The noise was tremendous, surpassing anything the Americans had ever heard. From great clouds of smoke, iron balls screamed into the enemy works, tearing holes in them. Where they were close enough, siege mortars added to the terror with exploding shells. The obese but energetic Knox was everywhere among the American artillery, amazing the British and the French alike. He had rounded up a siege train equal to that of the French, as if big guns and mortars could be picked up at country stores. Knox “scarcely ever quitted the batteries,” the chevalier de Chastellux reported, awestruck. He observed that if the English “were astonished at the justness of the firing, and terrible execution of the French artillery, we were not less so at the extraordinary progress of the American artillery, as well as the capacity and knowledge of a great number of the officers employed in it.”53
If Washington thought about his own ordeal at Fort Necessity as he watched hell fall onto the British lines, he told no one about it. Lafayette hardly saw him. He and the other major generals rotated in command of the American trenches, while Washington watched the work of the engineers. On October 11 the commander in chief agreed to open a second parallel closer to the British lines, reached by digging an approach trench, or zigzag, forward to where it would be. By that time, the marquis told La Luzerne, enemy return fire had fallen off almost to nothing. French and American officers champed at the bit, impatient with the slowness of the approach works. They wanted “to shorten the time by taking this point or that with drawn swords, but the general, who knows his success is assured, is determined to conserve the blood of his troops.”54
The second parallel extended toward the British left anchored on Redoubts Numbers 9 and 10, which had to be taken. Washington decided to storm them at night. Number 10, beside the river, stood in Lafayette’s sector, so he commanded the attack there. Number 9 went to Rochambeau, who assigned Colonel Guillaume, comte de Deux-Ponts, to lead 400 grenadiers against it. Saint-Simon would mount a diversion against the Fusiliers’ Redoubt, at the opposite end of the enemy lines. The commander in chief ordered all artillery within range to hammer the other two redoubts beginning on October 11, and by the fourteenth they were smashed up enough to take by coup de main.
Washington had told the American and French officers to come up with a coordinated plan of assault. Attacking troops should not make a sound as they approached the redoubts, or the defenders would shoot them to pieces before they got there. In Europe, troops advanced with their muskets unloaded, and storming a fortified position with bayonets was the high mark of professional soldiering. When one of the French officers doubted whether the Americans were ready for that, Lafayette bristled. Another Frenchman recalled that he “assumed a lofty tone with his customary boast, declaring that with his men he was accustomed to taking all positions with the bayonet alone.”55
Lafayette detailed 400 men, plus sappers and miners, to challenge Redoubt Number 10, putting his former aide Gimat, by then a colonel, in command. Hamilton commanded a battalion in Lafayette’s division, and he protested, claiming seniority. When Lafayette refused to hear him, he went to Washington, who replaced Gimat with Hamilton on the grounds that he was scheduled to be first officer of the day. In reality, he went along with Hamilton because this should be an American operation. Lafayette concurred. Since Laurens also took part, all of His Excellency’s boys were at risk.56
The redoubts were square, elevated earthen forts, about thirty feet on a side, open at the rear, bristling with abatis, and surrounded by ditches about eight to ten feet deep. The approach to them was made more difficult by shell craters, “sufficient to bury an ox in,” according to Private Martin. The sappers would precede the assault to clear a way for the infantry, then stand aside to let the others storm over the parapet against men armed with muskets and cannons. There were 120 British and Hessians in Number 9 and about 45 in Number 10. The works were about 200 yards apart.
Saint-Simon started his demonstration on the allied left at six-thirty on the evening of October 14. Half an hour later six cannons fired in succession, the signal for Deux-Ponts and Hamilton to start crossing about 200 yards of open land to their objectives. Each force had gone about 120 yards when a sentry fired at the French column from Number 9. Another shot rang out from Number 10, and the Americans, like the French, picked up their pace. Lieutenant John Mansfield led the spearhead, known as a “forlorn hope,” twenty men just behind the sappers and miners. He was followed by Gimat’s lead battalion, with Hamilton close behind. Hamilton’s own battalion, commanded by Nicholas Fish, attacked on Gimat’s left, and another under Laurens swung around to the rear to close off the enemy’s escape.
