Washington's Immortals

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  Additional numbers, even small numbers, of these vessels could give one side the advantage over the other; conversely, the loss of these ships could be devastating. One Royal Navy officer admitted, “The loss of two line-of-battle ships in effecting the relief of the army is of much more consequence than the loss of the army.”

  But any joint operation with the French had a short life; de Grasse would be able to remain in the Chesapeake only until mid-October before he would have to return to the warm waters of the Caribbean. Washington now finally saw the potential for everything to align in his favor with French naval power and a massed Franco-American army more than twice the size of Cornwallis’s. Seeing an opportunity to trap Cornwallis in Virginia, Washington immediately conferred with Rochambeau, and the two battle captains agreed to move the bulk of the American army, plus several thousand French soldiers currently in Rhode Island, to Maryland, where they could board ships that would take them the rest of the way to Virginia.

  They had only three weeks to move the French and American armies south. After a successful disinformation campaign, Washington set the plan in motion, marching the French and American armies south, first feinting toward New York and then veering to Philadelphia. The deception plan, complete with spies furnishing false information, worked so well that not until September 2 did Clinton realize that the Continental Army wasn’t heading to New York. In Philadelphia the bulk of the army boarded ships while the rest marched south; they all converged near Williamsburg, Virginia.

  When the French fleet arrived, Brigadier General Gist sent Washington a message that ensured his plans for an attack on Cornwallis. For the past year and a half, Gist (as a recent widower) had remained in Baltimore, recruiting and sending reinforcements south to Greene. He had been funding the operation out of his own pocket, depleting his fortune and finding himself, “largely indebted for the Support of my table.” Gist notified the commander in chief immediately of “the safe arrival in the Chesapeake of Admiral de Grasse, with [twenty-four] ships of the line.” The very same day that the message arrived, de Grasse won the most decisive naval battle of the Revolution, the Battle of the Capes. De Grasse’s ships and British Admiral Thomas Graves’s nineteen warships pummeled each other in the mouth of Chesapeake Bay for two hours; the result was a tactical draw in terms of ships damaged on both sides. However, Graves made a fatal error: he failed to seal Chesapeake Bay from the French and sailed off to New York, leaving the French in control of the Chesapeake and Cornwallis’s fate.

  Following in the generals’ wake, elements of the French force passed through Baltimore on September 11. Several transports carrying artillery, grenadiers, and light infantry arrived in Annapolis the next day. The French spent several days in the area before continuing on toward Yorktown. Energized by the possibility of taking out Cornwallis, Gist mobilized the Marylanders and raised the two new regiments. Washington sent messages to both French and American officers urging them to hurry. “Every day we now lose is comparatively an age,” he wrote. “As soon as it is in our power, with safety, we ought to take our position near the enemy. . . . Lord Cornwallis is improving every moment to the best advantage; and every day that is given him to make his preparations may cost us many lives to encounter them.”

  After the costly Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Cornwallis faced a dilemma. With his troops significantly weakened, he lacked the strength to pursue Greene into South Carolina. However, he feared that if he did nothing and remained in Wilmington, Greene would “hem me in among the great rivers and by cutting off our subsistence render our arms useless,” necessitating a retreat by sea, which Cornwallis believed “would be as ruinous and disgraceful to Britain as most events could be.” With no good option before him, Cornwallis decided on his own to march into Virginia despite having no orders to that effect from Clinton—a fateful decision that put his army and the entire war at risk.

  He sent Banastre Tarleton’s dragoons and a company of Royal Welch Fusiliers ahead of him to capture the Virginia legislature, which was then meeting in Charlottesville. The once impressively dressed cavalrymen were now “in distress for want of arms, clothing, boots, and indeed appointments of any kind.” But that didn’t stop them from mounting a raid on June 4. Warned of the danger the night before by an alert militiaman, most of the politicians, including Thomas Jefferson, fled in time to avoid capture. However, Tarleton’s men did manage to find seven lawmakers, whom they took prisoner. They also rounded up some of the finest stallions in the colonies, which gave the Legion unmatched celerity.

