George Washington

by Stephen Brumwell

  With hindsight this was prophetic advice; but at Wethersfield Washington was fixated upon his old objective, New York. Indeed, the recent reduction of Clinton’s garrison through the “several detachments” sent to the south now made it a more attractive target than ever. In consequence, it was agreed that the French and American armies should join forces on the Hudson River as soon as possible before moving down toward New York, ready to exploit any chink in Clinton’s Manhattan defenses. If the West Indian fleet arrived off the coast, the combined force could either besiege New York or act “against the enemy in some other quarter, as circumstances shall dictate.” Washington’s diary reveals that such alternative zones of operation included “the southward,” which suggests that Chastellux’s recent hint had at least struck a chord. Yet Washington left Rochambeau in no doubt of his own priorities, piling up the reasons against a southern campaign: the likely wastage of men from long and punishing marches, the lateness of the season for such a far-flung venture, and the difficulties and expense of land transportation all underlined “the preference which an operation against New York seems to have, in present circumstances.” Writing to Major General Sullivan, Washington noted another point in favor of attacking New York: as the garrison was weak, there were fine prospects for success unless Clinton recalled substantial forces from the south. In that case, he added, “the same measure which might produce disappointment in one quarter would certainly, in the event, afford the greatest relief in another.”23

  Rochambeau dutifully prepared to shift his troops from Rhode Island to the Hudson. Shortly before they were due to depart, the French general received a dispatch from de Grasse, confirming that he expected to arrive off the North American coast in mid-July and requesting directions on what course to steer. Now determined to keep Washington fully briefed, on June 10, Rochambeau sent him a copy of the admiral’s letter, along with another of his own revealing that he had urged de Grasse to head first for the Chesapeake instead of New York. At first sight, this seemed to overturn the consensus reached at Wethersfield. However, Rochambeau didn’t yet envisage a full-fledged campaign in Virginia; his letter to de Grasse proposed another raid on the British base at Portsmouth, after which the admiral could exploit the prevailing winds to reach New York in just two days. In a postscript to de Grasse, Rochambeau added that, if Washington still wanted the fleet to make directly for New York, then he would fall in line with his wishes. Even though he had recently pressed for the French squadron at Newport to make another effort in the Chesapeake, Washington was taken aback by Rochambeau’s letter. He swiftly replied, reminding him of what they had agreed—“that New York was looked upon by us as the only practicable object under present circumstances.” But he now added a significant qualifier: if naval superiority was secured, other objectives might become “more practicable and equally advisable.” Washington knew that the final decision on the fleet’s destination must rest with de Grasse. He did not know that France’s ambassador to America, Anne-César, Chevalier de la Luzerne, had also written to the admiral, drawing his attention to the worsening position of the patriots in Virginia; in conjunction with Rochambeau’s advice, this influenced de Grasse’s ultimate decision to choose the Chesapeake, not the Hudson.24

  By early July, Rochambeau’s command had marched south from Rhode Island and rendezvoused with Washington’s army near his old 1776 battleground at White Plains. To one French officer, Jean-François-Louis, Comte de Clermont-Crèvecoeur, the American troops looked much the same in 1781 as they had to their British opponents five years earlier—poorly clad and with youngsters and men of African descent both conspicuous in the ranks. “In beholding this army,” he wrote, “I was struck, not by its smart appearance, but by its destitution: the men were without uniforms and covered with rags; most of them were barefoot. They were of all sizes, down to children who could not have been over fourteen. There were many negroes, mulattoes, etc.” Aside from the officers, only the artillerymen—“very good troops, well schooled in their profession”—wore uniforms. Rochambeau’s aide, Baron von Closen, corroborated this snapshot of Washington’s tough, tattered and multiracial army: “It was really painful to see these brave men, almost naked, with only some trousers and little linen jackets, most of them without stockings,” he wrote. But for all that they appeared “very cheerful and healthy.” Closen added: “A quarter of them were negroes, merry, confident, and sturdy.” By this stage in the war, besides being scattered throughout Washington’s army, black soldiers were also clustered within individual units: “Three-quarters of the Rhode Island regiment consists of negroes,” Closen noted, “and that regiment is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers.”25

