Adopted Son

by David A Clary

  That was an amazing grant of freedom to so young an officer, but Washington knew he could handle it. Lafayette’s “own knowledge of the country from your long continuance in it, & the various & extended movements which you have made—have given you great opportunity for observation; of which I am perswaded your military genius & judgment, will lead you to make the best improvement.” Lafayette always wanted Washington’s approval. There could be no doubt that he had it.31

  The British had slowed down their fortification work at Gloucester, the marquis reported on August 24, 1781, and still had not started much at Yorktown. They did not “appear very much alarmed,” he said. His skills as a spymaster were as sharp as ever. “I have got some intelligences by the way of this servant I have once mentioned,” he reported the next day. The man told him that the British had finally begun fortifying Yorktown. The enemy was working mostly on the river side, but he had no doubt that they would do something on the land side. The works at Gloucester were finished, “some trifling redoubts across Gloster neck and a battery of 18 pieces beating the river.” He estimated Cornwallis’ strength at 4,500 men fit for duty.32

  The “servant” was a slave named James Armistead. The marquis had first hired him in March, after he had already been hired by the British, and he became a double agent, feeding false information to the enemy. He also ran messages between Lafayette and other spies in Portsmouth, where he served in Cornwallis’ household and kept his ears open. He moved to the Peninsula with his employer and walked in and out of Yorktown freely. He was the marquis’ best source of information, and when the campaign was over Lafayette tried to have him freed. Rebuffed, he never forgot his debt to James.33

  Washington wrote from Philadelphia on August 27, promising to forward supplies. He expected the reinforcements to reach Head of Elk soon. The speed of their further movement south depended on the arrival of de Grasse and whatever transportation he could furnish. Barras had been no help.34

  Lafayette’s corps was too weak to attack Yorktown, and probably to stand up against a sally out of the town, but Cornwallis again exaggerated American strength. Tarleton had a better estimate and urged an attack. His Lordship, however, had received a message from Clinton promising relief. He let his men continue digging their earthworks and sat in Yorktown like a bug in a bottle. Then Admiral de Grasse showed up.35

  Lafayette received a message on August 30, announcing the fleet’s arrival in Chesapeake Bay. The admiral promised to send three frigates up the James to keep Cornwallis from crossing over. Those ships would also cover a landing of 3,250 men under the marquis de Saint-Simon, on Jamestown Island. Other frigates would close the York. To help destroy Cornwallis’ army, de Grasse said, he could also land 1,800 marines and, if need be, companies of armed sailors. He hoped that “all this,” he told the marquis, “will contribute to sustaining your glory and will enable you to spend a more peaceful winter.”

  François-Joseph-Paul, comte de Grasse, commander of the French West Indies fleet. His arrival in the Chesapeake sealed Cornwallis’ fate at Yorktown. (SKILLMAN LIBRARY, LAFAYETTE COLLEGE)

  Lafayette had been in the Virginia wilderness for so long, facing a superior enemy, that this was wonderful news. But it was premature, because an attack on Yorktown would require heavy guns and equipment, and more men. Besides, he wanted Washington to command it.

  Saint-Simon was a maréchal de camp, de Grasse advised him, “and will serve under you as commander of an auxiliary troop. I flatter myself, sir, that you will not feel any repugnance toward this arrangement, as I was obliged to bring him.” The troops with him were under his orders in Saint-Domingue and “were at the disposition of the Spanish, who were willing to lend them to me in view of the critical position in which the Americans appeared to be.” The maréchal was agreeable enough. “I shall thus confine myself, M. le Marquis,” Saint-Simon told Lafayette, “to expressing to you how pleased I shall be to serve with you and to be able to cultivate your friendship and contribute to the glory and success of the American arms.” For the first time, Lafayette commanded a combined French-American force.36

  The marquis told Wayne the good news. Cornwallis, he said, must either accept a siege or try to cross the James River that night. “Now that you are over I am pretty easy.” Winds permitting, the frigates would close off that escape route. The following morning, Wayne watched the French ships enter the river and start the landings. Never did he behold “a more beautiful and agreeable sight,” he said. He rowed across to get a closer look, and an American picket challenged him. Although he gave “the usual answer,” the man put a musket ball through his thigh. He had his wound patched and “took a walk to take a view of the French troops, who make a very fine soldierly appearance.”37

  Cornwallis heard about the French frigates and was not worried. Clinton had promised to send him help with Admiral Thomas Graves. Still, he wondered, where was Graves?

