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“A Successful Battle May Give Us America”
IF THE FRENCH did not recognize the significance to themselves of what they were doing in aiding the rebels, neither did the British as a whole consider what place their conflict with the American Colonies had or would have in history. They thought of it simply as an uprising of colonial ingrates which had to be put down by force. To those with a larger world view, it was an imperial power struggle against France.
Ideologically, in the eternal struggle of left and right, the rebellion was seen as subversive of the social order, and the Americans as “levelers” whose example, if successful, would set alight revolutionary movements in Ireland and elsewhere. The British government and its partisans, as opposed to Whigs and radicals, felt themselves to be the upholders of right and privilege who should be receiving Europe’s support instead of hostility in their fight for existence. With France and Spain as enemies and Holland about to be another, and with the prospect of the Neutrality League contesting sovereignty of the seas, Europe in not coming to Britain’s aid, or in actively aiding the Americans, was seen as cutting her own throat; if the Americans won, she would herself experience the tramp of radicals and hear the shout of “Liberty!” across her lands.
Of all people, the somnolent Prime Minister Lord North, who was always begging the King to let him resign because he felt inadequate to the situation, perceived the historical context of the conflict in which his country and its colonies were engaged, and the historical consequences of an American victory. “If America should grow into a separate empire, it must cause,” he foresaw, “a revolution in the political system of the world, and if Europe did not support Britain now, it would one day find itself ruled by America imbued with democratic fanaticism.”
The mutinies and privations of Mr. Washington’s army (the British could not bring themselves to accord him the title of “general”) offered a gleam of hope that the American Revolution was lagging, as could be seen in its want not only of material and finances but of fresh recruits. Encouraged, Clinton told himself comfortably, “I have all to hope and Washington all to fear.” Logically he was right, but a detached observer would have drawn no encouragement, for “hope” to Clinton meant further reason not to act, and “fear” for Washington meant a factor that existed to be overcome.
So certain were British managers of the war in their superiority of force that they remained convinced the rebels would have to give in and make peace. As Lord Germain, the King’s chief adviser, expressed it, “So contemptible is the rebel force now in all parts … so vast is our superiority that no resistance on their part can obstruct a speedy suppression of the rebellion.” Settled complacency allowed no other thought. Expectation of the rebels’ early collapse was all the more intense because it was sorely needed—for despite complacency, British resources were badly strained; recruiting was poor, victualing inadequate and finances on stony ground. The British clung to the belief that if only they could keep the war going, the Americans would have to surrender. Congress’ authority would fade and public opinion turn back to the mother country. Most cogent in their thinking was belief in the Americans’ early financial collapse. “I judge,” wrote General Murray from Minorca, “that the enemy finds the expense of this war as intolerable as we do.” A civilian skeptic was Walpole’s correspondent Horace Mann: “Unless some decisive stroke,” he wrote to his friend, “can be given to the French fleet either in America or in Europe, perseverance of the rebellious colonies and the point d’honneur of France will prolong it and wear us out.” George III himself could contemplate no such outcome. He insistently believed that victory was just over the hill, that the truly loyal people were about to rise and that with one or two hard blows the rebellion would collapse.
What made the difference in expectations on both sides was French intervention. The sinking to its lowest ebb in 1780 of the American cause prompted joint Franco-American planning to keep the Revolution alive and fighting. Washington had asked the French for money, for troops and, despite the mortifying results of d’Estaing’s campaign, above all for naval aid. He was absolutely convinced that without command of the coasts and freedom of the sea, the Americans could not win and that only by this means could Britain be defeated. The British arch in America rested upon New York and Virginia where Chesapeake Bay opened a long coastline on the Atlantic; communication between New York and Virginia, while the Americans held Pennsylvania and New Jersey in between, could only be had by water. Nor could the British Army live off the land, because of the hostility of the inhabitants; their supply and deployment within the country depended on transportation by water and control of ports and estuaries. If this could be blocked or wrested from them, the British would starve. Indeed, Clinton was to note afterward, of the period when he was afraid of losing naval superiority to d’Estaing, “Army three times in danger of starving.” If the statement was anxiety more than reality, it reflects Clinton’s sense of the deplorability of everything in the self-justifying account he wrote after the war.
