The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (123 page)

the summer, he did not give up his plans for an attack on New York City. He did not know the size of Grasse's force, nor did he know where Grasse intended to use it.
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Early in July the Franco-American operations around New York began but enjoyed no great success. There was little fighting around the city in these days largely because the allies had trouble getting into positions from which to attack. While they maneuvered, the commanders speculated about Grasse's intentions. Would he come to New York or Virginia, and would he give them naval superiority? On August 14, Washington received a letter from Barras with the answers -- Grasse had left the West Indies for the Chesapeake with twenty-nine ships and over three thousand troops.

Although Grasse's naval strength was formidable it did not guarantee to the French supremacy in American waters. But it might lead to full control, and Washington decided almost immediately to act as if it would. He therefore informed Rochambeau that the two armies must move to the Chesapeake as rapidly as possible. Five days later, on August 19, he had the Continentals in motion with the French coming along soon afterwards. To conceal these movements from Clinton was impossible, but Washington could throw sand into his eyes -- and proceeded to by faking preparations for an attack on New York from New Jersey. He had the roads and bridges in New Jersey near the city repaired and a large oven for baking bread constructed. Then near the end of August he started three columns marching toward the city as if positioning themselves for an attack. Clinton watched apprehensively and did not guess the destination of the allied force until September 2, when the American army passed through Philadelphia. The French, following a route recommended by Washington, marched through in the next two days.
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By the middle of September the two armies had transported themselves some 450 miles along with baggage and supplies. The move showed Washington's organizational talents at their best. He and a few officers planned it, selecting the routes and collecting the horses and wagons so vital in the transport of stores. Washington seems to have saturated himself in the details as well as the larger outlines of the move. Horses and oxen must be collected at strategic points, magazines with flour, beef, and rum must be set up.
Wagons for tents must carry tents; if

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officers, as was their wont, piled their baggage on them, throw it off. Repair roads and bridges well in advance and find boats and small ships to transport the troops down the Chesapeake. The mastery of detail so familiar to those who knew Washington appeared in all these concerns -- and in the orders that swarmed out of his pen. After sixteen paragraphs of detailed instructions to Benjamin Lincoln who was in charge of sailing down the Chesapeake, Washington added this postscript: "The Tow ropes or Painters of the Boats ought to be strong and of sufficient! length otherwise we shall be much plagued with them in the Bay and more than probably lose many of them."
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While engaged with logistics, Washington pondered strategy and tactfully urged Grasse to use his force as vigorously as possible. Grasse's ships reached the Virginia Capes on August 26 and by the 31st were at anchor inside the Bay. At just about that time, Thomas Graves, who had succeeded Arbuthnot, sailed from New York with nineteen ships of the line. His destination was the Chesapeake, where he hoped he would find the French fleet. On September 5 he found it and fought a battle that was a standoff. While the two fleets maneuvered in the open seas, Barras who had left Newport a week earlier, slipped into the Bay behind them. The standoff left Cornwallis securely in the net, a fact Graves virtually admitted by returning to New York on September 13.
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Grasse suffered from shaky nerves for much of the next month. Washington carefully tutored him in the opportunities now available to their side, but Grasse feared entrapment in the Bay. Washington convinced him to prolong his stay until the end of October and then persuaded him that by taking up a station in the open seas he would unnecessarily expose the Franco-American army. Grasse gave way on both matters but steadfastly refused to send ships up the York to cut Cornwallis off after the combined army had moved into position against him.
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That move began at 4:00 A.M. on September 28, when French and American forces marched from Williamsburg. Together the two forces numbered around 16,000 troops, including 3000 Virginia militia. They swung out in a long column, most on foot because horses were in short supply and needed elsewhere to help drag up heavy guns and ammunition. Light artillery was spaced up and down the column rather than concen-

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trated in the rear, as was the usual practice, for fear of resistance from the British. As the sun rose in the sky it proved more dangerous than the enemy, who remained in his works at Yorktown. The sun burned down and caused more than a few men to fall out. By late afternoon most of the allied army was in camp within two or three miles of the enemy's lines.

The town itself sat on a low plateau overlooking the York River. Ravines cut through the plateau and the town, running down to the water's edge. There were marshes just to the northwest of the town and others to the south and southwest. Wormley Creek and a pond lay to the southeast. A second creek ran through the western marsh and emptied into the York. Farther to the south and west lay Pigeon's Hill, or the Pigeon Quarter, a slight rise covered by tall pine trees. The road from Williamsburg entered the town from the northwest and the Hampton Road from the south.
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Cornwallis had set up two lines of defense. The outer consisted of little more than three redoubts in the Pigeon Quarter, the farthest about 1200 yards from Yorktown, and the Star, or Fusiliers', Redoubt about the same distance to the northwest along the edge of the river. An inner line wandering 300 or 400 yards at the most from Yorktown had been begun, but its trenches, redoubts, and batteries were not yet complete.
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The allies awoke on the morning of September 30 to discover that Cornwallis had abandoned the redoubts in the Pigeon Quarter. The British continued to hold the Star Redoubt but their defenses for the most part now rested along the inner line. Over the next few days they sank several large boats close in along the shore, a measure taken to discourage an assault by water against their rear. They also gradually slaughtered their horses since they lacked forage for them. Aside from these actions, some small-scale patrolling, and the improvement of trenches and redoubts, they remained largely inactive for the next two weeks. As late as October 12, Washington called Cornwallis's conduct "passive beyond conception."
A belief that Clinton would extricate him

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may explain this passivity during the first two weeks of the siege; in the last week, as this belief collapsed, passivity yielded to paralysis and despair.
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The mood on the other side approached enthusiasm. The French, of course, looked forward to settling old stores with their ancient enemy and had many left over from the recent war to take up. But it was the Americans who most relished the opportunities of the siege. They had endured much and absorbed so many blows in the previous six years, and now they might return one which would probably end the war and secure their independence.

This possibility led to an occasional insanity. A militiaman stood on a parapet of one of the first works constructed by the Americans "and d -- d his soul if he would dodge for the buggers," the "buggers" being the British firing cannon in his direction. Captain James Duncan who watched this madness without trying to stop it later reported that the man "had escaped longer than could have been expected, and, growing fool-hardy, brandished his spade at every ball that was fired, till, unfortunately, a ball came and put an end to his capers." A few days later Captain Duncan and a detachment of light infantry just escaped service as the target. They had been sent forward in the trenches to relieve another unit. In the best tradition of the military's disdain of fear, relief was accomplished with drums beating and colors flying. If the enemy heard the drums or, more likely, noticed the colors and decided to fire at the men who were obviously under them, so be it. An eighteenthcentury gentleman should always place his honor above his life.
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Or so the convention had it. Captain Duncan had his doubts, which grew into revulsion at the order next given by his commander, Colonel Alexander Hamilton. As Duncan told it, they arrived at the forward trench and planted their colors. "Our next maneuver was rather extraordinary. We were ordered to mount the bank, front the enemy, and there by word of command go through all the ceremony of soldiery, ordering and grounding our arms; and although the enemy had been firing a little before, they did not now give us a single shot." The British may have been filled with astonishment at this display, as Duncan later remarked. More likely, the British officers who watched admired the performance, perhaps some wished that they had ordered it themselves.
Their

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