatic fashion than Cornwallis, or Washington, could have imagined. On May 8, the French frigate Concorde, which had left Brest on March 26, arrived in Boston. It brought General Rochambeau’s son, the Vicomte de Rochambeau, with dispatches for his father from the French minister of war, Philippe-Henri-Marie, Comte de Ségur, and a new commander for the naval squadron at Rhode Island, the Comte de Barras; crucially, they bore news that another fleet, under Rear Admiral François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse and consisting of no fewer than twenty-six ships of the line, eight frigates, and numerous transport vessels, had left France for the West Indies. Ségur had added the tantalizing intelligence that this powerful armament would be available for operations on the North American coast in “July or August.”20

  The implications for the balance of naval power on the eastern seab
oard were momentous: here at long last was a chance to achieve the overwhelming maritime superiority upon which a decisive land campaign could be based. Rochambeau and his new naval colleague both wanted to discuss the strategic situation with Washington without delay, and a meeting was fixed at Wethersfield, Connecticut. Ominously, Admiral Barras was unable to attend the conference on May 22; in yet another indication of the existing limitations upon sea power, he had been obliged to remain at Newport by the sudden appearance off Rhode Island of a British fleet under Arbuthnot. Rochambeau was instead accompanied by Major General François Jean le Beauvoir, Chevalier de Chastellux, a distinguished officer and enlightened philosophe who had already struck up what would become an enduring friendship with Washington. Like his colleagues in the French high command, Chastellux was a nobleman: he, too, was deeply impressed by Washington’s character and wrote a famous sketch that appeared in his popular Travels in North America. To Chastellux, Washington was “the greatest and the best of men” in whom there was a “perfect harmony . . . between the physical and moral qualities.” Such balance extended to Washington’s physiognomy, which was “mild and agreeable” with “neither a grave nor a familiar air.” But there was a striking exception to this calm, carefully moderated character: on horseback Washington was a different man. He was a bold and skillful equestrian, breaking in his own mounts, galloping even when there was no need for haste, and jumping the highest fences with reckless abandon.21 All those long days chasing foxes across Virginia’s Northern Neck like some Rutlandshire squire had not been wasted; the Neck’s proprietor and young Washington’s patron, that fanatical huntsman Lord Fairfax, would most certainly have approved.

  Washington’s rapport with Chastellux, which was lubricated by a shared appreciation for fine wine, now yielded useful dividends: for security reasons, war minister Ségur was adamant that Washington should know nothing more than that de Grasse was bound for the West Indies; in the days before the conference, however, Chastellux not only let his hard-riding American friend in on the details but took the liberty of enclosing a memorandum: this urged Washington to set Rochambeau marching for New York; then, once de Grasse had rendezvoused with Barras, the fleet and allied troops should move together against Virginia.22