  Lafayette looked over the same scene and felt proud of himself. He had trapped the dreaded Earl of Cornwallis. Still, he wondered, where was Washington?

  MAY THAT GREAT FELICITY BE RESERVED FOR YOU!

  The allied armies reached Head of Elk on September 6, 1781. Washington could do little but fret until he heard that de Grasse was in the lower bay and Barras got through with the siege equipment and provisions. This was the commander in chief’s greatest gamble. He was moving over 10,000 troops southward on wretched roads, not knowing if water transport would arrive to shorten the march. One French fleet was sailing north from the West Indies; another would sail south, past New York. British fleets could take after either French one. The whole complicated campaign had to come together on the Virginia Peninsula, where everything depended on an excitable young general’s ability to keep Cornwallis in Yorktown.

  Lafayette sent Washington two messages on September 1, reporting de Grasse’s arrival and relaying the arguments they had been having. The admiral wanted to conquer Yorktown and sail back to the West Indies, while the marquis resisted hasty action because it would waste lives. Still, he was ecstatic. Thanks to Washington, he was “in a very charming situation and find myself at the head of a beautiful body of troops.”38

  Washington warned Lafayette that Graves’ fleet had been reported heading for the Chesapeake, and he should alert de Grasse. He should also tell him that the allied armies were approaching as fast as they could. “Nothing, my dear marquis,” he assured him, “could have afforded me greater satisfaction than…the measures you had taken and the arrangements you were making in consequence of the intelligence I had given you.” He still thought he had to steady the boy general. They should hope for the best, he said. “Should the retreat of Lord Cornwallis by water, be cut off…I am persuaded you will do all in your power to prevent his escape by land. May that great felicity be reserved for you! You see, how critically important the present moment is…. Adieu my dear marquis!”39

  A few days later Washington learned that de Grasse had arrived. He also had “an additional pleasure in finding that your ideas on every occasion have been so consonant to my own, and that by your military dispositions & prudent measures have anticipated all my wishes.” Using the few transports he found at Head of Elk, he expected to board some troops and ship out on the eighth.40

  Lafayette wrote twice on September 8 with a proposal. Knowing that Benjamin Lincoln—exchanged from his captivity at Charleston—would as senior major general receive command of the American part of the allied armies, Lafayette asked that the division he would command under Lincoln include his veterans of the Virginia Campaign. “This will be the greatest reward of the services I may have rendered, as I confess I have the strongest attachement to those troops.”

  The supply situation was still a mess. The governor did what he could, Lafayette admitted. “The wheels of his government are so very rusty that no governor whatever will be able to set them fiercely agoing.” There were no provisions for the French troops, and he had been “night and day so much the quarter master co
llector and beef driver I have drove myself into a violent headake and feaver.” He had failed to persuade de Grasse to move ships up the York River above Yorktown and Gloucester. And while the marquis continued to gather intelligence about Yorktown, he still believed his force was too weak to attack the place. His manpower had grown large enough, however, to stop Cornwallis if the redcoats tried to break out. Finally, de Grasse had sailed out when he learned that a British fleet was approaching the bay entrance. Lafayette had heard that there had been a battle, but nothing more.41

  Graves left New York on August 31, and de Grasse went out to meet him. They collided on September 5, 1781, in the Second Battle off the Virginia Capes. The French did not win a clean victory, but they beat the British up, keeping them busy enough for Barras to slip into Chesapeake Bay on September 10. Washington had started some of his troops down the bay and marched the others to Baltimore and Annapolis, where Barras gave them a ride. Graves limped back to New York on the fourteenth, and de Grasse returned to the bay. Cornwallis’ last hope of escape had sailed over the horizon.42

