George Washington wrote to Laurens on April 9, explaining the necessity for the French to act at once if the dream of independence was to be realized.
If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the critical posture of our affairs it will avail us nothing should she attempt it hereafter. We are at this hour suspended in the Balance; not from choice but from hard and absolute necessity; and you may rely upon it as a fact that we cannot transport the provisions from the States in which they are assessed to the army, because we cannot pay the teamsters who will no longer work for Certificates. It is equally certain that our troops are fast approaching Nakedness, and that we have nothing to clothe them with, that our hospitals are without medicines and our sick without nutriment except such as well men eat; and that our public works are at a Stand and the artificers disbanding.
But why need I run into detail, when it may be declared in a word, that we are at the end of our tether, and that now or never our deliverance must come.
Sir Henry Clinton, in New York, was reported to have more than ten thousand men, while Washington’s force, in posts along the Hudson near West Point, had fewer than half that number. As the American commander confided to his journal, his army lacked storehouses filled with provisions and arsenals with military stores; it had neither the means nor the money to obtain transport; the General even had to suspend the regularly scheduled expresses between his headquarters and Rochambeau’s for lack of funds to pay the riders. Scavenging for foodstuffs had oppressed the local people, “souring their tempers and alienating their affection”; worse, almost none of the states had produced as many as one-eighth of the number of soldiers expected of them, indicating that no prospect of “a glorious offensive campaign” was in the army’s future, but rather “a bewildered and gloomy defensive one.” Not only were the people tired of the war; they were beginning to be apathetic about the eventual outcome, eager to have it over with on almost any terms so they could get back to some sort of normal life. The economy was in a shambles, the Congress was regarded as inept and incapable, and the future looked bleaker than ever.
Now another spring was here, and the Hudson, awesome in full flood, raced toward the ocean with millions of tons of meltwater from the Catskills and Adirondacks, bearing the message that it was time for the army, such as it was, to be on the move.
Six months earlier, the Comte de Rochambeau’s son, Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, Vicomte Rochambeau, had sailed for France on the frigate Amazone, taking advantage of a northeast wind and thick fog to slip through the British blockade, and though pursued by an enemy ship, the frigate barely managed to escape in a gale. After landing at Brest, the young man had gone immediately to Versailles to present “suggestions” from his father and General Washington to Louis XVI’s foreign minister, Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes. The suggestions were not welcome. This was, after all, the fourth campaign that would have to be supported by France, and where, the minister asked, would it end? It was impossible for the king to satisfy these insatiable demands for money, for “if he did so he would surely ruin France.” He pointed out that the king was under enormous financial pressures and had expected, at the very least, that the Americans would cover the expenses of their own military force.
At this point Benjamin Franklin stepped in, writing a masterful letter that appears to have mollified Vergennes and helped persuade him and the king to agree to send ships and financial support to America. Franklin had said he was growing old, enfeebled by illness, and did not have long to be concerned with these affairs, adding that the present junction was critical, that Congress might lose its influence over the people if it failed to attract the support needed to carry on the war. Shrewdly, the old man reminded Vergennes that if the English were to recover their former colonies, an opportunity like the present one might not recur, while possession of the vast territory and resources of America would afford the English a broad basis for future greatness, ever expanding commerce, and a supply of seamen and soldiers that would make them “the terror of Europe.”
The result of deliberations at the court of Versailles was that the Americans received their long-awaited reply on May 8, 1781, when the French frigate Concorde docked at Boston and Vicomte de Rochambeau, bearing orders from the court, debarked with Jacques-Melchoir Saint-Laurent, Comte de Barras, who was replacing the late Ternay as commander of the fleet, plus several officers who were to join the Comte de Rochambeau. The news brought by young Rochambeau was stunning. “We learned that M. [François Joseph Paul] de Grasse had left Brest March 22, with 26 ships of the line, 8 frigates, and 150 transports; that their destination was unknown; that it was believed that the ships, 4 frigates and most of the convoy would sail to the Islands [i.e., West Indies].” Of equal importance, the young man brought with him 6 million livres “to supply the needs and upkeep of the American army.”
Although de Grasse’s ultimate destination was indeed a secret, the fact that an important French fleet was under way to American waters was cause for immense joy by French and American commanders alike. Immediately, Washington called for an operations planning conference with Rochambeau and the Chevalier de Chastellux in Wethersfield, Connecticut, which the French—always interested in the aesthetics of a place—declared charming, saying, “it would be impossible to find prettier houses and a more beautiful view.”
With winter only a bleak memory, Washington was still eager for an opportunity to attack New York, believing a coup there to be “the most capable of striking a deathblow to Britain’s dominion in America.” Clinton had reduced his garrison by sending troops to the South, but if threatened he would certainly have to recall some of them, which in turn would reduce the pressure on Greene and Lafayette. Another factor favoring New York was Washington’s certainty that he could neither locate nor afford the means of transporting the allied armies to Virginia. Everything, of course, depended on the arrival of a superior French fleet in American waters.
