Meanwhile, Carleton continued to make progress with the evacuations, and Washington responded by steadily dismissing the Continental army. He discharged all but several hundred men on November 2. Washington thanked the troops for “their extraordinary patience in suffering, as well as their invincible fortitude in action.” He then bid “a final adieu to the armies” he “so long had the honor to command.”5
Ten days later, Carleton sent Washington an update. The British would evacuate northern Manhattan and parts of Long Island on November 21, and the remainder of the posts “as soon after as may be practicable.” The “practicable” time turned out to be noon on the 25th. When the last British soldier left, Washington, with the New York governor at his side, accompanied by eight hundred of the remaining Continental infantry, as well as a number of militia, entered New York City.6
Anchored in the harbor with his fleet, Carleton wrote Washington on December 1: He expected to sail three days later “if wind and weather permit.” Washington returned the courtesy the next day, thanking him for the notice. “I . . . sincerely wish that your excellency, with the troops under your orders, may have a safe and pleasant passage.” Washington also would leave then, first for Congress, then for home.7
Carleton had evacuated more than 35,000 Loyalist refugees and 20,000 soldiers. The government rewarded him for his American service with a peerage—he became Lord Dorchester—and, in 1786, a new assignment: governor of Canada’s now three provinces and commander-in-chief. As governor, he again tried to balance the needs of French Canadians and the now-significant population of English Canadians. “I confess myself as yet at a loss for any plan likely to give satisfaction,” he said. He resigned in 1794 and returned home in 1796. Although he kept an interest in politics, he spent much time breeding horses and managing his three estates.8
Throughout the day, Wednesday, December 4, Staten Island residents stood on a bank overlooking the Narrows, the channel through which the British fleet sailed to leave New York harbor for the ocean.
“We were very boisterous in our demonstrations of joy,” said an eyewitness whose words were passed down to a nineteenth-century historian. “We clapped our hands, we waved our hats, we sprang into the air, and some few, who brought muskets with them, fired a feu-de-joie. A few others, in the exuberance of their gladness, indulged in gestures, which though very expressive, were neither polite nor judicious.”
A British ship responded to the gestures by firing a cannon shot that landed on a nearby bank. It scattered some of the spectators.
“A few rods from us stood another group, composed of men and women, who gazed silently, and some tearfully, upon the passing ships—for some of the females had lovers, and some, husbands, on board of them, who were leaving them behind, never, probably, to see them again.
“It was long after dark when the last ship passed through the Narrows.”9
NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS
BF Papers of Benjamin Franklin
CE Canadian Encyclopedia
DAR Documents of the American Revolution
DCAR Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution
DCB Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
DNB Dictionary of National Biography
EB Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition
FO Founders Online
GW George Washington Papers
HMC Historic Manuscripts Commission
JA Adams Papers Digital Editions
NBS Nothing But Blood and Slaughter, Patrick O’Kelley
NCHP North Carolina History Project
NG The Papers of Nathanael Greene, Dennis M. Conrad
NPS National Park Service
OED Oxford English Dictionary
WPA Works Progress Administration
INTRODUCTION: HOW TO END A WAR
1. David Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire (New York: Random House, 1965); Johnson to Richard Russell, March 6, 1965, http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/presidentialrecordings/johnson/1965/03_1965.
2. Richard Eder, “Aiken Suggests U.S. Say It Has Won War,” New York Times, October 20, 1966, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, 1, 16.
3. John W. Mashek, Politico, August 3, 2009, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25710.html; Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, June 9, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-plan-for-afghanistan-declare-victory—and-leave/2011/06/09/AGz8LrNH_story.html.
4. James K. Polk, Third Annual Message, December 7, 1847, American Presidency Project, University of California Santa Barbara, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29488#ixzz2ixcK9fDu.
5. Mason Locke Weems, The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia: Joseph Allen, 1837), 112; Greg Walker and Mort Walker, Beetle Bailey (King Features Syndicate, October 17, 2010); NPS, Colonial National Historical Park, “Yorktown Battlefield,” http://www.nps.gov/york/index.htm.
6. Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (New York: Modern Library, 2009), 169.
7. NG, 10:xxii; Calloway (2013), xii; Thomas Hutchinson, August 8, 1774: Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., ed. Peter Orlando Hutchinson (London: Sampson Low, 1883), 215.
CHAPTER ONE: THE TREATY
1. François Boucher, American Footprints in Paris (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), 100; Daniel Jouve, Alice Jouve, and Alvin Grossman, Paris: Birthplace of the U.S.A. (Paris: Gründ, 1995), http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMV9D_Hotel_de_Valentinois_Paris_France.
