Victory at Yorktown

by Richard M. Ketchum

  Only one dark spot marred his idyllic picture of Connecticut: “You often encounter Tories here. This country is unfortunately swarming with them, and the harm they have done to the inhabitants is incredible.”

  Moving on, the French army camped in Farmington, where crowds turned out to hear their regimental bands play and watch their generals and colonels dance with the local girls.

  Several days later, after an otherwise uneventful trip, the troops stopped at Newtown, New York, a desolate place with ruined fields and houses, and much poverty, which the French were convinced was the capital of Tory country. The loyalists usually strike by night, they heard, when they travel in packs, attack an isolated post, then retire to the woods where they bury their arms. Although the French were on guard against these marauders, none appeared; the troops probably suffered greater psychological damage when their campsite in a stony field proved to be “infested with snakes and adders.”

  They spent two days in Newtown and planned to stay longer, but a message arrived from General Washington, saying he was on the march and hoped Rochambeau would join him soon. To facilitate matters, one of Washington’s aides, Colonel David Cobb, met them here and remained with them, since he knew the country well and could help plan their marches. He brought with him Sheldon’s dragoons, “who are incontestably the best troops on the continent,” according to Clermont-Crèvecoeur.

  Washington wanted Rochambeau’s first brigade to be in Bedford by the evening of July 2; from there, the armies would proceed immediately to King’s Bridge, fifteen miles from New York. On the march through western Connecticut the French noted the devastation of the villages, and in North Castle “Everything has been either destroyed or burned by the British.” Several attempts were made to find and attack Oliver DeLancey’s loyalist corps in this vicinity, but they failed. (Success depended on surprise, and the enemy could hardly be unaware of the allies’ movements.) By July 6, when they marched from North Castle to Philipsburg at White Plains, the troops had been on the road since 3 A.M. with nothing to eat; they found nothing to drink; and the heat was unbearable. They had to make frequent halts, and more than four hundred soldiers dropped by the roadside because of fatigue. That same evening a French officer, bedded down in a meadow, saw that the top of the grass was covered with sparks and, looking closer, discovered that these were generated by “a fly that imitates our glowworms.” He had just seen his first fireflies.

  On July 7, the moment arrived when the French and Americans actually camped cheek by jowl, separated only by a small stream near Dobbs Ferry. The next day La Luzerne, the French minister, arrived in camp, and Rochambeau put on a review for him and Washington and his officers. Washington had seen the French troops in Newport, Baron Closen said, so the spectacle “could not have made as much of an impression on him as on the other American officers, who were especially taken with Lauzun’s legion and its lancers.”

  Twenty-four hours later the American contingent—some four thousand strong—had its chance, and the French headquarters staff was invited to see it pass in review. Astonishingly, “the whole effect was rather good,” Closen wrote, but when Clermont-Crèvecoeur had his first opportunity to view the American camp, he was struck at first, not by the army’s smart appearance, “but by its destitution: the men were without uniforms and covered with rags; most of them were barefoot. They were of all sizes, down to children who could not have been over fourteen. There were many negroes, mulattoes, etc. Only their artillerymen were wearing uniforms.” He realized that these men and boys were “the elite of the country and are actually very good troops, well schooled in their profession. We had nothing but praise for them later,” he added, especially for the officers, who had good practical experience. A few of the American regiments had white uniforms: coat, jacket, vest, and trousers of white cotton, buttoned from the bottom to the calves, like gaiters. Several battalions wore little black caps with white plumes, and Washington’s mounted guard wore hard leather helmets with horsehair crests. Sheldon’s legion had large caps with bearskin fastenings. Three-quarters of the Rhode Island regiment, he said, “consists of negroes, and that regiment is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers.”