  Everything came together, as Washington had bet it would. Troops and supplies began arriving at Williamsburg and Jamestown. Washington wrote to Lafayette from Mount Vernon during his first visit home in more than six years. He, Rochambeau, and others had ridden overland and expected to reach the marquis’ camp on September 14.43

  Down in Williamsburg, Lafayette was in bed, sick with his fever and headaches. Everyone else was giddy at the prospect of victory. “I have not been pleased with Madam Fortune for some time,” Wayne told him, “& she has added to that displeasure in attacking you at this crisis with a caitiff [despicable] fever. Try my dear marquis, to shake it off, & I will endeavour to get clear of my complaint the soonest possible. We will then go hand in hand, & force her youngest daughters from the enemies arms!”44

  The marquis heard on the fourteenth that Washington and his party were approaching town. He leaped out of his bed, into his clothes, and onto his horse, galloped full tilt toward his adoptive father, jumped off the saddle, and ran, his arms outstretched, toward the general. Virginia militia major St. George Tucker told his wife that the marquis “caught the general round his body, hugged him as close as it was possible, and absolutely kissed him from ear to ear once or twice…with as much ardor as ever an absent lover kissed his mistress on his return.” Reunited at last, they were both in tears.45

  THE ENGINEERS TROLL ABOUT LIKE SORCERERS MAKING CIRCLES

  As soon as they reached Williamsburg, Washington and Rochambeau wanted to talk to de Grasse. On September 17 they set off on a sixty-mile cruise to the French anchorage at Lynnhaven Bay, near the mouth of the Chesapeake. Washington took an instant dislike to the tall, stout, crude admiral, who called him “mon cher petit général” (my dear little general) and treated him like a green lieutenant. He asked if the admiral’s orders allowed him to stay long enough to support a siege at Yorktown, rather than a coup de main (all-out assault). The first would be slow, the second bloody. De Grasse said that his orders required him to sail south on October 15, but he could stretch that till the end of the month. When the American asked him to send frigates up the York above Yorktown to cut off Cornwallis’ last opening, he refused. He declined to commit himself to other attacks after Yorktown fell, but he made more men and cannons available for the siege.

  Adverse weather kept Washington from getting back to Williamsburg until the twenty-second. There he found an astonishing letter from de Grasse, who planned to sail out to meet a British fleet said to be headed for him. The commander in chief answered that if the French navy left, it would produce disaster. Besides opening the door for Clinton to relieve Cornwallis, it would leave no way to feed the troops on the Peninsula. He sent Lafayette to see the admiral, who had already changed his mind and decided to stay, mostly because his captains wanted him to. Leaving two ships of the line and three frigates to block the mouth of the York, de Grasse moved to the bay entrance to await the British, who did not challenge him.46

  Washington and Rochambeau marched out of Williamsburg on September 28, driving in enemy outposts and patrols as they neared Yorktown. The country had been devastated. Fields were in weeds, and houses stood empty, their doors and windows broken. The country was flat, and in front of their works the British had turned a wide area into a sandy desert. Yorktown was small, a main street and four cross-streets on a bluff overlooking the river. The redcoats had made the best of a bad situation, not having any high ground to build on. Their main defense was close to the town, less than 300 yards from the bluff and about 1,000 yards wide. It was a system of earthen parapets and ditches, zigzagged to connect a series of redoubts. Any attack would be shot at from the flank as well as the front.

  The inner line housed sixty-five guns in fourteen batteries. The strongpoint, or “horn work,” covered the road to Hampton, and forward of it were several outworks. The Fusiliers’ Redoubt guarded Cornwallis’ right, Redoubts Numbers 9 and 10 his left. Washington thought that between 5,000 and 6,000 enemy faced his nearly 20,000 men. In fact, Cornwallis had nearly 10,000 men at Yorktown and Gloucester, including sailors and marines.47

  Washington was in command overall, and under him the French and Americans deployed in two wings. Rochambeau conceded the honor of the right to his allies, and the French took the left. To command the right wing, Washington assigned the senior major general, Benjamin Lincoln. Lincoln was fat, friendly, and incompetent, but Washington could not violate the pecking order any more than he could deny Lee’s right to command at Monmouth.