Just as the sappers reached the ditch, Number 10 exploded with musket fire. “I thought the British were killing us off at a great rate,” Private Martin remembered. Before the sappers did their work, the forlorn hope and Gimat’s men poured over the abatis, carrying the sappers along, while Laurens and his men stormed through the rear. As he mounted the parapet, Martin said, he “met an old associate hitching himself down into the trench; I knew him by the light of the enemy’s musketry, it was so vivid.” It was screaming, hand-to-hand combat, officers especially going down. One took a cannonball, another took two bayonets, and Gimat a ball in the foot. Lafayette reported that “the redoubt was stormed with an uncommon rapidity.” The fort’s defenders were overwhelmed, the survivors surrendering before they were all bayoneted. The whole thing had taken about ten minutes.57
Things did not go so well at Number 9. Unlike the Americans, who gamely ran over all obstacles and into the redoubt, the French followed the book. They waited for the sappers to clear a way, prolonging their time under fire before they crossed the parapet. Once they had done that, the garrison gave up. While Lafayette lost nine killed and twenty-five wounded, Deux-Ponts had fifteen killed and seventy-seven wounded. The enemy lost six officers and sixty-seven men captured; the rest were bayoneted. The redoubts were a ghastly mess of bodies and blood.58
Engineers and men armed with picks and shovels rushed into the redoubts to close up the open rears, which faced the British. Other parties extended the second parallel to the river, incorporating the redoubts. The Americans mounted two howitzers in each place, where they enfiladed the enemy trenches. After a few cannonballs had ricocheted that way, before dawn Cornwallis sent 350 men to spike the guns. They entered the second parallel where the Americans joined the French, killed a few sleeping Frenchmen and spiked their cannons, then pushed on toward the redoubts. Lafayette’s brother-in-law Noailles rallied a battalion that drove them back into Yorktown, but not before they spiked the howitzers. They did not do much of a job of it, using bayonets as spikes, so the pieces were back in action in six hours.59
I PITY LORD CORNWALLIS
Cornwallis tried to break out on the night of October 16. He planned to cross over to Gloucester and fight his way out of the lines there, but he did not have enough boats, and a violent storm wrecked his last hope. On the morning of the seventeenth, the fourth anniversary of Saratoga, about a hundred guns and mortars erupted with a constant, terrible thunder. Shot and shell tore into the British works, and houses in the town took a beating. Governor Nelson offered his own house as a target, assuming that it was the enemy headquarters. Cornwallis, however, had moved to a cave called “the grotto,” at the bottom of the bluff.
The British commander came out of his hole during the bombardment, looked out from the horn work, returned to the grotto, and sent an officer with a flag of truce. An American officer saw 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. The drummer accompanied him, beating.” The allied batteries ceased fire. An American officer ran forward and met the redcoat, tying the handkerchief over the Englishman’s eyes. He was led through the American works to a house in the rear.60
He carried a message from Cornwallis, proposing a surrender. He asked for twenty-four hours to submit his terms; Wa
shington gave him two, and they arrived at about four in the afternoon. Both sides appointed commissioners to work up final terms the next day. Washington ordered that “[t]he same honors will be granted to the surrendering army as were granted to the garrison of Charles Town,” meaning Lincoln’s surrender at Charleston, when he was denied the honors of war. This set off a protracted wrangle, but by early on October 19, 1781, it had all been sorted out and signed by the commanders on both sides. Washington stood firm on the Charleston terms, but otherwise it was a generous surrender, to take place a mile and a half south of Yorktown at two o’clock that afternoon.61
While that little dance went on, another took place in the American lines. Steuben commanded the trenches when the truce flag came across. Later, Lafayette arrived to relieve the baron as scheduled. Steuben refused to give up command, saying that under European rules of war, the commander who received the flag had the right to retain command until the negotiations ended. Lafayette appealed to Washington, who consulted Rochambeau and other foreign officers, who told him that Steuben was in the right.62
French and American troops lined up along either side of the Hampton road. The surrender terms required that the enemy troops “shall march out, with colors cased, and drums beating a British or a German march.” The redcoats and Hessians plodded along sullenly, their faces set straight ahead or toward the French side. They wanted to believe that they had been beaten by a professional army rather than by the ragged American rebels. A tradition invented in 1828 holds that their musicians played one song all through the ceremony, “The World Turned Upside Down.” In fact, many tunes were played by bands, fifers, and drummers on both sides that day. There were several known by that title, one of them derived from “When the King Enjoys His Own Again,” an old Jacobite serenade to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Since Charlie had rebelled against the king of England, the irony amused the redcoats, who had little enough to be happy about.63
Lafayette made his own musical contribution. Annoyed that the enemy refused to look at the Americans, he ordered a band to strike up “Yankee Doodle.” As Light-Horse Harry Lee remembered, “the band’s blare made them turn their eyes” to the American side. The redcoats had played it throughout the war to taunt captured rebels, although their own bands had played it at Saratoga.64
Cornwallis claimed that he was too sick to attend, so he sent his deputy, General Charles O’Hara, to surrender for him. O’Hara offered his sword to Rochambeau, who referred him to Washington. The Englishman apologized for his “mistake” and held the sword out. Washington would not accept surrender from a subordinate and handed him over to his American counterpart, Lincoln. The loser of Charleston took the weapon, then handed it back; O’Hara was entitled to keep it under the surrender terms. The enemy troops filed onto the field and grounded their arms and cased colors. Onlookers admired the spit-and-polish Germans but were annoyed at the redcoats, many of whom were drunk. Washington watched from a distance, gazing at the first surrender he had ever dictated.65
