Victory at Yorktown (33 page)

“Thus expired the last hope of the British army,” Tarleton concluded.

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THE CANNONADE THAT
began at daybreak was more devastating by far than anything before, and the Hessian soldier Johann Doehla thought it would never end. The enemy, he wrote, “fired from all redoubts without stopping.… One saw nothing but bombs and balls raining on our whole line.” The sick and wounded had been sent to Gloucester on the supposition that those who were mobile would accompany the army when it moved out from that point, for it was clear to all that “we could not hold out much longer in [Yorktown] if we did not get help soon.” The worst news was that the English light infantry returning from Gloucester reported that “it would be impossible to break through there … nothing at all can pass in and out any more. Also, this morning right after reveille General Cornwallis came into the horn work and observed the enemy and his works. As soon as he had gone back to his quarters, he immediately sent a flag of truce with a white standard over to the enemy.”

Cornwallis had seen enough. Informing Clinton of his decision, he wrote, “Under all these circumstances, I thought it would have been wanton and inhuman to the last degree to sacrifice the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers, who had ever behaved with such fidelity and courage, by exposing them to an assault, which from the numbers and precautions of the enemy could not fail to succeed. I therefore proposed to capitulate.”

Cornwallis had no way of knowing this, of course, but the long-promised rescue mission finally did sail from New York with General Clinton and some six thousand troops on board on the very day of that capitulation, only to turn around and return to Manhattan when they found the French fleet in control of the Chesapeake.
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THE PENNSYLVANIA LIEUTENANT
Ebenezer Denny was exhausted after a long sleepless night and was eagerly awaiting his relief. Before his replacement arrived, he said, “I had the pleasure of seeing a drummer mount the enemy's parapet and beat a parley, and immediately an officer, holding up a white handkerchief, made his appearance outside their works. Our batteries ceased.” An officer from the American lines ran to meet the British officer and tied the handkerchief over his eyes. The drummer was sent back, and the British officer was conducted to a house in the rear of the American lines. “Firing ceased totally,” Denny wrote, and the thought ran through his head when he heard that drummer boy, that “I never heard a drum equal to it—the most delightful music to us all.”

The drummer was fortunate that he had been so visible. “Had we not seen [him] in his red coat when he first mounted,” an American officer said, “he might have beat away till doomsday,” because the noise from the cannons simply drowned out the sound of a single drum.

The British officer carrying the flag from Cornwallis bore a message to General Washington, but the commander in chief was at his headquarters behind the lines, writing to the president of the College of William and Mary about the possibility of using some of the buildings there, and addressing Admiral de Grasse on the subject of pilots for the river passage. A man on horseback pulled up before the General's tent, bringing a letter the blindfolded British officer had handed him. Washington broke the seal and opened the sheet of paper.

Sir, I propose a cessation of hostilities for twenty-four hours, and that two officers may be appointed by each side, to meet at Mr. Moore's house, to settle terms for the surrender of the posts at York and Gloucester.

I have the honour to be, &c

Cornwallis

10

THE HAND OF HEAVEN DISPLAYED

October 17 was a day
Henry Dearborn would never forget, and the first entry in his journal on that day in 1781 explained why: “four years this day since Gen
l
Burgoyne & his Army surrendered to the American Armies at Sarratoga.” Dearborn had soldiered in the campaign that brought the French into this war on the side of the Americans, and on the day of that victory he had recorded his feelings: “this Day the Great M
r
Burguoyn with his whole Army Surrendered themselves as Prisoners of war with all their Publick Stores, & after Grounding their armes, march'd off for New England, the greatest Conquest Ever known.”

In those four years just past he had learned how to spell Burgoyne's name and his comments on the British surrender were now more temperate, but it is clear that he recognized the enormous significance of the victory at Yorktown—the second time an entire British army had been captured—because he carefully recorded in the journal all fourteen Articles of Capitulation.