  Lafayette commanded the right of the American wing under Lincoln, Steuben the left, while Nelson led a second line of militia behind them. The arrangement did not satisfy the marquis, who wanted to command the whole right wing, forgetting his earlier message about serving under Lincoln. He thought he had earned the honor by leading the campaign that had trapped Cornwallis, and suggested sending Lincoln to Gloucester with an independent command. That “cannot hurt any body’s pretentions or feelings,” he claimed. Command of the right wing was the highest honor at Yorktown, and Lincoln would protest being deprived of it, so the junior general had to settle for the right end of the right wing.48

  A siege was an engineering operation, and there were no American military engineers. There were, however, about a dozen highly skilled French ingénieurs militaires in the two armies. Rochambeau, veteran of a dozen sieges, was content to let this one be an American operation, because he knew it would be plotted by French specialists following French methods. Washington’s chief engineer, Major General Louis Duportail, and his topographical engineer, Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Baptiste de Gouvion, were in charge.49

  Benjamin Lincoln, by C.W. Peale, 1781–83. Captured at Charleston, Lincoln was exchanged for William Phillips, and by virtue of seniority deprived Lafayette of command of the right wing of the allied armies during the Siege of Yorktown. (INDEPENDENCE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK)

  “The engineers troll about like sorcerers making circles around poor Lord Cornwallis,” Lafayette laughed, “and the general officers train their spyglasses, awaiting the moment to take the trench.” About a third of the soldiers were detailed to do the digging. Others went into nearby woods to make lumber for gun platforms, fascines (bundles of sticks to be dropped into enemy trenches during an attack), gabions (large wood-and-brush baskets to be filled with earth and form the body of the fieldworks), and abatis (tree trunks sharpened to points, planted to face outward against attackers).50

  Sappers and miners—troops who cleared the way for an assault on enemy fortifications—went out after dark on October 5 to transfer the engineers’ designs to the landscape. One of them was Joseph Plumb Martin, of Lafayette’s division. “It was a very dark and rainy night,” he remembered. They followed the engineers and laid laths of pine wood end to end to outline where the troops would dig the trenches. A stranger approached and told them, in case they were taken prisoner, “not to discover to the enemy what troops” they were.
The sappers were “obliged to him for his kind advice,” but they already knew sappers and miners were denied quarter under eighteenth-century rules of warfare, and were not about to betray their own secret. The stranger was General Washington himself. Then the rain fell so hard that all were ordered back to the American lines.51

  They went out again on the night of the sixth, while the British were distracted by Saint-Simon on the French left. His troops built a flying sap—a trench dug straight at the enemy, protected by pushing a gabion ahead of the diggers. Martin’s gang laid out the rest of the outlines for the first American work. It was a parallel, a trench and parapet 2,000 feet long and about 600 to 800 yards from the enemy line, with a ditch in front. The line troops were ready with their tools to start digging but had to stand by, Martin recalled, until “after General Washington had struck a few blows with a pickaxe…that it might be said ‘Gen. Washington with his own hands first broke ground at the siege of Yorktown.’” The ground was soft, and the work proceeded quickly.52

  By dawn on October 7, the Americans had shoveled enough dirt to protect themselves in their trench and four redoubts. Saint-Simon had drawn fire during the night, but Cornwallis did not know about the American earthwork until morning. The redcoats moved up some field guns and lobbed a few balls at it. On the allied left, more favorable terrain allowed the French to avoid extended entrenchments. They threw up redoubts and began moving their guns forward. The first allied batteries were done on the ninth, and Washington gave Saint-Simon the honor of starting the show at three in the afternoon, on the far left. By the next morning four more French and American batteries were in action, bringing the total of guns at work to forty-six. By midmorning their fire was so effective that the British could answer with only about six rounds an hour. When a civilian came out of Yorktown under a flag of truce on the tenth, he reported that most British troops were huddled beneath the bluff over the river. That night, French guns set a British frigate afire and sank three or four other vessels.