  The most significant American military force in Virginia at this time was a group of thirty-six hundred effectives led by the Marquis de Lafayette. At the Green Spring plantation on the banks of the James River, Cornwallis attempted to draw the French general into an ambush. He hid the bulk of his army in the woods north of the river while the rest of the force, around sixteen hundred men, acted as bait, approaching the river as if they intended to cross. Lafayette sent a small group of Pennsylvanians commanded by Mad Anthony Wayne to attack, but the general, suspicious of the situation, wisely held the rest of his men back. As Wayne approached, the bulk of the British Redcoats suddenly appeared. In a surprise move, Wayne responded with a bayonet charge that threw the British off balance and allowed the bulk of his men to successfully withdraw. Cornwallis won the battle but again refrained from pursuing the Americans.

  In July 1781 Clinton had ordered Cornwallis to occupy Old Point Comfort in the present-day city of Hampton, Virginia, near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. However, Cornwallis disliked the defensive situation of the point and instead positioned his men farther up on the same peninsula, in Yorktown. With its steep bluff overlooking the York River, the site was much more defensible, and Cornwallis set about constructing fortifications. The very next month, Cornwallis received the unwelcome news of the French fleet that was transporting thirty-two hundred soldiers. In preparation for the anticipated siege, the British general redoubled his efforts to strengthen the defenses at Yorktown. He wrote to Clinton, “I am now working hard at the redoubts of the place. The army is not very sickly. Provisions for six weeks.”

  While Cornwallis was feverishly fortifying Yorktown, the Marylanders and other American and French troops had boarded ships that took them down Chesapeake Bay to Williamsburg, Virginia. While they were en route, the French fleet defeated the British ships in the region; this victory allowed the French to set up a blockade of the York River, which the troops passed as they sailed. After landing, the ground troops proceeded to Yorktown. One of the officers with the American army described the scene: “As soon as the troops had all concentrated, with General Washington at their head, we left Williamsburg and proceeded on our route for Yorktown, where the British troops had fortified themselves, under the command of Lord Cornwallis. The whole army arrived in the evening and took possession of the ground around the town, driving in their outpost, which we effected without much loss or inconvenience on our part; [we] accomplished the end we had in view, that was to form our camp so as to encircle their whole outworks.”

  Thanks to the French reinforcements, the Americans now heavily outnumbered the British. In all, Washington had twenty-two thousand men at his disposal—fourteen thousand American and about eight thousand French—compared with seven thousand of Cornwallis’s troops. The earl withdrew his men from the outer defenses at Yorktown in order to better defend a smaller area. Desperate, the British general sent an urgent message to Clinton in New York: “This place is in no state of defense. If you cannot relieve me very soon, you must be prepared for the worst.” Clinton promised to send a fleet that would leave from New York at the beginning of October, which was still more than two weeks away.

  The British were now in a precarious position. The large French fleet presented a critical threat: without reinforcements or an escape route, Cornwallis could not hold out long. But the British commanders were unable to rise to the occasion. Cornwallis was acting
as he saw fit, regardless of orders from Clinton, and Clinton remained in New York, spending most of his time defending his actions to his generals instead of acting decisively. Rather than rushing the all-important fleet down to Virginia to relieve Cornwallis, Clinton sent several messages informing him that the ships would be delayed from sailing, first until October 5, then until October 12, and then until October 19.

  Cornwallis’s fate was sealed before Clinton’s fleet could sail. On October 6, Washington began the siege of Yorktown. The French, who were masters of siege warfare, provided invaluable strategic advice as the Patriots began the process of digging trenches and then hammering the fortifications with their artillery. The Marylanders would be firmly in the center of the action, fighting under Baron von Steuben, who commanded the 2nd, or center, Division. The 3rd and 4th Maryland Regiments and the Delaware Recruits formed the 1st Brigade of the division, which was led by Brigadier General Mordecai Gist. Wayne led the 2nd Brigade, which consisted of the 1st and 2nd Pennsylvania Battalions and the Virginia Battalion.