2. Elénor-François-Elie, Comte de Moustier, to Armand Marc, Comte de Montmorin, September 8, 1789, Kaminski, 279; Joshua Loring to Jonathan Palfrey, May 13, 1790, Stahr, 277-278; Robert Livingston, Stahr, 285.
3. Emma Lawton and Shannon Wait, “Finding aid for David Hartley Papers, 1783-1785,” May 2011, William L. Clements Library, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsmss/umich-wcl-M-196har?view=text; Wraxall (1884), 124.
4. Charles James Fox, Fleming, 249.
5. John G. Blair, “The Story behind the Proclamation of Peace,” Blair House Publisher, http://peaceproclamation.com/proclamation_story.html.
6. Franklin, 572.
7. Washington to Henry Knox, February 1, 1783, FO.
CHAPTER TWO: O’HARA’S WARS
1. The Times, December 16, 1793, 2; Samuel Hood, Ireland, 252.
2. Roger Lee, “The War List,” The History Guy, http://www.historyguy.com/War_list.html#warlist2.
3. Ireland, 238.
4. Elliot to Lady Elliot, November 24, 1793, Elliot, 190.
5. Bonaparte to Marmont, 1798, Browning, 244.
6. Elliot, 195.
7. David Dundas, The Times, December 26, 1793, 2.
8. O’Meara, 126-127; Elliot, 193-194.
9. O’Meara, 126-127.
10. Bourrienne, 21; Browning, 256.
11. Baskin, “Charles O’Hara”; Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, vol. 3 (London: George Bell, 1902), 248, GB.
12. Alan Valentine, The British Establishment 1760-1784, vol. 2 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 659; Baskin, “Charles O’Hara.”
13. Donald N. Moran, “King George III’s Soldiers, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara.” Sons of Liberty Chapter, SAR, http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/ohara.html; Baskin, “Charles O’Hara”; DNB, “O’Hara, Charles,” 42:61-62; Christopher Bryant, correspondence with author.
14. John Moore in G. C. Moore Smith, The Life of John Colborne, Field-Marshal Lord Seaton (London: John Murray, 1903), 65.
15. Thomas Hamilton, The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1868), 216-217; Horace Walpole to Mary Berry, April 15, 1791, Lewis (1866), 301.
16. NPS, Gateway National Recreation Area, Sandy Hook Lighthouse (rev. 2005).
17. Clinton (1954), 100.
18. O’Hara to Grafton, November 1, 1780, O’Hara, 159-160.
19. O’Hara to Grafton, April 20, 1781, O’Hara, 174.
20. O’Hara to Grafton, April 20, 1781, O’Hara, 175; Lamb, 345.
21. Baskin, “Charles O’Hara”; Cornwallis to Germain, March 17, 1781, Tarleton, 317.
22. O’Hara to Grafton, April 20, 1781, O’Hara, 177.
23. Greene to Anthony Wayne, July 24, 1781, NG, 9:75; Public Advertiser, June 19, 1781, Lutnick, 471.
24. Urwin, 59, 67-68.
25. Jefferson to William Gordon, July 16, 1788, FO.
26. Cornwallis, Riley, 178; Selesky, 1292; Quarles, 141; Urwin, 75-78.
27. Quarles, 142; Selesky, 1295.
28. Clinton, Riley, 41.
29. O’Hara and Cornwallis letters, August 5–17, 1781, Sylvia R. Frey, “Between Slavery and Freedom: Virginia Blacks in the American Revolution,” Journal of Southern History, 49:3, August 1983, 393.
30. Frey, op. cit., 394; John Graves Simcoe, Simcoe’s Military Journal (New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1844), 303.
31. Johann Ewald, Tustin, 342; Stephen Popp, “Popp’s Journal, 1777–1783,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 26:2, 1902, 246.
32. Denny, 45.
33. Abbé Claude Robin, New Travels Through North America (Nouveau Voyage dans l’Amérique Septentrionale). (New York: New York Times Arno Press, [1783] 1969), 65; Edward Hand, “Edward Hand to Jasper Yeates on the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 6:8, August 1902, 286.
