Victory at Yorktown

by Richard M. Ketchum

  As late as September 8, Cornwallis had no reason to think he would not be relieved and rescued. French troops—3,800 of them—had landed, Lafayette was at Williamsburg, and reportedly the allied armies would arrive soon. Nevertheless, the British were ready for them and had taken a very strong position just outside town, where the troops were working on the redoubts. Happily, “The army is not very sickly. Provisions for six weeks—I will be very careful of it,” he wrote Clinton.

  On September 9 Admiral Graves sent a real shocker to Sir Henry, who had written him the day before to remind him that the troops were loaded aboard transports “and ready for moving to the Chesapeake the instant I hear from you.” The admiral, who was on his way to New York after his encounter with de Grasse off the Virginia capes, was sorry to inform the general that “the enemy have so great a naval force in the Chesapeake that they are absolute masters of its navigation.” He had met them coming out of the bay, he said, and “had a pretty sharp brush with their van and part of their center.” The French appeared to have suffered, he continued, but his fleet had taken much heavier damage. In this “ticklish state of things” the only hope of getting into the York River was by night, and even then it would be infinitely risky to send supplies by water. He closed by saying bravely that the fleet shall not be wanting, “for we must either stand or fall together.” Five days later the admiral wrote to Lord Sandwich, first lord of the Admiralty, informing him candidly of Cornwallis’s situation and adding, “We cannot succour him, nor venture to keep the sea any longer.”

  On that same day Clinton held a council of war. Those present were Generals Wilhelm von Knyphausen, James Robertson, Alexander Leslie, and John Campbell; Major Generals Thomas Stirling and James Paterson; and Brigadier Generals Samuel Birch and Benedict Arnold. The only naval officer present—in the absence of Graves and Hood—was Commodore Edmund Affleck. The question before them was occasioned by the letter from Graves: given his report that the enemy were “absolute masters” of the Chesapeake and had a superiority at sea, plus information from officers recently arrived from Cornwallis’s post, indicating that the earl had an estimated eight thousand troops on hand and provisions for ten thousand until the end of October, what should they do? Since the garrison could evidently defend the post for at least three weeks, was it advisable to commit a reinforcement of five or six thousand men “to the hazards of the sea during our present inferiority and endeavor to relieve Lord Cornwallis at all costs”? Or should they await further accounts from Admiral Graves and see how Admiral Digby’s squadron might affect their chances of success?

  After what was apparently a good deal of harrumphing and “yes, buts” and “what ifs,” it was unanimously resolved to “wait [for] more favorable accounts from Rear Admiral Graves or the arrival of Rear Admiral Digby.” How these senior military officers could possibly imagine that Graves would give them a more favorable account is difficult to imagine, but since Digby had not been sighted and no one knew how many vessels he had with him, surely it would be safe to delay decision until he arrived. And so Clinton procrastinated, but when Digby arrived on September 24 he proved to have only three ships of the line, manifesting the terrible reality of Cornwallis’s predicament. Sir Henry’s reaction was to complain that “the Lords of the Admiralty could have furnished Mr. Digby with a larger force than three ships and have sent him to North America earlier in the season.”

  That was no help whatever to Lord Cornwallis; nor was the fact that mail was taking ten days and more to reach that gentleman, making it exceedingly difficult to make plans or determine what he was to do.

  A week before Digby arrived in New York, Cornwallis had written to Clinton to say that de Grasse’s fleet had returned to the Chesapeake after the engagement with Graves and that Washington and some of his troops were now at Williamsburg. “If I had no hopes of relief,” the earl wrote, underlining a number of passages for emphasis, “I would rather risk an action than defend my half-finished works. But, as you say Admiral Digby is hourly expected and [you] promise every exertion to assist me, I do not think myself justifiable in putting the fate of the war on so desperate an attempt. My provisions will last at least six weeks from this day. I am of opinion that you can do me no effectual service but by coming directly to this place.” That was on September 16. The next day he added a note to the letter, warning solemnly, “This place is in no state of defense. If you cannot relieve me very soon, you must be prepared to hear the worst.” Sometime earlier Clinton had cautioned Germain that affairs were approaching a crisis. Now it was here.