Conversely, only if water transportation were made free to the Americans could the movement of troops make possible an offensive. This was the basis of Washington’s insistence on naval superiority. As he explained it to Colonel Laurens, son of the former President of the Congress, who was on a diplomatic mission to France, the British could not maintain “a large force in this country if we had the command of the seas to interrupt the regular transmission of supplies from Europe.… A constant naval superiority upon these coasts would instantly reduce the enemy to a difficult defensive.” Naval superiority “with an aid of money, would enable us to convert the war into a vigorous offensive.” Washington’s desire was for attack on New York, keystone of Britain’s military base in America. Recapture of Long Island and Manhattan from the British might, he believed, be the decisive blow. Because of the obstacle presented by the shallow draft of the waters at Sandy Hook at the entrance to New York, which had already barred the way to d’Estaing, and because of the better entry to Chesapeake Bay and its wider scope for action, his French ally Rochambeau, on the contrary, believed a campaign in the Chesapeake region would be more practical and more effective. Besides, it was here that the British Army under Cornwallis was the most active and menacing enemy force in the war.
Washington and other generals of the army deeply wanted America’s cause to be fought by her own people, but their hardest discouragement was the fainthearted patriotism of the country at large insofar as tangible support by the populace was evidence. At Valley Forge, Washington painfully acknowledged, failure of supply meant that there were men in his ranks “without the shadow of a blanket,” and they “might have been tracked from White Marsh to Valley Forge by the blood of their feet.” When levies were called for operations in the summer of 1780, fewer than thirty recruits had straggled into headquarters six weeks after the deadline. Civilians who volunteer generally wish to escape, not to share, privations worse than their own. They were not anxious to join the emaciated ill-clad ranks of the Continentals. Farmers’ contributions of wagons and teams to carry supplies were no more forthcoming.
After the d’Estaing fiasco, the army began to deteriorate, grumbling in their grievances against Congress for leaving them unpaid and in contention among themselves over ranks and seniority, and threatening resignations. Even General Greene, the steadiest of them all, now serving as Quartermaster General, complained bitterly that Congress gave him money no more equal to his needs than “a sprat in a whale’s belly.” He became so enraged by the negligence of Congress when he was trying to plan an offensive for the recovery of Savannah that even he talked of resigning.
On New Year’s Day of 1781 Pennsylvania troops, quartered in Morristown for a second hungry and shivering winter after the bitter one at Valley Forge, reached outrage at being left in misery and want and unpaid, while civilians sat tight in comfort. Lack of clothes and leather for shoes, of horses and wagons for transport, of meat and flour
and gunpowder in all units, of fresh recruits and of the confidence and support of the country, had left an army barely able to stand up. Generals’ letters reporting their shortages flowed over Washington’s desk. Even when provisions were on hand, they could sometimes not be brought to hungry companies for lack of transport. The troops took their only recourse to make their case: mutiny. Connecticut and New Jersey troops no less neglected joined the Pennsylvania line in its action and the outbreak was only contained by the example of the two from Connecticut who had been executed. “I have almost ceased to hope,” Washington had confessed in 1780 shortly before the mutinies. “The country in general is in such a state of insensibility and indifference to its interest that I dare not flatter myself with any change for the better.”