34. Johann Ewald, Tustin, 335-336.
CHAPTER THREE: ROCHAMBEAU AND WASHINGTON
1. Selig (2007), 43; Christopher Bryant, email to author.
2. Eliphalet Dyer to Joseph Trumbull, June 17, 1775, Stahr, 108.
3. Charles Royster, The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), 21; Dorothy Twohig, Chernow (2010), 23.
4. John Adams to John Taylor, June 9, 1814, FO.
5. Chernow (2010), 457.
6. Robert Morris to John Jay, July 4, 1781, Rappleye, 231.
7. George Washington to John Laurens, April 9, 1781, FO.
8. Selesky, 994; Selig (2007), 9. Selig says Laurens and Rochambeau accompanied each other, but there is no evidence in other accounts.
9. Richard Peters Jr. to William Henry Harrison, January 12, 1818, Henry Simpson, The Lives of Eminent Philadelphians (Philadelphia: William Brotherhead, 1859), 705-707.
10. Claude Blanchard, The Journal of Claude Blanchard, ed. Thomas Balch (New York: Arno Press, [1876] 1969), 121-122.
11. London Packet, Martha Laurens to John Adams, January 16, 1782, FO, n1.
12. St. George Tucker, “St. George Tucker’s Journal of the Siege of Yorktown, 1781,” William and Mary Quarterly, series 3, 5:3, July 1948, 392-393; Lossing, 518.
13. Franklin and Mary Wickwire, Cornwallis: The American Adventure (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 3; Arnold Whitridge, Rochambeau (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 226.
14. Lee (1827), 370-371; Closen, 153; James Thacher, Military Journal of the American Revolution (Hartford: Hurlbut, Williams, 1862), 288-290.
15. Thacher, op. cit.; Mathieu Dumas, Memoirs of His Own Time, including the Revolution, the Empire, and the Restoration, vol. 1. (London: Richard Bentley, 1839), 69-70n.
16. Clifford K. Shipton, “Benjamin Lincoln: Old Reliable,” George Washington’s Generals, ed. George Athan Billias (New York: William Morrow, 1964), 193.
17. Betsy Knight, “Prisoner Exchange and Parole in the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, 48:2, April 1991, 214.
18. Johnathan Trumbull, “Minutes of Occurrences respecting the Seige [sic] and Capture of York in Virginia,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1875–1876 (Boston: MA Historical Society, 1876), 337; Cromot du Bourg in Stephen Bonsal, When the French Were Here (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, 1945), 167-178.
19. O’Hara, 179.
20. Clinton (1954), 587.
21. Wraxall (1904), 293-297.
22. Germain description, Wraxall (1904), 398.
23. Wraxall (1904), 401.
24. Annual Register . . . for the Year 1782 (London: G. Auld, 1800), 291-292, GB.
25. Lutnick, 478; John W. Fortescue, The Correspondence of George the Third from 1760 to December 1783, vol. 5 (London: Macmillan, 1928), 313-314.
26. Probus, Morning Chronicle, December 11, 1781, and Regulus, Morning Chronicle, December 14, 1781, in Alfred Grant, Our American Brethren (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995), 117-118.
27. Vergennes to Lafayette, 1er Xbre [December] 1781, in Henri Doniol, Histoire de la participation de la France à l’établissement des Etats-Unis d’Amérique . . . , vol. 4 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1890), 688.
28. Adams to John Jay, November 26, 1781, FO.
29. Francis Dana to Robert Livingston, March 5, 1782, DCAR (1857), IV:611.
30. Franklin to Robert Morris, March 9, 1782, FO; Franklin to Washington, April 2, 1782, FO.
31. Greene to Thomas Nelson, October 24, 1781, NG, 9:473; to Thomas McKean, October 24, 1781, NG, 9:483; to Francis Marion, November 11, 1781, NG, 9:558; to Alexander Martin, November 14, 1781, NG, 9:570-571.
32. Washington to Greene, November 16, 1781, NG, 9:580.
33. Barnet Schecter, George Washington’s America: A Biography Through His Maps (New York: Walker, 2010), 192, 209; Greene to John Rutledge, January 21, 1782, NG, 10:229.
34. Richard Henry Lee, The Floyd E. Risvold Collection, vol. 1. (New York: Spink Shreves Galleries, January 27, 2010), 9.
35. John Jay to Gouverneur Morris, October 13, 1782, Spahr (2006), 161.
36. Washington to John Laurens, July 10, 1782, GW; to James McHenry, September 12, 1782, GW.
37. Washington to Greene, October 31, 1781, NG, 9:504-505.
38. Washington to Marquis de Chastellux, January 4, 1782, FO.
39. Washington to Greene, October 31, 1781, NG, 9:504-505.
CHAPTER FOUR: RICE AND THE LOW COUNTRY
1. Unknown writer: Cheves, 309.
2. Coastal Service Center (NOAA) and S.C. Dept. of Natural Resources, Characterization of the Ashepoo-Combahee-Edisto (ACE) Basin (Charleston: Coastal Service Center, 2000); Lawrence Sanders Rowland, et al., The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina: 1514–1861, vol. 1 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 86.
