There, in the capital of Maryland, he met with the Committee of Safety, delivered his glorious news, and made arrangements for the continuation of his journey. He learned, to his annoyance, that a letter from de Grasse to Governor Lee had already been forwarded to Congress, conveying the news of Cornwallis’s surrender to that body. The packet that ran between Annapolis and Rock Hall, carrying passengers as well as horses, some light freight, and wagons, normally took about two and a half hours, but Tilghman seemed to be jinxed by the weather. The packet, like his boat from Yorktown, was becalmed and took the entire day to reach Rock Hall on the evening of October 22.
Desperate to get moving, Tilghman was off the packet and on a fresh horse as quickly as possible, riding for Chestertown—where his father, two sisters, and a brother were then living—shouting his news to everyone he passed along the way. The Maryland Journal carried an account of his arrival in Chestertown and the celebration that followed—a great event attended by “a large number of worthy citizens,” which featured “the roaring of Cannon, and the Exhibition of Bonfires, Illuminations, etc.” before the gentlemen repaired to a suitable hall and drank thirteen toasts—first to General Washington and the allied armies, last to the state of Maryland, with an appropriate list of notables in between, including the French and Spanish kings and the officers who had rallied to the American cause. The next evening an “Elegant Ball was given by the Gentlemen of the Town” so the ladies might participate in “the general joy of their Country,” but Tilghman was not among those present.
He was still sick and exhausted, and after delivering his message spent the night of the 22nd at his father’s house. Next morning he was up at daybreak, riding again for Philadelphia. All that day and into the following night he rode hard, stopping only for a fresh horse when he could locate one. Just after 3 A.M. on October 24 he entered the outskirts of Philadelphia and cantered through the empty streets of the city to the house of his old friend Thomas McKean, president of the Continental Congress. Tilghman pounded on his door so violently that a night watchman appeared and threatened to arrest him for disturbing the peace. Fortunately, McKean arrived in his bedclothes, heard the news, and immediately shared it with the night watchman, an elderly German, who continued his rounds, calling out, “Basht dree o’glock, und Gornwallis isht da-ken!”
Tilghman was right to worry about arriving late with his news. As he wrote to Washington, de Grasse’s letter to Governor Lee had been delivered to Congress, but “I knew both Congress and the public would be uneasy at not receiving dispatches from you; I was not wrong in my conjecture, for some really began to doubt the matter.” Regrettably, the fatigue of his journey brought back his fever, and he was in bed almost continuously after arriving in Philadelphia. He met with a committee of Congress that wanted more details on the capitulation—the motives that had led to several of the articles, in particular—and Tilghman was delighted to inform the commander in chief that the committee was “perfectly satisfied with the propriety and expediency of every step which was taken.” In fact, the Congress as a whole concurred—all except the South Carolinians, “whose animosities carry them to that length, that they think no treatment could have been too severe for the garrison, the officers, and Lord Cornwallis in particular.” One member of that delegation had even argued that the British officers should be held until the further order of Congress, but his proposal was unanimously rejected as an affront to Washington and the Congress. In closing, Tilghman informed the General that as soon as he was well enough he would ride to Chestertown and await further orders, adding that he would join him without delay when summoned. In the meantime, he had one more official duty to perform.
The Congress had presented him with “a horse properly caparisoned, and an elegant sword,” testifying to their high opinion of his merit and ability. Presumably, that was the horse he rode to Chester, where he met his fellow aide, David Humphreys, who was bringing to Congress the colors surrendered by the British and German troops. The financier Robert Morris, who was a great friend of Tilghman, described the arrival of the captured colors. The city troop of light horse went out to meet them, he said, and became the standard-bearers—each of twenty-four privates carrying one of the flags, with the American and French colors preceding the trophies down Market Street and eventually to the State House, where “they were laid at the feet of Congress who were sitting.” Several members spoke to Morris later and told him that instead of regarding the transaction as one more in a series of joyous ceremonies, “they instantly felt themselves impressed with ideas of the most solemn and awful nature.”
The whole city went wild with joy. Lighted candles and lamps appeared in every window; people of all ages poured out of houses into the streets, jumping up and down, shouting, hugging their neighbors. In the morning members of Congress met to hear the reading of the dispatches and questioned Tilghman at length about the siege, the articles of capitulation, and what was being done about the prisoners the allies had taken. Cannons on the State House grounds were fired throughout the day, as were guns on ships in the harbor, all of which ran up their colors. At two o’clock that afternoon congressmen proceeded in a body to the Dutch Lutheran church to attend a service held by one of their chaplains, the Reverend Mr. Duffield, and, returning to the State House, passed a resolution of thanks to the army and voted to erect a commemorative monument in Yorktown. (Regrettably, no money was appropriated to build the monument, and years went by before it was erected.)