  On September 17 Clinton held another council of war with his general officers and read them Lord Cornwallis’s letter dated the 8th, in which he had told his chief that he had provisions for six weeks. Unfortunately for the earl and his troops, the generals seemed to be oblivious to the passage of time and the fact that the Americans and French might be intensifying the earl’s predicament, and once again they stalled for time, deciding that any attempt to “throw in supplies and reinforcements ought to be deferred until it could be undertaken with less danger than at present.” Like chameleons seeking protective coloration, they turned to several loyalists who were familiar with the area and asked the Goodrich brothers and Hardin Burnley their opinion on “subsisting an army in Virginia without having the command of the waters of the Chesapeake.” The gentlemen didn’t think much of it. Their unanimous view was that “the difficulties would be great even to Mr. Washington, but almost insurmountable to an army of any considerable numbers who did not possess the good will of the inhabitants.”

  All of this led the generals to resolve that since an army could not act there alone without the cooperation of the fleet, it would be “highly improper to add considerably to the numbers already in Virginia” until such time as the presence of the fleet became practicable.

  Lord Cornwallis was to be left dangling in the wind.

  * * *

  WASHINGTON AND ROCHAMBEAU wanted in the worst way to talk with de Grasse, and it was agreed that they would meet the admiral at his anchorage in Lynnhaven Bay, at the mouth of the Chesapeake. For their transportation, de Grasse sent an elegant little sailing vessel called the Queen Charlotte, which he had captured from the British—“[it will] bear you across as comfortably as it is possible to do in this kind of boat”—and they set off with Chastellux, Knox, the engineer Duportail, and their staffs on what proved to be a sixty-mile sail, half of it down the James River, half across open water. At first light the next morning they came in sight of more than thirty ships of the line—more, certainly, than the Americans had seen before—and at noon they were piped aboard the enormous Ville de Paris and “received with great ceremony and military naval parade and most cordial welcome,” in Trumbull’s words. “The Admiral is a remarkable man for size, appearance, and plainness of address.”

  The admiral was in fact taller and considerably heavier than George Washington, and the story goes that he stepped forward, embraced him, and said in a booming voice, “Mon cher petit général!” which provoked considerable laughter on the part of all those present—except Washington.

  Another amusing incident occurred just as the Americans were boarding the admiral’s flagship. An English brig, thinking the ships in the harbor were all British, sailed into the midst of the French vessels and was hailed in English by a man on board the Ville de Paris to anchor alongside her. The captain of the brig launched his gig and, with some other English officers and a Hessian, sailed over to call on the admiral. At the moment they arrived on deck on one side of the flagship, Washington and Rochambeau appeared on the other. As a Frenchman wrote, “They were much surprised to find themselves on board the flagship of M. de Grasse, having believed it to be that of Admiral Graves.”

  After the introductions and formalities, the allied officers sat down in the admiral’s quarters, and Washington asked him a number of specific questions. The first two were the most important: Was the admiral bound by a definite date for the departure of
the fleet? And if Saint-Simon’s troops were obliged to leave ahead of the fleet, would the main naval force remain in the Chesapeake to cover operations against Cornwallis?

  De Grasse replied that his instructions were to leave on October 15, but he would, on his own, stretch that until the end of the month. That gave Washington almost six weeks in which to force Cornwallis to surrender, and while he couldn’t possibly know if that was long enough, it would have to suffice. As for Saint-Simon’s troops, Washington could count on them until the warships departed.

  Other questions followed. Did de Grasse have any men he could spare to strengthen the lines on either bank of the York? To which the admiral replied that he was willing to let Washington have eighteen hundred to two thousand men, as promised earlier, but he insisted that they be used only for a sudden attack. Could the admiral loan Washington any heavy cannon or powder? Yes, he could supply cannon, but little if any powder.

  The end of the conference was followed by a formal dinner and a tour of the flagship, after which Washington and his party went aboard their barge. The sun was setting, the flagship fired a salute, and at that moment Washington and his party were treated to an extraordinary sight. In the red glow of the sunset, on every mast in the fleet, the crews of the ships in the harbor manned the yards and tops, each man with a musket in his hand, which was discharged in an incredible feu de joie, while puffs of smoke exploded from the sides of the vessels.

  It had been a grand and satisfying affair, but Washington could not know that the six-hour visit would cost him almost four and a half days. For more than three of those days the little Queen Charlotte could make no progress whatever against the strong headwind sweeping down the river, and finally a frustrated Washington and Rochambeau went ashore and mounted horses for the trip back to Williamsburg.