  On that same day Rochambeau wrote to Barras, informing him that the French troops had arrived safely and asking him to apprehend “ten love-stricken Soissonnais who returned to see their mistresses in Newport.” Then, writing to the minister of war in Versailles, he reported that his army had marched 220 miles in eleven days, finding or supplying their own rations, and whatever expense they had incurred “has been essential to our American allies.” Before concluding, he pleaded, “For heaven’s sake, Sir, do not forget our money and real funds for the month of October; our neighbors lack everything, and the subsidy which they can draw on in letters of exchange will soon discredit this currency.”

  * * *

  THE CLOSER THE French and American armies came to New York City, the more frequent the skirmishes—some with British or Hessians, others with loyalists of Oliver DeLancey’s corps—and the more devastation they saw. As Louis-Alexandre Berthier wrote:

  This whole country gives evidence of the horrors of war. The inhabitants here are in communication with the English and are pillaged by American raiding parties. All the Whigs have abandoned their houses. Among them are some very handsome ones, deserted, half destroyed, or burned, with untended orchards and gardens filled with fruits and vegetables, and driveways overgrown with grass 2 feet high. Only along the borders of the Sound is there less devastation, since there the inhabitants have changed sides whenever it has proved expedient.

  For a month and more, while playing cat and mouse with Clinton’s defense forces, Washington and Rochambeau made a careful study of the area—sometimes spending twenty-four hours at a time in the saddle. On one occasion, after mounting at five in the morning, they crossed to an island between the mainland and Long Island, and, while the engineers were taking some measurements, the generals lay down in the sun and fell asleep. The Frenchman awoke first, called Washington at once to say the tide was coming in, and they returned quickly to the little causeway on which they had crossed to the island, only to find it under water. Someone found a few boats, into which they threw their saddles and bridles, and two American soldiers went ahead, leading by the bridles two horses that were good swimmers, and some ninety other horses followed. This entire operation took about an hour, and fortunately the enemy never knew the predicament in which the supreme commanders of the American and French armies found themselves.

  In the third week of July they made a reconnaissance in force, screened from the enemy by five thousand troops, and wisely concluded that an attack on Manhattan was impossible—too risky by far. To oppose about five thousand French troops and somewhat fewer Americans, Clinton now had as many as fourteen thousand veteran soldiers behind well-fortified lines, protected by the East and Hudson rivers patrolled by British ships. During these weeks, seeing the rebel army at close quarters, Closen’s admiration for them continued to grow: “It is incredible,” he wrote, “that soldiers composed of men of every age, even of children, of whites and blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed, can march so well and withstand fire so steadfastly.” As for Washington, “He is certainly admirable as the leader of his army, in which everyone regards him as his friend and father.”

  * * *

  WHEN THE ARMIES were traveling over “execrable roads” on the way to King’s Bridge, the French artillery somehow lost its way, and Rochambeau sent Berthier out in the night to locate it. In the pitch dark, all alone in completely strange country that was crawling with loyalists, he followed one road after another, dismounting at every crossroad to feel the road for tracks made by the heavy guns. Finally, after doing this for several miles, he located where the artillerymen had made a wrong turn, galloped after them, and managed to get them on the right road so that they caught up with Rochambeau by daybreak.

  Later t
hat day the two generals, with their aides, engineers, and Berthier, reached Morrisania and surprised a corps of some twenty loyalists. Washington ordered eight dragoons to charge them, and five French officers went along, galloping up in hopes of taking prisoners; but just as they arrived, the loyalists took refuge in a house and greeted the allies with musket fire. The horsemen surrounded the house, calling on the Tories to surrender or they would burn the building. That threat was enough and out they came, but as they did they saw about two hundred men gathered across the river to support them, firing muskets and fieldpieces loaded with grapeshot. One of the loyalists, armed with a brace of pistols, rushed up to Berthier, shouting, “Prisoner!”; fired on him at a range of five paces, yelling, “Die, you dog of a Frenchman!”; and as he was about to fire his other gun, Berthier “got ahead of him by putting a ball through his chest, which killed him on the spot.” Berthier and his colleagues “sabered, shot, or captured the rest,” taking ten men and seven horses.

