Adopted Son

by David A Clary

  They compromised on the “Wethersfield Plan.” The French army would march on New York, hoping to draw British troops from the South. The generals also agreed to write to de Grasse, urging him to sail north. On June 3, Clinton received an intercepted copy of the plan, which put him in a quandary. If the plan was real, he would have to withdraw troops from Cornwallis’ army. If it was a deception, he could reinforce Cornwallis.5

  Rochambeau began leaving Newport on June 9, content that New York was at least on the way to the South. On June 11 he appealed to de Grasse, because naval superiority was essential in either region. “I must not conceal from you, sir,” he advised, “that these people are at the end of their means.” De Grasse promised to help. By mid-August he would send twenty-nine warships, 3,000 soldiers including artillerymen and dragoons, ten cannons, siege guns, and mortars, and 1.2 million livres in silver.6

  Washington sent Lafayette’s former chief spy, Captain Allan McLane, to the Caribbean to find de Grasse. Rochambeau might think he was obsessed with New York, but in fact he had already considered moving south. McLane told the French admiral that he “could make it easy for Genl Washington to reduce the British army in the South” if he took his fleet and army to the Chesapeake. De Grasse agreed to sail north as soon as he could.7

  Washington did not wait for Rochambeau; the French were slow, owing to a heat wave. By the time the lead elements of the French army arrived on June 21, he had pressed the Main Army in closer to Clinton’s works. The whole allied force was together by July 6, 1781, and the French staged a grand review to honor the Americans, their white uniforms dazzling.8

  “I admire the Americans tremendously!” said one of Rochambeau’s aides. “It is incredible that soldiers composed of men of every age, even of children of fifteen, or whites and blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed, can march so well and withstand fire so steadfastly.” He credited that to “the calm and calculated measures of General Washington.”9

  Washington and Rochambeau agreed that an attack on New York would require siege operations, and they lacked the equipment and other resources for that. Without naval superiority, they could do nothing else, either. Washington gave up before he learned that Clinton had ordered Cornwallis to send troops to the city. On August 1, Washington wrote in his diary that with no hope of a move against New York, “I turned my views more seriously than I had before done to an operation to the southward.” On August 14, he learned that de Grasse had sailed from Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), expected to reach the Chesapeake by September 3, and could stay until the middle of October. Washington began a march of 450 miles to where Lafayette awaited him. Masked by a covering force and phony camps, on August 20 the first troops crossed the river at Kings Ferry, and the last were over by the twenty-fifth. Clinton had no idea they were gone.10

  Washington had been thinking about moving south for longer than he admitted. On July 13 he had told Lafayette that he would “shortly have occasion to communicate matters of very great importance” to the marquis. In the meantime, Lafayette should recruit a larger army and develop a cavalry force. Both were essential if the war continued in Virginia or shifted to South Carolina. Lafayette should send spies to the coast to detect if Cornwallis shipped any troops out. It was “more than probable” that if the British commander found it impossible to conquer Virginia, he would entrench at Portsmouth or Williamsburg and reinforce New York or South Carolina.11

  Lafayette wanted to return to his adoptive father. “In a word, my dear general,” he wailed on the twentieth, “I am home sick and if I can’t go to head quarters wish at least to hear from there.” As for the situation in front of him, Cornwallis, his spies told him, was “much disappointed in his hopes of command” over all British troops in America. The marquis hoped his adversary would go home to England. He was “a bold and active man, two dangerous qualities in this southern war.”12

  The young general enclosed a personal note, saying, “Certain I am you will do whatever you can for me that is consistent with your public duty. When I went to the southward you know I had some private objections.” But when his troops became rebellious, he knew there was no one else who could get them to go to Virginia. Now, if Cornwallis sent troops to New York, the war in Virginia would become nothing more than minor skirmishing. “Would it be possible, my dear general, that in case a part of the British troops go to Newyork I may be allowed to join the combined armies[?]” He was not alone in thinking that New York was the next target. His spies advised him that Cornwallis assumed the marquis would return to the Main Army. “This induces me to think they believe you are in earnest in your preparations.”13