In France a change for the better was preparing. Vergennes, the Foreign Minister, though he did not appreciate being lectured by an American, was impressed by John Adams’ insistence that only naval power could decide the war in America, and that there was no use in France spending her forces on taking sugar islands in the West Indies or besieging Gibraltar or collecting an assault force for the invasion of Britain, because the place to defeat the English was in America. Pleas from the Continental Congress to the same purpose were having effect. From George Washington himself came a letter to La Luzerne, French Minister to the United States, stressing the need of naval superiority and asking for a French fleet to come to America. As forerunner, seven ships of the line under Admiral de Ternay, d’Estaing’s successor, came into Newport in July, 1780, bringing a man and a small land army who were to become essential partners in the final campaign. The man was General Jean Baptiste Rochambeau, age fifty-five, bringing three regiments under the command of the Marquis Claude-Anne de Saint-Simon, whose younger cousin Count Henri de Saint-Simon was the future founder of French Socialism. Both were related to the illustrious Duc de Saint-Simon, chronicler of the court of Louis XIV. The young count had volunteered to come with his troops to America to serve under Rochambeau’s orders. His regiments were then stationed on Santo Domingo in the West Indies, on loan to the Spanish. This happy addition was held in unhappy inaction for nearly a year because of the British blockade outside Newport. Without land transport, Washington could find no way to employ them. Without the means to move, Washington could not take the offensive, and to fight on the defensive, he knew, could never lead to victory. With money to pay for food, Rochambeau’s army remained at Newport, eating and flirting, militarily a blank— now, but not forever.
Rochambeau, a short stout figure of amiable disposition and solid military experience, proved an ideal ally, a strong supporter and loyal partner, willing to put himself second to the Commander-in-Chief without being subservient or a mere junior lieutenant. He had ideas of his own, which he was ready and able to advocate. Though sometimes engaged in sharp dispute with senior officers, he commanded the respect and unbroken discipline of his men. Despite the want and hardships of the coming joint campaign in enforced intimacy with Americans of alien speech and habit, no serious frictions marked the partnership. When the time came, the French soldiers marched through America in better order and discipline than either the English or the Americans had ever shown.
In the Rochambeau army was the Duc de Lauzun, the extravagant nephew of Rodney’s benefactor in Paris, soon to prove a dashing fighter in the Yorktown campaign. At Newport he “rendered himself very agreeable to the Americans by his prepossessing manners,” which we may easily understand to mean his free-spending habits. In a memoir, he relates that upon the departure of the French force from Brest, only half the promised transports were on hand, “forcing us to leave behind one brigade of infantry, one-third of artillery and one-third of my own regiment.” Clearly, the management of the French Navy had not improved since the muddled invasion effort of the year before. The most interesting thing about Lauzun’s memoir of his venture to a new world to attend the revolutionary birth of a new nation is the absence of any thought given or notice taken or comment of any kind about the historic events in which he was taking part, or about the country, people or politics of the war. As Lauzun was considered the archetype of young ornament of the French court, he may reflect his class and kind and the characteristics that brought them to extinction. Or, without making too much of it, he may merely have had a firm grasp of his personal priorities. These were his amours, which fill the first half of the memoir devoted to his life in France in the last years of the pre-Revolution aristocracy. For 140 pages we have a kiss-and-tell catalogue of his mistresses and their degree of “marked preference for myself” on first and growing acquaintance, with every name stated without regard for position, family or husband. When published under the Restoration, a time when émigrés of the former nobility wished to show the morality and rectitude of their lives, the book created a supreme scandal engaging two ruling critics, Talleyrand and Sainte-Beuve, in an angry controversy as to its authenticity. As the book’s only interest could be to contemporaries who knew and may have shared the favors of the ladies mentioned, it remains for posterity an empty shell with only a faint murmur of the glittering sea from which it came.
When, on August 25, Washington learned from Rochambeau the news brought by a French frigate, that the promised French Second Division on which he had counted to reinforce Lafayette and Greene in the South was blockaded at Brest and could not arrive until October at the soonest, by which time the army would have consumed all the provisions the region could supply, his iron endurance of disappointments was allowed to crack in a letter to his brother Samuel. “It is impossible for any person at a distance to have an idea of my embarrassments or to conceive how an army can be kept together under any such circumstances as ours is.” Within days came news of the defeat at Camden in South Carolina, exposing Virginia to invasion from the South. Washington could only patch the hole by sending a regiment from Maryland to Greene and summon the confidence to meet his French allies for a conference at Hartford on a plan of campaign.