Rochambeau, seemingly agreeable and as friendly as ever, possessed certain knowledge he was unwilling to share with Washington. He knew, for instance, that the main French fleet was sailing directly to the West Indies, but did not reveal how long it would be there; nor did he divulge the fact that de Grasse had orders to sail north in July or August. When he asked Washington how he proposed to capitalize on the possible presence of a superior French fleet, the American commander replied that it was difficult to say until they knew the size of the naval force, but in any case it could be used profitably in an operation against New York, or then again, in circumstances as yet unknown. (In fact, as both Washington and Rochambeau were aware, a French squadron would have a difficult time forcing the bar at Sandy Hook.)
What the Wethersfield discussions came down to was that Rochambeau preferred to focus attention on the Chesapeake Bay area, while Washington wanted a campaign in the South to be an alternative, to be undertaken only if the allies proved incapable of taking New York. Although Rochambeau was too diplomatic to say so in so many words, he was unalterably opposed to a strike against New York and began writing letters to see that the momentum went in the direction he desired. In the meantime, the conferees concluded, until word was received from de Grasse, the French army—minus several hundred left behind to guard the heavy artillery—would march to the Hudson and join the Americans in an operation against New York.
To be certain he got what he really wanted, Rochambeau sent a dispatch to de Grasse reporting the result of the conference, noting his own opposition to the conclusion and urging the admiral to sail not to New York but to Chesapeake Bay. He requested that de Grasse respond immediately because he wanted to “take the earliest opportunity to combine our march with that of General Washington, so as to proceed by land as expeditiously as possible, and join him at any stipulated part of the Chesapeake.”
When the Wethersfield meetings broke up, Washington had his aide Tench Tilghman send off renewed appeals for troop levies to the New England governors before the General rod
e to New Windsor to begin planning for the joint operation. Meanwhile Sir Henry Clinton was of course aware of the Wethersfield conference and knew the desperate state of Washington’s army, but he and Cornwallis were engaged in their usual bickering and Clinton, who had received word that the Americans and French were planning a strike against New York, ordered Cornwallis to send him “with all possible dispatch” all the troops he could spare.
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WHETHER WASHINGTON ADMITTED it even to himself, he was somewhat out of his depth in these dealings with French officers. The Virginia planter was a successful farmer without much in the way of formal education—with no knowledge at all of the French language—and while much of his adult life had been spent in military activities, he was often hard put to deal diplomatically with these proud, often touchy Frenchmen. Not only did these men have differing ideas as to how the war should be run, but each of them had allies in high places in France who could throw their weight around. Washington’s initial move, as a means of solving the language difficulty, had been to inform Rochambeau that he would communicate with him through the Marquis de Lafayette, “a friend from whom I conceal nothing.… I entreat you to receive whatever he shall tell you as coming from me.” This arrangement had been altered at Rochambeau’s urging, and, especially since the conference in Wethersfield, the American commander had found no need to rely on an intermediary other than Tilghman, who was proficient in French thanks to his education at the Philadelphia College and Academy established by Benjamin Franklin.
During their close association, Washington and Rochambeau did their level best to provide the public with the impression of Franco-American unity, but beneath the surface were many tense moments. The Frenchman was not an easy man to deal with, as his subordinates knew. Comte Fersen observed that he distrusted some of them “in a way that is disagreeable and indeed insulting,” and Claude Blanchard, Rochambeau’s commissary in chief, had many uncomfortable set-tos with him, complained of frequent “reproach and suspicion,” and went on to say, “He mistrusts every one and always believes that he sees himself surrounded by rogues and idiots. This character, combined with manners far from courteous, makes him disagreeable to everybody.”
Two other figures in the bizarre cast confronted by Washington were the Chevalier de Chastellux and the Chevalier de La Luzerne. Chastellux, third in command of the French army in America, was not only a prominent soldier but a famous philosopher and author, who was now traveling the United States collecting material for a book on the country. A dark-haired man with a long, rather solemn face and small green-brown eyes, Chastellux was immediately taken with George Washington, whom he characterized as “the greatest and the best of men.” In his book he provided a superb picture of the American general—one that was to influence contemporaries and generations to follow. The General’s strongest characteristic, he said, was “the perfect harmony which reigns between the physical and moral qualities.…” He was “Brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity.…” He was, in short, a very paragon of a man whom history, Chastellux predicted, would honor not because of any particular virtue but because, “at the end of a long civil war, he had nothing with which he could reproach himself.”
One of Washington’s skills that most impressed Chastellux (as it did many another contemporary) was his superb horsemanship. Washington’s horses, which he broke and trained himself, were universally admired, as was the way he always rode at a gallop, even when he had no special reason to hurry. “He is a very excellent and bold horseman,” the Frenchman wrote, “leaping the highest fences and going extremely quick without standing upon his stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse run wild.”
(Chastellux was nothing if not candid in his observations of the American army. Speaking of medical treatment, he remarked, “the distinction between surgeon and physician is as little known in the army of Washington as in that of Agamemnon.”)
La Luzerne, a friendly, worldly-wise, thirty-six-year-old, spoke almost no English when he appeared on the scene to become minister to the United States, but this did not deter him from becoming a man of enormous influence. Unlike La Luzerne, most of the French were no more comfortable dealing with their opposite numbers than the Americans were. Even Lafayette, who had come to know these new allies better than most others, observed, “I cannot deny that the Americans are somewhat difficult to handle, especially for a Frenchman.”