  As usual, Washington remained calm during the battle, despite being closer to the action than his aides would have liked. At one point, Colonel David Cobb urged the commander to move farther back for safety’s sake. Washington coolly replied, “Colonel Cobb, if you are afraid, you have liberty to step back.” Just moments later, a musket ball hit a nearby cannon and rolled to a stop near Washington’s feet. Frightened, a second officer grabbed Washington’s arm and cried, “My dear General, we can’t spare you yet.” As unconcerned for his personal safety as ever, Washington responded, “It is a spent ball, and no harm is done.”

  Gist, accompanied by Steward, recognized the end was near as he fought in the trenches. “I feel great happiness augmented . . . by having the honor to become one of the Generals commanding in the Trenches for the three last days of the Siege and particularly so when I reflect that the Surrender of Cornwallis and his Army must establish our Independence and pave the way to an honorable peace,” he wrote.

  On October 14 the French and Americans assaulted two of the redoubts in the British line. An axe-wielding forlorn hope once again led the way, chopping through the wooden abatis. Although casualties were high, both assaults succeeded, making it all but inevitable that the fort, would fall. Marylander John Boudy claimed to have taken part in the assault party, saying, “General Washington ordered us to storm [the] breastworks of the enemy which were galling us very much—and [I] was in the division under Colonel Hamilton that stormed and took one of the redoubts.” Recognizing the hopelessness of the situation, Cornwallis wrote to Clinton: “We dare not show a gun to their old batteries. . . . Experience has shown that our fresh earthen works do not resist their powerful artillery, so that we shall soon be exposed to an assault in ruined works, in a bad position, and with weakened numbers. The safety of the place is, therefore, so precarious that I cannot recommend that the fleet and the army should run great risk in endeavouring to save us.”

  On October 16 Cornwallis launched a desperate counterattack: 350 British troops rushed out of their trenches and hit the American line, hoping to spike the American artillery. The raiders suffered heavy casualties and spiked only a few guns, which were quickly repaired and placed back in action. The assault didn’t have any impact on the steady and methodical siege that was slowly pulverizing Cornwallis’s army. Cornwallis also hoped to use the counterattack as a diversion while ferrying the bulk of his army to Gloucester Point, a small peninsula directly across the James River from Yorktown, in small boats. Cornwallis positioned Tarleton and additional British troops on the point to prevent the allies from placing artillery there and firing into the rear of the British fortifications. By linking up with Tarleton, he hoped to punch through the American and French lines and break out north to Maryland or New York. Weather dashed the bold gamble. A severe storm swamped many of the boats, and the British called off the operation. The siege went on; Washington and Rochambeau had Cornwallis in checkmate.

  The crushing bombardment continued. Sergeant Roger Lamb, the intrepid veteran who escaped from captivity at Saratoga, recalled, “[The fortifications] were tumbling into ruin; not a gun could be fired from them, and only one eight inch, and a little more than one hundred cohorn [mortar shells] remained.” Out of ammunition and with the numbers of dead and wounded piling up every day, Cornwallis dispatched a flag of truce on October 17, 1781, four years to the day after Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga.

  Disease, hunger, and battle had racked the British forces at York­town, yet all who were able put on their finest uniforms for the day of surrender. Led by Brigadier General Charles O’Hara, they slowly marched out along the Hampton Road. According to legend, although most historians now question it, the band played “The World Turned Upside Down” as they went. French and American forces silently lined the road as they passed. Harry Lee recalled, “On one side the commander in chief, surrounded by his suite and the American staff, took his station; on the other side, opposite to him, was the Count de Rochambeau, in like manner attended.”

  The British force earned the scorn of onlookers for two perceived slights: they left their fortifications later than they were supposed to, and General Cornwallis did not accompany his men. The Americans at the time thought he was feigning illness because he was too embarrassed to appear. One army surgeon wrote in his journal, “We are not to be surprised that the pride of the British officer is humbled on this occasion, as they have always entertained an exalted opinion of their own military prowess and affected to view the Americans as a contemptible, undisciplined rabble.” He continued, “When it is considered that Lord Cornwallis has frequently appeared in splendid triumph at the head of his army, by which he is almost always adored, we conceive it incumbent on him cheerfully to participate in their misfortunes and degradations, however humiliating; but it is said he gives himself up entirely to vexation and despair.”