  Lafayette wrote yet a third letter the same day, July 20. His men had captured one of Tarleton’s officers, who said that Cornwallis and Tarleton were definitely going to New York. He wanted to join Washington in any capacity, because “at all events, I would be with you, and of course would be very happy.”14

  On the twenty-sixth he reported that about 2,000 British troops were embarking at Portsmouth. There were rumors that Cornwallis was leaving with them, although he doubted that. They also had pilots aboard, so he sent spies out to watch all waterways in the Chesapeake area and tell him where they put ashore, if they did.15

  Lafayette reported on July 30 that thirty transports full of troops were in Hampton Roads. “This state is so difficult to be defended that one false step involves the one that does not command the water into a series of inconveniences,” he said. Cornwallis had taken on pilots for the Potomac River. “This, I suppose, is a feint, but a march south of James River throws me out of supporting distance for any thing that is north of it. A march to the north gives the ennemy command over everything south of the river.”16

  The next day one of the marquis’ spies, a servant to Cornwallis, said that His Lordship, Tarleton, and Simcoe were still in Portsmouth but expected to move soon. Lafayette had sent Wayne toward Portsmouth to keep an eye on them. Should a French fleet enter Hampton Roads, he hinted, “the British army would, I think, be ours. I am litterally following Your Excellency’s instructions, and shall continue to do so to the best of my power.” Reflecting the unavoidable vagaries of military intelligence, on August 1 the young general said that he had received a report that the enemy fleet had sailed and was headed to Baltimore.17

  Lafayette, in his confusion about the intentions of both Washington and Cornwallis, did not realize that his continual reporting on the situation in Virginia was of enormous value to the commander in chief, planning as he was to move the main effort to the South. To resolve part of his uncertainties, Washington sent him a private letter. The general could not tell his young friend that he was not relegated to a sideshow but was standing in what would soon become the next main theater of the war. He dropped a hint by way of some fatherly advice. “I am convinced,” he said, “that your desire to be with this army arises principally from a wish to be actively useful. You will not therefore regret your stay in Virginia untill matters are reduced to a greater degree of certainty than they are at present, especially when I tell you, that” if part of the enemy’s force did move from Virginia to New York, “it is more than probable that we shall also intirely change our plan of operations.”

  If Lafayette’s information was correct, Washington said, the first part of the Wethersfield Plan had been accomplished, by forcing some of the enemy to withdraw from the South. American efforts “must now be turned towards endeavouring to expell them totally from those states if we find ourselves incompt. to the siege of N.Y.” Then he delivered the clincher, to stop the boy general’s pleas to return north. “Should your return to this army be finally determined,” he warned him, “I cannot flatter you with a command equal to your expectations or my wishes,” because there were too many generals for the number of troops in the army. He closed, “I however hope I have spoken plain enough to be understood by you.”18

  Once again Washington kept Lafayette on the job, hinting of great things to come in Virgin
ia while suggesting that he would get no command in the Main Army. The situation had become critical. He had put the shift to the South in motion, and he expected much from the marquis. Still he could not tell him what was going on, so he placed his trust in the young man’s absolute loyalty.

  I HEARTLY THANK YOU FOR HAVING ORDERED ME TO REMAIN IN VIRGINIA

  Lafayette had had his hands full since Green Spring. There were three main challenges. One was to figure out what Cornwallis was going to do and where he was going to do it. The second was to get more help from the state. The third was negotiations under the protocol for feeding and exchanging prisoners.

  Cornwallis’ intentions remained undecipherable for some time. Lafayette assumed until the end of July that he planned to march into North Carolina. He promised Greene that he would send whatever assistance he could if that happened, and leaned on Governor Nelson to get the state to help out.