On October 17, after the British experienced “the heaviest fire yet poured on them” and the blindfolded emissary was taken to Washington's quarters to deliver Cornwallis's short note, the American commander responded at 2
P.M
.: “I wish previously to the Meeting of Commissioners, that Your Lordship's proposals in writing, may be sent to the American Lines, for which Purpose, a Suspension of Hostilities during two Hours from the Delivery of this Letter will be granted.”

Cornwallis sent his reply at 4:30
P.M
., and although his suggested terms were not acceptable to Washington, the American permitted hostilities to be suspended until the signing of the capitulation agreement—this, despite the possibility that the enemy “might wreck or burn equipment before such acts were forbidden.” To reach final terms, two commissioners from each side were to meet the following afternoon at the Moore house, about half a mile downriver from Yorktown.

The October night was chilly, and St. George Tucker wrote in his diary, “A solemn stillness prevailed. The night was remarkably clear, and the sky decorated with ten thousand stars. Numberless meteors gleaming through the atmosphere,” unlike the previous night, when the bombs had provided the fireworks, but with a trail of horror. With the sun's first light the eerie shrill of bagpipes came from the British lines—a salute to the allies that was answered by the French band of the Deux-Ponts regiment. And as the sun rose, Tucker added, “one of the most striking pictures of war was displayed.… From the Point of Rock battery on one side our lines completely manned and our works crowded with soldiers were exhibited to view. Opposite these at the distance of two hundred yards, you were presented with a sight of the British works, their parapets crowded with officers looking at those who were assembled at the top of our works.”

Beyond the red-coated figures on the parapets the Americans and French could see something of the destruction they had inflicted on the village: a number of houses in total ruin, others damaged beyond a likelihood of repair, the Thomas Nelson home with one corner broken off and large holes through the roof and walls, shattered masonry everywhere, and beyond—on the beach—hundreds of people moving around aimlessly, staring at the charred hulks leaning crazily in the shallows, ghostly masts and topgallants rising above the water in the deep channel beyond.

Cornwallis, in his underground quarters, received early that morning a flag with a message from General Washington, stating the terms for capitulation, and they were on the whole tough, though no more so than the British commander could have expected, as well as generous; but one sentence, and one only, filled the British commander with dismay. It read: “The same honors will be granted to the Surrendering Army as were granted to the Garrison of Charleston.”

This was an allusion, of course, to the defeat of Benjamin Lincoln's army in 1780, when Charleston fell in the largest single American loss of the Revolutionary War—about five thousand men. Lincoln had requested that he be allowed to surrender his army with the customary honors of war, to which Clinton had replied, “The alterations you propose [to the British terms] are all utterly inadmissible.” Now, in normal circumstances, when an army had fought bravely and well before surrendering, the vanquished soldiers were accorded the honors of war, which meant that they marched from their works with flags flying, drums beating, and their band playing a tune of the conqueror, as if to demonstrate that the beaten men were equal in bravery to the victors. But Clinton flatly refused Lincoln's request, stipulating that “The drummers are not to beat a British march or colors to be uncased.” Washington had not forgotten this humiliation of Lincoln or the slur cast on his troops.

That afternoon the British commissioners, Colonel Thomas Dundas and Major Alexander Ross, Cornwallis's aide, walked up the bluff from the river's edge to the house where the allied representatives, Colonel John Laurens (who had been with Lincoln at Charleston) and Comte de Noailles, Lafayette's brother-in-law, were waiting for them. When the articles of capitulation were laid before the British, Ross immediately focused on the one denying them the honors of war, saying it was harsh. Laurens agreed. Why, then, was it included? Ross inquired.

Laurens replied that he had been present at Charleston, where General Lincoln's army had fought bravely in open trenches for six weeks only to be denied the honors of war and be humiliated by having to march out with colors cased and drums not beating a German or British march.

“But my Lord Cornwallis did not command at Charleston,” Ross replied.