  Baron Closen was part of this escapade and estimated that he and his cohorts had drawn two hundred musket or pistol shots and about twenty rounds from the cannon, the only casualty being a horse ridden by the Comte de Damas. But Closen himself came close to death. As he pursued some loyalists through an orchard, his hat caught on a branch and then fell to the ground. Without thinking of the danger from the intense gunfire, he reined in his horse, dismounted, and picked up the hat. By the time he climbed back on his horse, the other officers had disappeared, and when he rejoined them where the generals were waiting, they said they thought he had been killed, all because of his “excessive pride.”

  * * *

  ON JULY 8 de Grasse sent word to Rochambeau that he would sail from Santo Domingo for the Chesapeake on August 13, just over a month hence, with twenty-five or twenty-nine ships of the line, bringing some three thousand troops of the Gâtinais, Agénois, and Touraine regiments, plus artillerists, cannon, and a hundred dragoons. Once in the Chesapeake he planned to stay until October 15—no longer—when he would have to return to the West Indies with his troops. It was clear at once to Rochambeau and Washington that they had a window of opportunity of four or five weeks at most in which to make use of the French fleet—if the British navy did not interfere.

  Washington wrote in his diary on August 1 that he could no longer see any grounds for continuing preparations against New York City, “and therefore I turned my views more seriously than I had before done to the operation to the southward.” Soon he was investigating whether there were any “deep-waisted sloops and schooners proper to carry horses” on the Delaware and the Chesapeake. From a joyful Lafayette he learned that Cornwallis was taking up a strong position at York and Gloucester, sealing himself off from rescue if the British fleet should not be on hand to protect him. York, the marquis wrote, “is surrounded by a river and a morass … Gloucester is a neck of land projected into the river and opposite to York”—both of them tempting, vulnerable targets. One man in the young Frenchman’s army considered the situation and concluded that Cornwallis’s “single tour to Virginia has cost the King more money by the loss of forts, men, cannon, stores, magazines, and supposed Carolina territory, than it would have cost the whole nobility of England to have made the tour of the world.”

  On August 14 Washington received what was unquestionably one of the most important letters of the war. Barras wrote from Newport, having heard from de Grasse that he was definitely sailing for the Chesapeake, bringing twenty-nine warships and more than three thousand troops. As Washington now knew, he had barely two months in which to concentrate the allied armies in Virginia, at least six hundred miles from Newport, and he wrote, “Matters having now come to a crisis and a decisive plan to be determined on, I was obliged, from the shortness of Count de Grasse’s promised stay on this coast … and the feeble compliance of the States to my requisitions for men … to give up all idea of attacking New York.…”

  On August 15 the General instructed Lafayette to position his force in such a way as to prevent Cornwallis from returning to North Carolina, and at the same time ordered General William Heath to remain behind with a regiment of artillery, Sheldon’s dragoons, and a number of understrength infantry regiments to safeguard the Hudson River posts. It was by no means enough, but it was all he could possibly spare. At the same time, since the crucial need was to convince Clinton that an attack was to be made on New York, rumors were spread that de Grasse was expected imminently, while the allied troops began crossing the Hudson near King’s Bridge. Knowing how vulnerable the armies were at that point, a French officer was astonished at Clinton’s inactivity. “An enemy, a little bold and able,” he wrote, “would have seized the moment of our crossing … for an attack. His indifference and lethargy at this moment is an enigma that cannot be solved by me.” What the Frenchman did not know was that one more worry had been added to General Clinton’s list of woes, leading him to be more cautious than ever. Prince William—George III’s son—had arrived in New York, seeking a bit of adventure. Now here was a young man the Americans would dearly love to capture, and Clinton had no intention of doing anything that would expose him to danger.

  From King’s Bridge, the allied armies moved to New Jersey as if they were to assault Staten Island, and to preserve the fiction, Washington brought along some landing craft capable of ferrying troops across to the island and the French built some bake ovens as though they were planning for a long stay.