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WASHINGTON, LIKE ROCHAMBEAU, was determined to persuade de Grasse to sail to American waters—and soon—and he dispatched a trusted officer named Allen McLane, a daring cavalryman who had served brilliantly in numerous battles, to see de Grasse and provide him with full details on the military situation in the states. The American commander was beginning to have misgivings about the attack on New York and wanted to keep open the possibility of action in the Chesapeake, so in early June, McLane, appearing as a marine captain on the privateer Congress, sailed for the islands hoping to meet with de Grasse. On the way they spoke a French frigate, learned the location of de Grasse’s fleet, and McLane was soon aboard the French admiral’s flagship.
At that moment, de Grasse and his officers were considering an attack on the island of Jamaica but interrupted the discussions to hear McLane’s news from America. As McLane described his historic mission in his journal with tantalizing brevity, “Visited Cap François [now Cap Haitien] in July, was examined by Count de Grasse in Council of War aboard the Ville de Paris, gave as [my] considered opinion that Count de Grasse could make it easy for Genl Washington to reduce the British Army in the South if he proceeded with his fleet and Army to the Chesapeake.” Whether it was McLane’s persuasiveness or the written recommendations de Grasse received from Rochambeau and Washington at this time, the die was cast. De Grasse would sail for America.
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ON JUNE 10 the first brigade of French troops stepped off on what proved to be a 756-mile march to the South, in a departure from Newport that could only be described as an emotional spectacle. It was a sad occasion for the French, most of whom agreed with Jean-Baptiste-Antoine de Verger, who said, “there are few places or indeed none in the world, where the [fair sex] is so beautiful and so amiable,” and for the townspeople, who had thoroughly enjoyed the presence and impeccable behavior of these troops and were sorry to see them go. As the brilliantly uniformed troops dressed ranks, crowds lining the streets waved their hats and cheered and threw kisses as they began to march to the docks, where they embarked for Providence.
Apparently, a legion of officers regretted acutely that they would not see again a young Quaker woman named Polly Lawton (pronounced “Layton”). Her favorite pastime was teasing the visitors about their profession, which she called immoral, but that did not deter one French count from pronouncing her “a nymph rather than a woman,” whose eyes reflected “the meekness and purity of her mind and the goodness of her heart … if I had not been married and happy I should, whilst coming to defend the liberty of the Americans, have lost my own at the feet of Polly Leiton.” The Prince de Broglie wrote, “Suddenly the door opened and in came the very goddess of grace and beauty. It was Minerva herself, and her name was Polly Lawton,” whose costume had the effect of giving her the air of the Holy Virgin.
Unlike his love-struck officers, Rochambeau, after all the frustrations of prolonged inactivity, could hardly wait to leave Newport, knowing he had the honor of leading the cream of the French infantry—the Soissonnais and the Bourbonnais regiments, with which he had fought in the Seven Years’ War—along with the Saintonge and Deux-Ponts, two equally distinguished units.
Providence, where the army stayed for eight days, was a rather pretty town, according to one of the officers, well built and thickly settled, but it seemed deserted, with little commercial activity. None of the streets were paved and the town was surrounded by woodlands, but the air was pure and healthy.
Le
aving Providence on June 18, the army was ordered to march in four divisions, which were led by Rochambeau, Baron de Vioménil, Comte de Vioménil, and Comte de Custine, whose second in command was Louis-Alexandre Berthier (later marshal of France and Napoleon’s chief of staff). The going was difficult, especially for the artillery, and because of the roads, which were described successively as very poor, very bad, frightful, and execrable, it took almost two weeks to reach East Hartford. Upon arrival in Hartford, the army set up camp and stayed for two days to rest and make repairs to the artillery.
It is not clear how he knew this, since he had seen only Rhode Island and Massachusetts, but Clermont-Crèvecoeur pronounced Connecticut “unquestionably the most fertile province in America, for its soil yields everything necessary to life.” The pasturage was good, the cattle of excellent quality, and the poultry and game exquisite. The woods abounded in walnut trees (“the nuts are quite good, but you lose patience trying to eat them”), whose wood was used to make wheels and shafts of incredible lightness—unlike the carriages of France, which were so heavy they ruined the roads. Clermont-Crèvecoeur was so captivated by the lush orchards and apple trees that he got to thinking how unfortunate it was that the Americans did not make their own wine and substitute it for the cider they produced in such great quantity. Since the country had such a healthy and salubrious climate, he concluded that “the Americans’ laziness doubtless prevents them from making the effort.”
Such thoughts led him to ponder the people the French troops had seen. Among them were elders of both sexes who enjoyed perfect health at a very advanced age and were gay and amiable, “not at all burdened with the infirmities that are our lot in our declining years.” The people, though hardworking, “do not labor to excess as our peasants do. The sweat of their brow is not expended on satisfying the extravagant desires of the rich and luxury-loving; they limit themselves to enjoying what is truly necessary.”
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