  Making due allowance for exaggeration, the black presence among the rank and file of the Continental Army was clearly significant enough to attract comment from outsiders: the only surviving returns to specify the number of black soldiers, for February 1778, indicate that they already comprised 10 percent of the rank and file, a proportion that is highly unlikely to have declined after a further three years of war. Washington, the slave-owing southern planter, was obliged to overcome the ingrained cultural prejudices that had barred the enlistment of African Americans into the old Virginia Regiment during the 1750s and had attempted to limit their contribution to the army besieging Boston in 1775–76. From Long Island onward, he needed every fighting man he could find—whatever the color of his skin.26

  That summer, Washington’s customary lack of manpower steadily undermined his long-held hopes of ejecting the British from Manhattan. By July 20, when Admiral Barras requested a “definitive plan of campaign” that could be forwarded to de Grasse, a despondent Washington was obliged to acknowledge that the ambitious New York plan was becoming increasingly unrealistic: his own army was woefully weak for such a daunting task, with few recruits forthcoming for either the Continentals or the militia; in addition, the states were ignoring his repeated pleas for help. Under these discouraging circumstances, the most he could now do was “to prepare, first, for the enterprise against New York as agreed to at Wethersfield and secondly for the relief of the Southern States”—if, despite his best endeavors, the arrival of de Grasse found him with “neither men, nor means adequate to the first object.” Prospects for the projected New York operation were now so bleak that Washington had requested Henry Knox to suspend the transportation of heavy artillery and stores from Philadelphia in case they had to be conveyed back again.27

  For all that, on July 21, a 5,000-strong allied force was sent marching in four columns to test Clinton’s defenses. By 5 a.m. on July 22, they were arrayed in line of battle on the heights above King’s Bridge. A few British dragoons rode out from the Manhattan lines to investigate, and the forts’ cannon commenced a bombardment, but the defenders wisely stayed behind their formidable earthworks. For much of that day and the next, Washington and Rochambeau conducted an extremely thorough reconnaissance of New York’s defenses. To the consternation of the French general, on Throg’s Neck, where the engineers lingered to calculate the precise distance to Long Island, they were cut off by the incoming tide and obliged to swim their horses to dry land.28

  As such dedication shows, in late July, Manhattan still remained a potential allied objective. If the states had raised their requested troop quotas, by August 1, all would have been “in perfect readiness” to start the campaign against New York, Washington noted in his diary. Regrettably, “not more than half the number asked of them have joined the army.” With “little more than general assurances of getting the succors called for,” Washington could “scarce see a ground” for continuing his preparations against New York, especially as there was good reason to believe that Clinton would be reinforced from Virginia. Therefore, he added, “I turned my views more seriously (than I had before done) to an operation to the southward.”29

  Events in the southern theater now exerted an irresistible pull of their own. While Nathanael Greene was preoc
cupied with tackling British outposts in South Carolina, his archrival Cornwallis made a move that would ultimately present Washington with the opportunity he had awaited for so long. In late May, and in defiance of Clinton’s orders, the earl had pushed north into Virginia. His junction with the British forces already operating there under Phillips and Arnold and the arrival of further reinforcements from New York gave him a powerful army of more than 7,000 men: it was this very threat that had prompted ambassador Luzerne to urge de Grasse to sail directly for Virginia.

  The earl’s first objective was the elimination of Lafayette’s command, which had been operating in Virginia since April. Badly outnumbered even before the arrival of Cornwallis, the marquis was obliged to give ground before his forces, which included strong formations of cavalry spurred on by the aggressive Tarleton and the equally vigorous if more cerebral Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe, who headed another Loyalist “legion” comprising both mounted dragoons and infantry, the Queen’s Rangers. By June, Washington had reinforced Lafayette with 1,000 more veteran Continentals. These Pennsylvanians were marched south by “Mad Anthony” Wayne, although only after continuing defiance in the ranks obliged him to execute eleven of them; as a further safeguard against insurrection, the rest proceeded with their ammunition and bayonets kept under guard.30 Despite fears for their reliability, the Pennsylvanians were desperately needed by Lafayette, and he was overjoyed when they joined him in early June. Including local militia and newly raised Virginian state “levies,” he now had about 5,000 men with which to counter Cornwallis.