  Similarly, Cornwallis’s officers seemed to the onlookers to be behaving poorly and perhaps even to be drunk. One newspaper reported, “The British officers in general behaved like boys who had been whipped at school; some bit their lips, some pouted, others cried; their round, broad-brimmed hats were well adapted to the occasion, hiding those faces they were ashamed to show. The [Hessian] regiments made a much more military appearance, and the conduct of their officers was far more becoming men of fortitude.”

  Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, who had drawn up the articles of surrender and was the son of Henry Laurens, a former president of Congress, took Cornwallis into custody. Gist also had a chance to meet the man who caused the death or capture of so many Marylanders at Brooklyn and throughout the war. For Gist and the Marylanders, the war had come full circle. So many of their compatriots had died at Cornwallis’s hands while they fought at the old stone house in Brooklyn, but now Cornwallis was surrendering to the Americans. Surprisingly, given the length of the fight that pitted Cornwallis against the Marylanders, Gist laconically remarked, “His defense of the post was not so obstinate as might be expected from an experienced & determined Officer.”

  Reaching the end of the American and French lines, the Redcoats and Hessians made a sharp right turn onto the field of surrender. Twenty-eight British officers marched forward in formation to hand over their flags to the Americans. Proud to the end, the officers refused to give their colors to the sergeants the Americans had sent to receive them, finding it demeaning to surrender to noncommissioned officers. Eventually, the Americans solved the problem by telling a junior officer to take the flags from the British and hand them, one at a time, to the American sergeants.

  As a further sign of surrender, O’Hara, who had fought so bravely against the Marylanders at Guilford Courthouse, handed over Cornwallis’s sword. He first offered it to Rochambeau, either because he simply made a mistake or because he couldn’t stand the thought of giving it to the Americans. A French officer soon corrected O’Hara, who then turned to Washington, on the
opposite side of the road. Washington deferred the honor of accepting the sword to General Benjamin Lincoln, who had been humiliated and not afforded an honorable surrender of his forces at Charleston in 1780.

  The Americans made prisoners of about eight thousand British troops (including around one thousand sailors) at Yorktown—a staggering one-quarter of all the British troops in America. They sent the captives to camps, where they stayed until their eventual release prior to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in September 1783. Minor skirmishes continued for two more years, but for all intents and purposes, the war was won. With Cornwallis’s surrender to Washington, the world balance of power forever shifted, and an entirely new country was born.

  1782–83

  Chapter 42

  The Last Battle

  Not pausing to savor the decisive victory over Cornwallis, Gist and the Marylanders once again marched south. Departing Yorktown on November 4, 1781, the Immortals joined several regiments of Pennsylvanians commanded by Anthony Wayne and headed into the Carolinas to join Nathanael Greene. The general planned to eliminate one of the last British posts at Dorchester, a small town northwest of Charleston that housed an eight-hundred-man garrison.

  Since Eutaw Springs, Greene had kept the British bottled up in Charleston and Dorchester. He hoped to strike another blow at the enemy while the bulk of the American army continued south toward Charleston under the command of Colonel Otho Holland Williams. Greene took a small detachment of Marylanders and Virginians into Dorchester to strike at the fort. According to Captain William Wilmot, a veteran officer of the 1776 Flying Camp who fought under Jack Steward in the doomed Staten Island raid and many other battles, “[The British] being apprised of his approach, reinforced that post and sallied out about two miles, when we fell in with them and drove them to the fort, leaving a small number of their killed and wounded on our hands.” After the brief melee, the Redcoats and Loyalists unceremoniously burned their stores and fled to the safety of Charleston. Thwarted in his attempt to capture the garrison, Gist caught up with the rest of the army, and they continued to push south. After hundreds of miles of marching that burned through their shoe leather and left their uniforms, overalls, and hunting shirts in tatters, the men were in wretched condition, “naked and full of vermin.”