Victory at Yorktown (19 page)

Cornwallis didn't mention it, but what was happening in North Carolina beyond the actions of the two armies was real civil war, conducted in the main by Francis Marion, Andrew Pickens, and Thomas Sumter.

Among those who were caught up in this struggle was a young lad named Andrew Jackson. Not yet fourteen years of age, Jackson was in the home of a patriot fighter when some of Tarleton's men broke in and began smashing the furniture. As Jackson told the story, the British officer tried to make him clean his boots and Jackson refused, saying he was a prisoner of war and should be treated as such. The officer, infuriated, swung his saber at the boy, who broke the blow to his head with his left hand. However, the gashes on his head and hand formed scars the future president of the United States would carry to his grave, along with a hatred for the British, who not only kept him in jail at Camden for two months but, he said, “starved me nearly to death and gave me the small-pox.” His brother, who had also been captured, died, and when Jackson was released after his mother pleaded with his captors for leniency on account of his youth, he was “a skeleton—not quite six feet long and a little over six inches thick!”

Francis Marion, who had begun life as a baby “small enough to be put into a quart mug,” had been a frail child but grew up farming the family lands and joined a militia company in 1761. When organized resistance in the South was put down by the British, he put together his own partisan brigade and began guerrilla operations, which were so successful that the British sent several task forces to take him, but failed. After Marion—known as “The Swamp Fox”—and his brigade had fought regulars and Tories in at least nine operations between January and mid-July of 1781, Greene wrote him a letter of thanks.

no man has a better claim to the public thanks or is more generally admired than you are.… Surrounded on every side with a superior force, hunted from every quarter by veteran troops, you have found means to elude all their attempts, and to keep alive the expiring hopes of an oppressed militia, when all succour seemed to be cut off. To fight the enemy bravely with a prospect of victory is nothing; but to fight with intrepidity under the constant impression of a defeat, and inspire irregular troops to do it, is a talent peculiar to yourself.

For Nathanael Greene, who had succeeded in maneuvering the British from most of their positions in South Carolina and all of them in Georgia, General Washington had high praise: “I confess to you that I am unable to conceive what more could have been done, under your circumstances, than has been displayed by your little persevering and determined army.”

6

OUR DELIVERANCE MUST COME

Far to the north
of Virginia, Washington's army had been idle since November, unable to do more than survive. But if the fledgling United States were to outlast the British, that force would have to be strengthened or supported in such a way that it could win this war. In a January letter carried to the Comte de Vergennes by Colonel John Laurens, the new military envoy to France, the Marquis de Lafayette had written, “With a naval inferiority it is impossible to make war in America. It is that which prevents us from attacking any point that might be carried with two or three thousand men. It is that which reduces us to defensive operations, as dangerous as they are humiliating.” But so far the court at Versailles was doing nothing to satisfy that crying need.

George Washington wrote to Laurens on April 9, explaining the necessity for the French to act at once if the dream of independence was to be realized.

If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the critical posture of our affairs it will avail us nothing should she attempt it hereafter. We are at this hour suspended in the Balance; not from choice but from hard and absolute necessity; and you may rely upon it as a fact that we cannot transport the provisions from the States in which they are assessed to the army, because we cannot pay the teamsters who will no longer work for Certificates. It is equally certain that our troops are fast approaching Nakedness, and that we have nothing to clothe them with, that our hospitals are without medicines and our sick without nutriment except such as well men eat; and that our public works are at a Stand and the artificers disbanding.

But why need I run into detail, when it may be declared in a word, that we are at the end of our tether, and that now or never our deliverance must come.

Sir Henry Clinton, in New York, was reported to have more than ten thousand men, while Washington's force, in posts along the Hudson near West Point, had fewer than half that number. As the American commander confided to his journal, his army lacked storehouses filled with provisions and arsenals with military stores; it had neither the means nor the money to obtain transport; the General even had to suspend the regularly scheduled expresses between his headquarters and Rochambeau's for lack of funds to pay the riders. Scavenging for foodstuffs had oppressed the local people, “souring their tempers and alienating their affection”; worse, almost none of the states had produced as many as one-eighth of the number of soldiers expected of them, indicating that no prospect of “a glorious offensive campaign” was in the army's future, but rather “a bewildered and gloomy defensive one.” Not only were the people tired of the war; they were beginning to be apathetic about the eventual outcome, eager to have it over with on almost any terms so they could get back to some sort of normal life. The economy was in a shambles, the Congress was regarded as inept and incapable, and the future looked bleaker than ever.

Now another spring was here, and the Hudson, awesome in full flood, raced toward the ocean with millions of tons of meltwater from the Catskills and Adirondacks, bearing the message that it was time for the army, such as it was, to be on the move.

Six months earlier, the Comte de Rochambeau's son, Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, Vicomte Rochambeau, had sailed for France on the frigate
Amazone
, taking advantage of a northeast wind and thick fog to slip through the British blockade, and though pursued by an enemy ship, the frigate barely managed to escape in a gale. After landing at Brest, the young man had gone immediately to Versailles to present “suggestions” from his father and General Washington to Louis XVI's foreign minister, Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes. The suggestions were not welcome. This was, after all, the fourth campaign that would have to be supported by France, and where, the minister asked, would it end? It was impossible for the king to satisfy these insatiable demands for money, for “if he did so he would surely ruin France.” He pointed out that the king was under enormous financial pressures and had expected, at the very least, that the Americans would cover the expenses of their own military force.