  After obliging Lafayette to abandon Richmond, Cornwallis headed for Williamsburg, where he hoped to receive orders clarifying Sir Henry Clinton’s intentions for Virginia. On 26 June, near a tavern known as Spencer’s Ordinary, Cornwallis’s rear guard—a crack force consisting of Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers and Captain Ewald’s company of Hessian jägers—clashed with a larger detachment from Lafayette’s army. It was a hard-fought but indecisive skirmish, with both sides claiming victory. That same day letters arrived from Clinton: dated June 11 and June 15, they caused what Ewald characterized as a “swift change from the offensive to the defensive.” This turnabout was dictated by the threat posed to New York by the united armies of Washington and Rochambeau. Now discounting Lafayette’s burgeoning force as insignificant, Clinton instructed Cornwallis to “take a defensive station in any healthy situation” such as Williamsburg or Yorktown, then, after retaining such troops as he needed to hold that strongpoint, detach the rest to reinforce the endangered New York garrison.31 Cornwallis, who was keen to wage an active campaign in Virginia, reluctantly acquiesced. After reconnoitering possible defensive posts, he returned to Williamsburg with the intention of crossing the James River and then moving on to Portsmouth, where transports would be waiting to embark the men Clinton wanted.

  To Lafayette, this planned withdrawal looked more like a retreat—and a fine opportunity to strike a glorious stroke. After celebrating the 4th of July with a review of his army, he set out after Cornwallis, hoping to disrupt his march and fall upon his rear guard. Some 500 Pennsylvanian Continentals under Wayne were pushed ahead. If the bulk of Cornwallis’s army was already across the wide James River, as seemed likely, then those units that remained behind would be easy pickings. On the morning of July 6, Wayne was fed false intelligence suggesting precisely that scenario: but when he hurried onward from Green Spring, following a causeway across a swamp, he discovered that Cornwallis had set a trap and was lying in ambush with virtually his entire army. Faced with field pieces spraying canister and by advancing bayonets, Wayne lived up to his fire-eating reputation: deploying his Continentals in line and placing three guns of his own, he gamely counterattacked. Heavily outnumbered, Wayne’s men were soon floundering back through the marshes in confusion. Lafayette was unable to rally them. Only darkness and the softness of the ground stopped Cornwallis from sending in his dragoons to complete the rout with their slashing sabers.32

  Unmolested by the chastened Lafayette, Cornwallis completed his crossing of the James and continued on his way to Portsmouth. Two days after the engagement at Green Spring, he received another dispatch from Clinton. Dated June 28, it called for the troops earmarked for New York to be instead diverted to join a raid on Philadelphia, where Clinton hoped “by a rapid move to seize the stores” assembled there; only after that enterprise would they reinforce New York. The exasperated Cornwallis was about to embark the troops for Pennsylvania as ordered when yet more instructions arrived from Clinton. Written at New York on July 11, these now told the earl to halt the embarkation until further orders: indeed, as both Clinton and Admiral Graves, who had succeeded Arbuthnot in command of the North American squadron, were “clearly of opinion that it is absolutely necessary we should hold a station in Chesapeake for ships of the line as well as frigates,” steps must be taken to fortify Old Point Comfort, which secured the best anchorage, at Hampton Roads. If Cornwallis felt that Old Point Comfort could not be held without possessing Yorktown, and that the whole scheme couldn’t be undertaken with fewer than 7,000 men, the earl was at liberty “to detain all the troops now in Chesapeake” for that purpose.33

  Nothing was now said of the threat to New York: Captain Ewald concluded that the enemy’s advance toward the city “had been nothing more than a demonstration” intended to prompt a recall of troops from their real objective, Virginia.34 Reeling under the barrage of Clinton’s contradictory orders, after investigating the alternatives Cornwallis resolved to shift his entire army to Yorktown. In early August, his troops began work on extensive fortifications around the little town, with more earthworks protecting Gloucester, across the York River. From a prowling, aggressive command, Cornwallis’s veteran army had become a static and vulnerable target.