3. Unknown writer, 1671: Cheves, 308-309.
4. William Feltman, The Journal of Lieut. William Feltman, of the First Pennsylvania Regiment, 1781–’82 (Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1853), 33-34, 39, 47.
5. Tilden, 217, 227.
6. McDowell, 311.
7. Denny, 46.
8. Edelson, 38-41.
9. Joyce E. Chaplin, “Tidal Rice Cultivation and the Problem of Slavery in South Carolina and Georgia, 1760–1815,” William and Mary Quarterly, 49:1, January 1992, 31; Clifton, 273; Jennifer Payne, “Rice, Indigo, and Fever in Colonial South Carolina,” http://jenpayne10.info/indigo.html; Henry C. Dethloff, “The Colonial Rice Trade,” Agricultural History, 56:1, January 1982, 232-233.
10. Rob Martin, “Cowes Rice Trade,” Isle of Wright History Center, http://freespace.virgin.net/robmar.tin/rice/rice; Jean M. West, “Rice and Slavery: A Fatal Gold Seede,” Slavery in America, http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_rice.htm.
CHAPTER FIVE: GENERAL LESLIE COMES TO CHARLESTOWN
1. Clinton (1954), 354.
2. Kenneth Rutherford Davis, The Rutherfords in Britain: A History and Guide (Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton, 1987), 42-45; Debrett (1828), 526; Richard L. Blanco, ed., The American Revolution, 1775–1783, An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1993), 919; H. G. Purdon, An Historical Sketch of the 64th Regiment, http://web.archive.org/web/20010911013815/http://www.cvco.org/sigs/reg64/64th_sketch.html; Baskin, “Alexander Leslie”; Essex Institute, 325.
3. John Peebles and Ira D. Gruber, John Peebles’ American War . . . (Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1998), 179; Ann Hulton, Letters of a Loyalist Lady . . . (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), 63; Massachusetts Spy, March 2, 1775: Endicott, 38.
4. Account from Endicott, 13-31; David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 58-
63; Robert S. Rantoul, “Some Claims of Salem on the Notice of the Country,” Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, vol. 32, 1896, 3-13.
5. Endicott, 25-26.
6. Selesky, 620; Essex Institute, 325, and Debrett (1828), 526, incorrectly describe the relationship. See: “Capt. Hon. William Leslie,” http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk/lobsters/index.html.
7. Cornwallis to Germain, March 17, 1781, Baskin, “Alexander Leslie.”
8. DAR, 20:252.
9. HMC, 2:360.
10. HMC, 2:463; Leslie to Clinton, December 27, 1781, DAR, 20:288.
11. Clinton (1954), 356; HMC, 2:357; Pennsylvania Packet, June 4, 1782, NG, 11:140, n3.
12. HMC, 2:463; George Smith McCowen Jr., The British Occupation of Charleston, 1780–’82 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 87.
13. DAR, 20:254; Leslie to Clinton, November 30, 1781, Clinton (1954), 589.
14. Leslie to Clinton, December 27, 1781, DAR, 20:288.
15. Leslie to Germain, January 3, 1782, HMC, 2:378-379.
CHAPTER SIX: THE DEPUTY SAVIOR
1. Thomas Mifflin, Thomas Fleming, Washington’s Secret War (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 102; McCrady, 730.
2. McCrady, 720; Edmund Randolph to James Madison, August 16, 1782, Burnett, 455n2.
3. Dennis M. Conrad, August 26, 2009, National Archives and Records Administration, CSPAN recording; Greene to Washington, November 9, 1776, Carbone, 42.
4. Carbone, 10.
5. Greene to Sammy Ward, Carbone, 11.
6. Carbone, 3-5, 16.
7. Estimates of Caty’s birth date range from 1753 to 1756. Her gravestone says she died in 1814 at age 59, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=33086947&PIpi=55800232; Elizabeth F. Ellet, Stegeman, 10; Greene to Caty Greene, October 14, 1780, Stegeman, 81; Johnson (1851), 390.
8. Washington to Congress, March 18, 1777, GW.
9. Knox to Judge Henry William de Saussure, Garden, 76.
10. Greene to Washington, April 24, 1779, FO.
11. Washington to John Mathews, October 23, 1780, GW.
12. Greene to Caty Greene, December 7, 1780, NG, 6:542.
13. Garden, 76.
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