At this point Benjamin Franklin stepped in, writing a masterful letter that appears to have mollified Vergennes and helped persuade him and the king to agree to send ships and financial support to America. Franklin had said he was growing old, enfeebled by illness, and did not have long to be concerned with these affairs, adding that the present junction was critical, that Congress might lose its influence over the people if it failed to attract the support needed to carry on the war. Shrewdly, the old man reminded Vergennes that if the English were to recover their former colonies, an opportunity like the present one might not recur, while possession of the vast territory and resources of America would afford the English a broad basis for future greatness, ever expanding commerce, and a supply of seamen and soldiers that would make them “the terror of Europe.”

The result of deliberations at the court of Versailles was that the Americans received their long-awaited reply on May 8, 1781, when the French frigate
Concorde
docked at Boston and Vicomte de Rochambeau, bearing orders from the court, debarked with Jacques-Melchoir Saint-Laurent, Comte de Barras, who was replacing the late Ternay as commander of the fleet, plus several officers who were to join the Comte de Rochambeau. The news brought by young Rochambeau was stunning. “We learned that M. [François Joseph Paul] de Grasse had left Brest March 22, with 26 ships of the line, 8 frigates, and 150 transports; that their destination was unknown; that it was believed that the ships, 4 frigates and most of the convoy would sail to the Islands [i.e., West Indies].” Of equal importance, the young man brought with him 6 million livres “to supply the needs and upkeep of the American army.”

Although de Grasse's ultimate destination was indeed a secret, the fact that an important French fleet was under way to American waters was cause for immense joy by French and American commanders alike. Immediately, Washington called for an operations planning conference with Rochambeau and the Chevalier de Chastellux in Wethersfield, Connecticut, which the French—always interested in the aesthetics of a place—declared charming, saying, “it would be impossible to find prettier houses and a more beautiful view.”

With winter only a bleak memory, Washington was still eager for an opportunity to attack New York, believing a coup there to be “the most capable of striking a deathblow to Britain's dominion in America.” Clinton had reduced his garrison by sending troops to the South, but if threatened he would certainly have to recall some of them, which in turn would reduce the pressure on Greene and Lafayette. Another factor favoring New York was Washington's certainty that he could neither locate nor afford the means of transporting the allied armies to Virginia. Everything, of course, depended on the arrival of a superior French fleet in American waters.

Rochambeau, seemingly agreeable and as friendly as ever, possessed certain knowledge he was unwilling to share with Washington. He knew, for instance, that the main French fleet was sailing directly to the West Indies, but did not reveal how long it would be there; nor did he divulge the fact that de Grasse had orders to sail north in July or August. When he asked Washington how he proposed to capitalize on the possible presence of a superior French fleet, the American commander replied that it was difficult to say until they knew the size of the naval force, but in any case it could be used profitably in an operation against New York, or then again, in circumstances as yet unknown. (In fact, as both Washington and Rochambeau were aware, a French squadron would have a difficult time forcing the bar at Sandy Hook.)

What the Wethersfield discussions came down to was that Rochambeau preferred to focus attention on the Chesapeake Bay area, while Washington wanted a campaign in the South to be an alternative, to be undertaken only if the allies proved incapable of taking New York. Although Rochambeau was too diplomatic to say so in so many words, he was unalterably opposed to a strike against New York and began writing letters to see that the momentum went in the direction he desired. In the meantime, the conferees concluded, until word was received from de Grasse, the French army—minus several hundred left behind to guard the heavy artillery—would march to the Hudson and join the Americans in an operation against New York.

To be certain he got what he really wanted, Rochambeau sent a dispatch to de Grasse reporting the result of the conference, noting his own opposition to the conclusion and urging the admiral to sail not to New York but to Chesapeake Bay. He requested that de Grasse respond immediately because he wanted to “take the earliest opportunity to combine our march with that of General Washington, so as to proceed by land as expeditiously as possible, and join him at any stipulated part of the Chesapeake.”

When the Wethersfield meetings broke up, Washington had his aide Tench Tilghman send off renewed appeals for troop levies to the New England governors before the General rode to New Windsor to begin planning for the joint operation. Meanwhile Sir Henry Clinton was of course aware of the Wethersfield conference and knew the desperate state of Washington's army, but he and Cornwallis were engaged in their usual bickering and Clinton, who had received word that the Americans and French were planning a strike against New York, ordered Cornwallis to send him “with all possible dispatch” all the troops he could spare.

*   *   *

WHETHER WASHINGTON ADMITTED
it even to himself, he was somewhat out of his depth in these dealings with French officers. The Virginia planter was a successful farmer without much in the way of formal education—with no knowledge at all of the French language—and while much of his adult life had been spent in military activities, he was often hard put to deal diplomatically with these proud, often touchy Frenchmen. Not only did these men have differing ideas as to how the war should be run, but each of them had allies in high places in France who could throw their weight around. Washington's initial move, as a means of solving the language difficulty, had been to inform Rochambeau that he would communicate with him through the Marquis de Lafayette, “a friend from whom I conceal nothing.… I entreat you to receive whatever he shall tell you as coming from me.” This arrangement had been altered at Rochambeau's urging, and, especially since the conference in Wethersfield, the American commander had found no need to rely on an intermediary other than Tilghman, who was proficient in French thanks to his education at the Philadelphia College and Academy established by Benjamin Franklin.

During their close association, Washington and Rochambeau did their level best to provide the public with the impression of Franco-American unity, but beneath the surface were many tense moments. The Frenchman was not an easy man to deal with, as his subordinates knew. Comte Fersen observed that he distrusted some of them “in a way that is disagreeable and indeed insulting,” and Claude Blanchard, Rochambeau's commissary in chief, had many uncomfortable set-tos with him, complained of frequent “reproach and suspicion,” and went on to say, “He mistrusts every one and always believes that he sees himself surrounded by rogues and idiots. This character, combined with manners far from courteous, makes him disagreeable to everybody.”