The American commander hosted O’Hara at dinner that night, and soon former enemies at all levels were exchanging visits. Cornwallis invited Lafayette, and the marquis took along a map to review their mutual history. The next day the senior redcoat visited Lafayette at his headquarters. The marquis had always admired Cornwallis, and found him polite, even charming. He was well educated, a round-shouldered man with a wide, pleasant face and deep-set eyes, who showed honest respect for the balding redhead he had once dismissed as “the boy.” The only rough patch came when the marquis rebuked the British for keeping Henry Laurens in the Tower of London. Cornwallis volunteered to be exchanged for him.66
Surrender of Cornwallis, by the Spanish painter Vicente de Paredes. There have been thousands of depictions of the event since 1781, and this one is no more inaccurate than the others. (LILLY LIBRARY, INDIANA UNIVERSITY)
Lafayette bragged to others about his part in the victory. “Our Virginia campaign has ended so well,” he told Vergennes, “and my respect for Lord Cornwallis’ talents makes his capture still more precious to me. After this attempt, what British general will take it into his head to come and conquer America?” He told the prime minister, “The play is over, Monsieur le Comte; the fifth act has just ended. I was a bit uneasy during the first acts, but my heart keenly enjoyed the last one.” “I pity Lord Cornwallis, for whom I have a high regard,” he admitted to Adrienne. He asked the prince de Poix, “As for me, my friend, judge whether my service has been agreeable…. As for the commander in chief, his genius, his greatness, and the nobility of his manners attach to him the hearts and veneration of both armies.”67
Lafayette begged Washington to let him lead an expedition against the British supply post at Wilmington, North Carolina. The commander in chief agreed, provided de Grasse would donate shipping and an escort. The admiral wanted to get back to the West Indies, and sailed away on November 3. Washington sent troops overland to help Greene. Lafayette wanted to command them, but Arthur St. Clair outranked him.68
The Main Army trooped out to return to New York, and Washington planned to stop at Mount Vernon on his way back. He and Lafayette agreed that, with no campaign in prospect, the marquis could do the cause more good if he returned to France to lobby for more aid. Lafayette said farewell to Virginia and his troops at the end of October, telling Governor Nelson, “I cannot refrain from presenting your Excellency with the homage of my gratitude, and acknowledging the obligations which in a civil and military capacity, I owe to your Excellency’s assistance.” That oiled over his refusal to discuss the impressment and Point of Fork controversies.69
“In the moment the major general leaves this place,” the marquis proclaimed to the Light Division, “he wishes once more to express his gratitude to the brave corps of light infantry who for nine months past have been companions of his fortunes. He will never forget that with them alone of regular troops, he had the good fortune to maneuver before an army…six times superior to the regular forces he had at that time.”70
Lafayette rode out on November 1, and soon Washington headed for home. They had planned a reunion in Philadelphia, but the commander in chief was detained by military affairs and the funeral of Martha’s son, John Parke Custis. “I owe it to friendship,” he told the young Frenchman, “and to my affectionate regard for you my dear marqs. not to let you leave this country without carrying with you fresh marks of my attachment to you; and new expressions of the high sense I entertain of your military conduct, & other important services in the course of the last campaign.”
Lafayette had asked about the next year’s campaign, and Washington emphasized that without naval superiority and more money, he could do nothing. He ended, “If I should be deprived of the pleasure of a personal interview with you before your departure, permit me my dear marquis to adopt this method of making you a tender of my ardent vows for a propitious voyage—a gracious reception from your prince—an honorable reward of your services—a happy meeting with your lady & friends—and a safe return in the spring.”71
Lafayette met tumultuous receptions in Baltimore and Philadelphia, which he reached on November 8. Congress granted his request for leave and appointed him an ambassador at large to advise the American delegates in Europe. They were told “to communicate and agree on everything with him.” The members sent him off with an appeal for another hefty grant or loan, gushing resolutions of praise, a flowery letter to King Louis, and a pile of instructions and letters of recommendation. His last duty in the capital was to preside over a court-martial of two Tory spies caught stealing documents from Congress. They were sentenced to hang.72
The legislature offered Lafayette the frigate Alliance, docked at Boston, to carry him and his party back to France. On November 29 he sent a short note to Washington. “I will have the honor to write to you from Boston, my dear general,” he said, “and would be very sorry to think this is my last letter. Accept however once more the homage of the respect and of the affection that render me for
ever your most obedient servant and tender friend.”73
The marquis and his group arrived in Boston on December 5, but his departure was delayed by weather and by receptions, parties, and tours in his honor. Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris had told the captain of the frigate to ensure that Lafayette arrived home safely. Captain John Barry sat in the harbor until the weather cleared, and when he sailed he would avoid engagements with British vessels.74
Still harbor-bound, on December 21 Lafayette wrote his farewell to his adoptive father, worried that the delays would make him miss the next campaign. On the twenty-third he added a postscript. “I beg your pardon, my dear general, to give you so much trouble in reading my scribles,” he said, his hand shaking with emotion. “But we are going to sail, and my last adieu I must dedicate to my beloved general. Adieu, my dear general, I know your heart so well that I am sure not distance can alter your attachement to me. With the same candor, I assure you that my love, my respect, my gratitude for you are above expressions, that on the moment of leaving you I more than ever feel the strength of those friendly ties that for ever bind me to you, and that I anticipate the pleasure, the most wished for pleasure to be again with you, and by my zeal and services to gratify the feelings of my respect and affection.”75
Alliance weighed anchor and headed out for France.
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