  By the time Cornwallis was digging in at Yorktown, Washington’s other old enemies, the feebleness of Congress, and the apathy of the states had already dashed any realistic hope of besieging New York. That cherished plan was finally abandoned on August 14, when Washington received dispatches from Barras. These announced the intended departure of Admiral de Grasse from Cape François, Saint-Domingue (Haiti), on August 3. In command of “between 25 and 29 sail of the line and 3200 land troops” he was making for Chesapeake Bay. As de Grasse must return to the West Indies by mid-October and was anxious “to have every thing in the most perfect readiness to commence our operations in the moment of his arrival,” there was no time to lose. Presented with this narrow but enticing window of opportunity, Washington didn’t hesitate to jettison his original strategy and “give up all idea of attacking New York.” Instead, the French troops and a detachment of the Americans would march to Head of Elk in Maryland, “to be transported to Virginia for the purpose of cooperating with the force from the West Indies against the troops in that state.”35

  Two days latter, on August 16, Washington received a letter from Lafayette informing him that Cornwallis was “throwing up works” at Yorktown and Gloucester.36 But for the moment, at least, the full significance of this intelligence didn’t register. In a joint letter to de Grasse next day, announcing their decision to “give up for the present the enterprise against New York and to turn our attention toward the South,” Washington and Rochambeau outlined far broader strategic objectives than cornering Cornwallis: instead, emphasis was placed upon the recovery of Charleston, the bastion of British power in the south; if that city could not be attacked, then they should aim to “recover and secure the states of Virginia, North Carolina and the [back]country of South Carolina and Georgia.”37 So, while the rendezvous with de Grasse was fixed at Chesapeake Bay, the geographical scope for the campaign was initially more ambitious and flexible.

  On August 19, the united allied force began moving south. A few days later, Admiral de Barras sailed from Newport with the army’s heavy siege guns to meet de Grasse’s fleet. Still anxious for the security of New York, like Washington in the early summer of 1777, Clinton struggled to fathom his enemies�
�� intentions. Washington and Rochambeau kept him guessing for as long as they possibly could; at first their troops followed a route suggesting that they were bound for Staten Island or Sandy Hook—both potential jumping-off points for an assault on New York. For crucial days, Clinton was baffled and distracted. It was only after Vice Admiral Sir Samuel Hood arrived from the Caribbean bringing thirteen more ships of the line and confirmation of de Grasse’s departure that Clinton and Admiral Graves realized where the real danger lay and resolved to help Cornwallis. Even then, the true scale of the threat was badly underestimated.

  As Washington and his allies headed down through New Jersey on the scent of future victory there was a chance to revisit past triumphs. On August 29, Rochambeau and his staff dined with Washington at Princeton, then accompanied him to Trenton on what amounted to a “staff ride” across battlefields that were already celebrated among the French officers. Plainly fascinated, Closen recalled that Washington explained “the dispositions, movements and other circumstances” of the “famous” twin engagements.38 Sadly for future historians, Closen failed to record Washington’s words. Another of Rochambeau’s aides, Baron Cromot du Bourg, who covered the same ground two days later, gave his own detailed account of the famous battles in his diary. He rightly characterized Washington’s night march to Princeton in the early hours of January 3, 1777 as “an extremely bold and well combined movement,” yet his report of the standoff at Trenton on the previous evening indicates that the distortions of legend were already creeping in: according to Bourg, Washington’s army had numbered less than 4,000, while Cornwallis had a mighty host of 10,000; in fact, as already seen, Washington had led about 6,500 men, his opponent 5,500.39