“It is not the individual that is here considered,” Laurens told him. “It is the nation. This remains an article, or I refuse to be a commissioner.”

Long into the night the negotiations continued, and early the next morning Washington carefully reviewed the terms, scratching out a few of them while letting most stand. He had the final version copied and sent it to Cornwallis with a note saying he expected to have it signed at eleven o'clock so that the garrison would march out at two o'clock that afternoon.

About eleven o'clock on the morning of October 19, a group of allied officers met in the captured British redoubt nearest the river for the signing of the historic document. The text of the articles had been delivered from the British lines and bore the signatures of Cornwallis and Thomas Symonds, the senior naval officer present. To this, Washington had a short paragraph added: “Done in the trenches before Yorktown, in Virginia, October 19, 1781,” below which he wrote, “G. Washington.” Then the French commander signed, “Le Comte de Rochambeau,” and his naval colleague added, “Le Comte de Barras En mon nom & celui du Comte de Grasse.”
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Pennsylvania's Lieutenant Ebenezer Denny wrote, “All is quiet. Articles of capitulation signed.” He reported that detachments of French and Americans moved immediately into the shattered village of Yorktown and took possession of the British forts, on one of which Baron Steuben planted the American flag. What they found within this “rather small and ugly” town—as the Comte de Clermont-Crèvecoeur described it—was almost total destruction. “There was only one pretty house and that was not spared by the bombs and shells and is now beyond repair.” It belonged to Governor Nelson, who had visited the French batteries at the height of the siege and told the gunners, “True, it is my house; but, my friends, it is full of English. Do not spare it.” (He also had two farms in the vicinity, which had been completely burned, pillaged, or plundered.) The governor, who had served with uncommon bravery as leader of the Virginia militia, whom he paid with his own money by mortgaging his property because the state had no funds to spare, then had the allied troops camp on his cropland while their artillery destroyed his house and outbuildings. When the artillery lacked means of transportation, he provided his own and his farmers' horses and then requisitioned animals from the state.
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Nelson's reward for all this was to be financially ruined and summoned to appear before the legislative assembly to answer charges from citizens that he had behaved arbitrarily. He resigned as governor in order to defend himself and was acquitted with praise; however, he did not resume his duties as governor but left them to Benjamin Harrison, who had taken over in his absence.

The magazines were filled with every kind of dry stores, according to Clermont-Crèvecoeur, but the French were forbidden to enter the town for four or five days, by which time the Americans had plundered everything in sight. Although no clothing of any sort remained, the French officers did find 140 iron cannon and 74 brass weapons, 22 flags, 69 bombs, more than 7,000 small arms, and 122 bullets of every caliber. Baron Closen viewed the scene and reported, “I will never forget how frightful and disturbing was the appearance of the city of York, from the fortifications on the crest to the strand below. One could not take three steps without running into some great holes made by bombs, some splinters, some balls, some half-covered trenches, with scattered white or negro arms or legs, some bits of uniforms. Most of the houses [were] riddled by cannon fire,” he added, and few of them had windowpanes. What struck him hardest was the deep concern of the few inhabitants; they feared that what little remained to them would be pillaged by the American troops, who “(they falsely said) excelled in such ventures!”

Another discovery that astonished the allies was the number of slaves the British had requisitioned as servants and laborers during their campaigns in the South. Clermont-Crèvecoeur commented on how many sick were in both armies, blaming it on excessive fatigue, bad food and water, and shortages of all kinds. “Many officers also paid their toll in the form of serious illnesses. We lost many from the bloody flux.” He added that the Negroes had spread the plague. “These miserable creatures could be found in every corner, either dead or dying. No one took the trouble to bury them, so you can imagine the infection this must have engendered. Still, a large number of them survived.” Most were reclaimed by the local inhabitants, but “Negroes without masters found new ones among the French, and we garnered a veritable harvest of domestics. Those among us who had no servant were happy to find one so cheap.”