  Arriving there about noon on September 22, Washington learned that almost all his troops had come into camp, along with the first division of French soldiers. He was euphoric, writing that “Everything has hitherto succeeded to our wishes. Nothing could have been more fortunate than the cooperation of the several parts of this great expedition in point of time.… in a very few days, I hope, the enemy at York will be completely invested.…” The only item of interest he found on his return was a message to Rochambeau that the British admiral Robert Digby was expected in New York with only three ships of the line and a convoy he was escorting. After a council of war Closen was told to take a letter from Rochambeau to de Grasse notifying him of this, and the young man left at four the next morning.

  By then Washington was accustomed to hearing rumors of all kinds, and he took little stock in this one since de Grasse had thirty-six ships of the line with which to oppose any British force.

  But the admiral, on receiving the news, took an entirely different view of the matter. As Closen described the French reaction to the information about Digby, “these excitable gentlemen of the navy, who think only of cruises and battles and do not like to oblige or to cooperate with the land troops,” were “alarmed and disquieted”—so alarmed in fact that de Grasse sent a reply back to Washington via Closen, announcing that since the enemy was now nearly equal to him in strength and it would be imprudent to remain in a position where he could not readily attack them, he would leave several frigates to block the James and two ships at the mouth of the York while he put to sea with the fleet. “I will sail with my forces towards New York,” he said, “and I may possibly do more for the common cause than by remaining here as an idle spectator.” Then, even more ominously, “it is possible that the issue of the combat may force us to leeward and deprive us of the power of returning. Under these circumstances what could you do?…” And finally, “I shall set sail as soon as the wind permits.”

  George Washington’s reaction to this bombshell can be imagined. The decisions made at the recent conference had been so clear and straightforward that it was simply incredible to think that the French admiral could alter them arbitrarily and without warning, jeopardizing the entire campaign. After discussing the problem with Rochambeau, the General prepared a letter to de Grasse pleading with him to remain in the Chesapeake. Cornwallis’s demise was certain; it was only a matter of time before he capitulated; and that surrender “must necessarily go a great way towards terminating the war and securing the invaluable objects of it to the allies.” This letter was to be delivered to the admiral by Lafayette, on the theory that his social prestige would guarantee an attentive hearing.

  Rochambeau also wrote a letter for Lafayette to carry: “The plan to go to New York, of which you ask our counsel, seems to us a matter of the greatest hazard” since the British would lose not a moment to rescue Cornwallis from his plight and “would be able in the night to pass without your seeing them.…”

  Once again Washington had to wait on tenterhooks for a reply that could ruin the whole plan of operation. Taking every precaution now, he asked Rochambeau to send the Duc de Lauzun with three hundred infantrymen and his cavalry to Gloucester to beef up Weedon’s twelve hundred Virginia militia, who were opposed by Banastre Tarleton. He also supervised the movement of cannon toward Yorktown and learned to his delight that French and Americans from the upper Chesapeake continued to land and join the growing camps at Williamsburg.

  At long last the reply came from de Grasse on September 27, and a curious one it was. It seemed that even before the arrival of Lafayette a council of de Grasse’s officers had disapproved of his decision to leave the bay. As the admiral put it, “… the plans I had suggested for getting underway, while the most brilliant and glorious, did not appear to fulfill the aims we had in view. Accordingly, it was decided that the major part of the fleet should proceed to anchor in York River.…” Poor Closen, who had already carried messages to and from de Grasse and was exhausted, having spent two nights on the water in open boats, now had to return with Lafayette to the admiral with yet another missive. “I did not fulfill my duties with very good grace,” he wrote, “for the weather was devilish, the sea was rough, and I still had two hours of tossing in a bitch of an open launch, where I was pretty well soaked by the oarsmen.” While the two arrived after de Grasse’s decision to stay in the vicinity had already been made, Lafayette apparently persuaded the admiral to leave the York River, where his actions were restricted, and return to his original anchorage near Cape Henry. They also discussed the possibility that de Grasse might attack Charleston on his way back to the West Indies.