On their arrival at Newport, de Ternay and Rochambeau marched down from Rhode Island (100 miles) through Connecticut to the meeting at Hartford on September 20–22. Washington brought with him old reliable General Henry Knox, the onetime bookseller from Boston who had made himself an artillery officer and had dragged the captured guns from Ticonderoga over ruts and hills to drive the British out of Boston in 1776. No one arrived with good news. Lafayette came fresh from the fighting in the South where in August, 1780, only three months after the fall of Charleston, the Americans had suffered the crushing defeat at Camden. Here the pugnacious General Lord Cornwallis was pursuing a campaign to conquer the whole of the state. At Camden he had thrashed General Gates, the hero of Saratoga and, afterward, a conspirator in the Conway Cabal that attempted to discredit and supplant Washington by a whispering campaign of insults designed to provoke him to resign. Conscious that he was indispensable, Washington refused to be drawn, but he could not prevent the malcontents in Congress from engineering the appointment of Gates to take command in the South. Under Gates’s clumsy generalship at Camden, the Americans lost 800 killed and 1,000 taken prisoner, and were further embarrassed by the hasty departure of their General in a retreat so far and so fast that it carried him by the evening of the battle seventy miles to Charlotte, and did not stop until he reached Hillsboro in the mountains. According to a statement by Alexander Hamilton, Gates in his craven abandonment covered 180 miles in three and half days, an unlikely distance in the given time, even with relays of fresh horses, which obviously could not have been prepared for a retreat. Whatever the actual fact, the shameful retreat was enough to plunge Gates into disgrace and suspend him from the army. An official investigation was ordered but never took place.
The victor, after fastening the British yoke on South Carolina, was now moving north through North Carolina toward Virginia, the Old Dominion and richest state of the South. Narrowed at its waist by the indentation made by Chesapeake Bay, it was the place, in Cornwallis’ opinion, to
cut off the richer resources of the South from the North and achieve the decisive stroke to end the war. “A successful battle may give us America” was his favorite dictum. The gleam of that single battle lured every commander on either side in the hope of finishing off a miserable war that would not end.
Ending a war is a difficult and delicate business. Even intelligent rulers, when they exist, often find themselves unable to terminate a war, should they want to. Each side must become convinced at the same time and with equal certainty that its war aim is either not achievable or not worth the cost or damage to the state. The certainty must be equal, for if one side perceives a slight advantage or disadvantage it will not offer terms acceptable to the other. In the Hundred Years’ War that dragged France and England through the 14th century, both sides would have liked to quit but could not, for fear of losing power and status; hate and mistrust fed by the war prevented them from talking. In the ghastly toll and futility of 1914–18, no end could be negotiated short of victory for one side or the other, because each felt it must bring home to its people some compensating gain in the form of territory or a seaport or industrial resource to justify the terrible cost. To come home emptyhanded might mean a revolt against the rulers at home—or at least the loss of their position and place in society, as the Kaiser and the Hohenzollerns were thrown out in 1918. Common soldiers are not rulers and do not have to worry about losing thrones or office so why, when in hunger and rags, do they go on? The answer is a complex of many factors: because they have absorbed a sense of the goal, because giving up in desertion or mutiny carries the ultimate penalty, because of comradeship, because if they leave the army they would have nowhere to go and no way to go home. For rulers to stop short of the declared war aim, thus acknowledging their own as well as their party’s and their nation’s incapacity, is as problematic as the camel’s passage through the needle’s eye. Short of absolute defeat, would the leaders of the American cause have given up their fight for liberty and independence or the British King and ministers have given up their imperial control? “Forbid it, Almighty God!” would have been the answer, and so each side in America fought on for the gleam of that successful battle and the “decisive stroke.”
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