  Apparently, the American commander had enough money by then to pay for express riders to carry his messages to Congress. A British spy (who signed himself “A Gentleman of Philadelphia”) informed his contact, a Captain Beckwith, that he was unlikely to send more information on the “Force and Situation” of Washington’s army, because the General now sent messages by different routes and “in as secret a way as possible.” All of which suggests that the spy had been intercepting Washington’s reports with some regularity. That aside, the “Gentleman” was able to give Beckwith a full account of all vessels that had sailed from Philadelphia’s port, including details concerning their cargoes and destinations.

  * * *

  AS HE HAD demonstrated on so many occasions during this long war, George Washington was a gambler—he had to be, given the paucity of his resources and the odds against him. Now, with recruiting almost at a dead end and his army dwindling day by day, he had no choice but to head for Virginia, hoping against hope that de Grasse’s fleet would materialize on schedule.

  It was a formidable challenge—one on which the future of Washington’s army and the newborn United States depended—and the operation was fraught with uncertainties and potential problems. First and foremost: what if the French naval squadron did not show up? Allied cooperation had failed before: in 1778, in an abortive campaign at Newport; in 1779 at Savannah; and in 1780 when the French fleet had been cooped up by the British at Newport. Another possibility was that the French fleet might be driven off by the British, in which case the allied armies would be stranded between New York and Virginia and the forces of Clinton and Cornwallis. A further uncertainty had to do with Barras, who was then in Newport with his squadron. He had to be persuaded to abandon his proposed attack on Newfoundland in order to carry Rochambeau’s heavy cannon to the Chesapeake, along with a large quantity of salt provisions Washington had laid aside for just such a purpose. Barras was actually senior to de Grasse and had no wish to serve under him. To compound the difficulties, Barras would have to sail past New York and on to the Chesapeake in the face of a likely encounter with a superior British naval force—quite possibly the fleet under the formidable Sir George Rodney that was rumored to be en route to New York from the West Indies.

  It is hard to conceive the difficulties of timing inherent in the scheme. Here you had one fleet sailing north from the West Indies and another coming south from Newport, both subject to the vagaries of wind, the possibility of severe storms, and the likelihood that they would be intercepted by British warships. And these two fleet
s were expected to meet on schedule.

  Then, rendezvousing with them would be some nine or ten thousand troops from two armies that could scarcely communicate with each other, soldiers who had to march hundreds of miles to their destination over poor or nonexistent roads, uncertain weather conditions, and the possibility of attack by General Clinton’s forces.

  And—the all-important fact—these disparate allied forces had to come together at precisely the same moment. All things considered, it appeared that only a miracle could make it happen.

  * * *

  AS WASHINGTON’S AND Rochambeau’s armies made their way south, Lafayette was about to get some help from the Pennsylvania line, which began arriving in Virginia in early June. In late March Anthony Wayne had promised Lafayette a thousand men, and on May 7 the Frenchman sent him a message, writing on the outside, “This letter being of grim importance must be forwarded day and night.” Even though the plea for help was slow in arriving, it was no easy matter for Wayne to fulfill his earlier promise. His men were in no mood to travel anywhere unless they were paid in something other than the hopelessly depreciated Continental currency. Writing from Philadelphia, Colonel William Grayson reported, “Wayne, with a thousand men, can’t move a peg at present for the want of cash.…” (In addition, his soldiers hated the idea of marching south, where the very air was regarded as unhealthy by northern troops, who were certain it caused ague and fever. Lafayette had been warned that since his hair was thin and he wore no wig, he might suffer death in the southern sun.) So angry were the Pennsylvanians over the lack of real money that another mutiny broke out, which was put down by the most draconian measures. Twelve ringleaders were sentenced to death, and when the firing squad shot, seven men fell, six of them dead. The seventh was bayoneted, with Wayne pointing a pistol at the executioner to ensure the deed was done. After the other five men were hanged, the Pennsylvanians marched, “mute as fish.”