  On July 9, Tarleton rode out of Suffolk, near Portsmouth, with orders to destroy American stores all the way to New London, 150 miles to the west. Lafayette at first interpreted this as cover for a larger move to North Carolina but soon decided he had been mistaken and fanned his troops out to cut off the raiders. Tarleton covered thirty to forty miles a day, despite the July heat. Since he outran all news of his location, he was never in danger. The raiders galloped through Petersburg, Amelia Court House, Prince Edward Court House, Charlotte, and New London to Bedford. There they camped for two days at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and rustled some of the finest horses in America. The militia was incompetent, even to stop the theft of horses that Virginians had refused to sell to the American army. Lafayette sent Wayne and his Pennsylvanians into Amelia County to intercept Tarleton’s return. He posted Morgan with a strong detachment at Goode’s Bridge, near Petersburg. Tarleton got word of the threat and returned by a more southerly route. He was back in Suffolk on July 24, his men and horses winded. He had outfoxed Lafayette, but it had hardly been worth it. The few stores destroyed did not compensate for his losses from the heat.19

  Cornwallis finally made his plans clear in an unexpected way. When his transports left Portsmouth and sailed into Chesapeake Bay, Lafayette thought they were headed for Baltimore. On August 6, 1781, he learned that the fleet had turned into the York River, landing troops at Yorktown on the south bank and at Gloucester on the north. Clinton’s oft-changing orders sent Benedict Arnold and part of the force to New York, leaving the rest to fortify a seaport on the York.20

  Cooperation from Virginia was better under Nelson than it had been under Jefferson, but it produced more sympathy than real support. Lafayette repeatedly told the governor that if Cornwallis decided to march into the state, the shortages were so severe that he could have free run of the country.

  The most serious shortage was of horses. Lafayette would never have cavalry to match Tarleton’s, but he wanted enough horses to put a decent number of scouts out. Tarleton’s raid caused the state assembly to grant Lafayette authority to impress 300 horses. Then it demanded a mountain of paperwork to document all impressments, account for arms in each county that had been plundered by the militia, and investigate the “misapplication” of horses previously furnished by the state. Legislative investigations accused Wayne of looting.

  Tarleton’s seizure of horses that the owners had refused to sell left Lafayette fuming. There had been a time when “private virtue and private exertions might have prevented the ennemy’s getting such a large and excellent body of cavalry,” he complained to the governor. That time was no more, “and unless public exertions give us an equality we are utterly ruined.” This got him a few nags but little else. Even after Cornwallis returned to the Peninsula, Nelson mostly complained about Wayne’s seizures of supplies.21

  Lafayette found Cornwallis easier to get along with than Virginia officials. “I am going to send a flag to Lord Cornwallis,” he told Washington. “I owe him the justice to say that his conduct to me has been peculiarly polite, and many differences between commissaries [of prisoner exchanges] very graciously adjusted by him to my satisfaction.”22

  The marquis did not believe that Cornwallis would stay at Yorktown, telling Washington on August 6 that he thought His Lordship planned to go to New York. Nevertheless, he advanced his troops carefully to watch the enemy, and his spies kept him well-informed. Yorktown was surrounded by the river “and a morass,” he told Washington. Gloucester was a neck of land projecting into the river opposite Yorktown. A few British frigates and transports sat at anchor between the two locations. “Should a flet come in at this moment our affairs would take a very happy turn.”23

  On August 11, having heard from Washington, Lafayette replied, “Be sure, my dear General, that the pleasure of being with you will make me happy in any command you will think proper to give.” He agreed that he should remain in Virginia so long as Cornwallis did, “and circumstances may happen that will furnish me agreable opportunities in the command of the Virginian army.” His adoptive father had talked him into staying where he was.