  * * *

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK in the morning on September 28—a day when news of Nathanael Greene’s battle with the British at Eutaw Springs* was received—Washington, with Rochambeau and the two allied armies, began a brief, twelve-mile journey. The General had been dreaming about this day for a year and more—the day that would finally bring a major victory over a British army. Leaving about eight hundred men in the rear, they headed for Yorktown, where Cornwallis and his troops were entrenched. Short as the distance was, the troops suffered terribly from the oppressive heat that was “incomparably worse than anything we had previously endured” and the burning sand. All the officers, as well as the infantrymen, were obliged to walk because their horses had not yet arrived, so they were as tormented as the foot soldiers. Clermont-Crèvecoeur said two men fell at his feet and died on the spot. Astonishingly, he said, the roads that the British should have defended foot by foot were uncontested.

  About five miles down the road the armies split, the French taking a fork in the road that led to the left, the Americans to the right. They marched across beautiful, fertile country that lay between Williamsburg and Yorktown, which had been made a desert by the war. Houses were silent and empty, with no sign of life; doors flapping, windows broken, fields lying fallow, and grass waist-high in the roads. To their surprise, it was not until the British fortifications came into view that the enemy showed themselves, with a troop of dragoons parading in the distance the only sign of activity. Several allied guns fired a few shots, and the cavalry disappeared behind the
outworks.

  Off to the left Baron de Vioménil led the advance of the French with his grenadiers and chasseurs, taking advantage of the woods for cover. With the approach of night Washington’s men set up camp in forested land about a mile from the enemy’s left, and the General and his staff bivouacked under the trees. This was on the near side of Jones’s Run, on level ground at the edge of an old field, with a spring just down the hill to the west. Rochambeau’s tents were pitched about five hundred yards from this pleasant spot. In front of them was Great Run, and the next morning, despite some desultory cannonades from two British outposts, the troops crossed it and began digging.

  With a huge French fleet anchored in Chesapeake Bay, blocking Cornwallis from escaping by sea, and on land a vastly superior allied army confronting him, the siege of Yorktown had begun.

  9

  I PROPOSE A CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES

  One of Washington’s first moves was to seal off the British outpost at Gloucester by sending Lauzun’s cavalry and infantry there to reinforce the twelve-hundred-man outfit led by George Weedon, a brigadier who was a former Fredericksburg tavern keeper known to his clientele as “Joe Gourd.” The Duc de Lauzun described Weedon as “a rather good commander, but hating war that he had never wanted to wage, and above all, mortally afraid of gun shots.” That was unfair. Lauzun may not have known it, but after actively “blowing the seeds of sedition” in the early 1770s, Weedon had served in Washington’s New York and New Jersey campaigns in 1776, became acting adjutant general of the army in 1777, and fought at Brandywine and Germantown before asking to be put on the inactive list. Then he returned to organize military resistance in Virginia and serve in the Yorktown campaign.

  The first fighting of the siege occurred in Gloucester. What faced Weedon when he got there was a daunting prospect: the village, fortified by a line of entrenchments with four redoubts and three batteries, mounting nineteen guns, suddenly erupted in a shattering display of firepower. That was too much for the American force, and Weedon’s boys turned tail and headed for the rear. As they did, the Duc de Lauzun and his legion arrived on Gloucester plain and met some Virginia dragoons riding for their lives, saying Tarleton was after them. Lauzun rode ahead and “saw a very pretty woman at the door of a little farmhouse on the high road,” who told him that Colonel Tarleton had left her house only a moment before, after saying he was eager to shake hands with the duke. The Frenchman informed her he had come on purpose to gratify Tarleton, and rode on. Not more than a hundred paces from the house he heard pistol shots, galloped forward, and saw the English cavalry, about three times his own number, which he charged without halting. Tarleton, who had about six hundred men, including four hundred cavalry, caught sight of the French officer and rode toward him with pistol raised. As they were about to fight mano a mano between the troops, one of the English cavalry horses was hit by a spear thrown by a rider in Lauzun’s regiment and, plunging, overthrew Tarleton’s horse and the colonel himself. The duke put spurs to his horse, hoping to capture his foe, but Tarleton’s men were quicker and covered their leader’s retreat. Lauzun pushed his hussars forward, leaving his infantry in the rear, but as soon as they came within musket shot of the enemy the hussars retired to right and left, leaving the infantry a clear field of fire, to which Tarleton’s men replied. The English charged twice without breaking the French line; then Lauzun countercharged several times with great success, wounding Tarleton, overthrew some of the enemy cavalry, and drove them back to the Gloucester entrenchments before retiring on orders from the Marquis de Choisy.* According to Lauzun, Tarleton lost an officer, some fifty men, and quite a number of his men were taken prisoner.