  “I have pretty well understood you, my dear general,” Lafayette continued, “but would be happy in a more minuted detaïl which I am sensible cannot be intrusted to letters.” Cornwallis had begun entrenching at York and Gloucester. “The sooner we disturb him the better,” the marquis suggested, but that was impossible without French naval support. When Washington read that he was delighted, because it meant that Cornwallis was digging himself into a hole. But not all was happy in Virginia, Lafayette told him, because of the state’s incessant complaints about Wayne’s foraging. “The Pennsylvanians and Virginians have never agreed but at the present time, it is worse than ever,” he said. Wayne “thinks he and his people have not been well used.”24

  Another issue troubling Lafayette personally was what to do with slaves captured from the British. Nelson’s secretary declared that the governor had directed that all slaves taken from the enemy must be returned to their former owners. “The principle on which it is supposed men fight,” he explained, “at present is to protect and secure to themselves and fellow citizens their liberties and property.” Most of Lafayette’s spies were black, risking their necks for American liberty, and he was outraged that an object of the war was to return them to slavery. Nelson opened a wound in his conscience that never healed.25

  Above all else, Cornwallis scared the marquis. “I would rather be rid of Lord Cornwallis than of a third of his army,” he told La Luzerne. “He showers me with courtesies, and we wage war like gentlemen…. But after all this, in the end he will give me a thrashing.” He admitted to Henry Knox, “To speak plain English I am devilish afraïd of him.” He advised the prince de Poix, “If you knew Lord Cornwallis your concern would be even greater, but not greater than my own…. [I]t is LordCornwallis who is charged with the Britannic thunder.”26

  Face Cornwallis he must. Letting Lafayette know that de Grasse had sailed for the Chesapeake, and hinting (but not saying) that the allied armies were on the march, Washington ordered Lafayette to take a position where he could prevent a British retreat into North Carolina, which he predicted they would try once they realized what overwhelming force was bearing down on them. Then he said, “You shall hear further from me as soon as I have concerted plans and formed dispositions for sending a reinforcement from hence. In the mean time I have only to recommend a continuation of that prudence and good conduct which you have manifested thro’ the whole of your campaign.” He especially wanted Lafayette to conceal de Grasse’s arrival in the hopes of catching the enemy aboard transports, “which will be the luckiest circumstance in the world. You will take measures for opening a communication with Count de Grasse the moment he arrives, and will concert measures with him for making the best uses of your joint forces untill you receive aid from this quarter.”27

  Lafayette sent Colonel Josiah Parker on a reconnaissance in force toward Portsmouth. His troops had some minor skirmishes with the enemy and took a few prisoners, but the outer works had been a
bandoned. The British soldiers were aboard ships in the harbor, along with some Tories. Contrary winds kept them from sailing, but they dared not return to land, because there was smallpox ashore. Parker retrieved twenty-five cannons that had been thrown into the river.28

  The marquis ordered Wayne to start marching down the James River and told him the good news, that there was “great reason to hope for an immediate aid by water.” He ordered the Pennsylvanians to take up “an healthy position” to block the route to North Carolina. He sent an officer to round up pilots for de Grasse. He had moved to Williamsburg with the main part of his army and sent troops across the York to threaten Gloucester.29

  Lafayette had meanwhile told Washington that the British were fortifying Gloucester but not doing much at Yorktown. If they intended to evacuate, he observed, “at least they are proceeding with amazing slowness.” He knew now to expect some sort of reinforcement from the north and said that he hoped the commander in chief himself would arrive at the head of the combined American and French armies. He would like to attack Cornwallis, but he could not do that without “great apparatus.” On the other hand, when a French fleet controlled the bay and rivers and the allied land force became superior to Cornwallis’, “that army must soon or late be forced to surrender.” He closed, “Adieu, my dear general, I heartly thank you for having ordered me to remain in Virginia and to your goodness to me I am owing the most beautifull prospect I may ever behold.”30

  The troops headed south were in motion, Washington told him. “Our march will be continued with all the dispatch that our circumstances will admit.” Lafayette could not have missed those first-person pronouns, although Washington remained vague. Again he emphasized how important it was for the marquis to keep the redcoats from escaping the trap closing on them. “The particular mode of doing this, I shall not at this distance attempt to dictate.”