Tench Tilghman also discovered that the congressional till was empty when he requested reimbursement for his out-of-pocket expenditures. Congressman Elias Boudinot noted ruefully, “It was necessary to furnish him with hard money for his expenses. There was not a sufficiency in the treasury to do it, and the members of Congress, of which I was one, each paid a dollar to accomplish it.”
As it happened, the city of Newport, Rhode Island, heard the news almost as early as Philadelphia did. On the afternoon of October 24 the schooner Adventure, with Captain Lovett in command, arrived in the harbor, having left Chesapeake Bay on the 20th with the “GLORIOUS NEWS of the SURRENDER of LORD CORNWALLIS and his ARMY Prisoners of War to the ALLIED ARMY, UNDER THE COMMAND OF OUR ILLUSTRIOUS General, and the French fleet, under the Command of his Excellency, the Count de Grasse,” as an excited printer headlined the news, which was then sent on to Providence and Boston. As the joyous tidings spread from one community to another, the celebrations continued across the countryside. In the Highlands, Heath’s army devoted an entire week to salutes and banquets. In New Haven, Connecticut, Yale students sang a triumphal hymn, and their president, Dr. Ezra Stiles, wrote a grandiose letter to Washington that began: “We rejoice that the Sovereign of the Universe hath hitherto supported you as the deliverer of your country, the Defender of the Liberty and Rights of Humanity, and the Mæcenas of Science and Literature.” As the New York Journal reported, the remarkable capture of an entire British army, four years to the day after the surrender at Saratoga—“an event in which the hand of heaven has been visibly displayed—has been celebrated, in various expressions of thankfulness and joy, by almost every town and society in the thirteen United States.”
11
I NOW TAKE LEAVE OF YOU
In the lazy summer days of 1780, before Lord Cornwallis’s army descended on the little town of York, sixteen-year-old Mildred Smith wrote her friend Betsy Ambler, who was a year younger and had recently moved with her family to Richmond.
“When you left our dear little town,” Mildred said, “I felt as if every ray of comfort had fled.” Oh, the other local girls were charming and very fond of her, but they were all older and their “freedom and levity, almost amounting to indiscretion,” was troubling and made her blush for them.
When a party of visiting French officers arrived on the scene, the older girls’ “heads seemed turned” by the flattering attention of the elegant foreigners. Though not one in ten of the latter spoke a word of English, “their style of entertaini
ng and their devotion to the ladies of York are so flattering that almost any girl of sixteen would be enchanted.” It was a good thing that her well-loved Betsy was removed from these “scenes of amusement and dissipation” for her giddy, fifteen-year-old brain would have been turned.
On and on went the teenage chatter, to which Betsy responded in kind, telling of a party given for her and her sister when they had reached Williamsburg, consisting of “more Beauty and Elegance than I had ever witnessed before … a most charming entertainment, and so much attention did your giddy friend receive as almost turned her poor distracted brain.”*
A year later the tenor of the girls’ letters was transformed, with Betsy writing from Richmond to tell Mildred of an alarm that morning, with the British approaching by way of the James River. The next installment was from “the Cottage,” noting that when the British landed her family fled “in a winkling” with “Governor, council, everybody scampering.” (One reason for her apprehension was that her father was treasurer of Virginia.)
In each subsequent letter the news grew worse, and she was grateful that Mildred’s residence was too remote for her to suffer “the outrages of these barbarians.” The enemy had chased them out of Richmond along with Jefferson, “our illustrious Governor, who, they say, took neither rest nor food for manor or horse till he reached C-----r’s Mountain.”
Writing from Louisa Court House, she told how her father had taken to spending nights in his carriage in order to get out of harm’s way quickly, while the rest of them crowded into the overseer’s tiny building.
“When or where shall we find rest?” another letter begins. During that night they heard a terrible clatter of horses and the dreaded words “The British!” but upon opening the door discovered some “miserable militia”—local boys—who had come to tell them the enemy was marching through the country, but had no idea which route they had taken. Betsy’s family decided to move at once and “traveled through byways and brambles” until they reached the plantation of a friend on the way to Charlottesville. No sooner had they arrived and spread pallets on the floor to get some rest than they were warned that “Butcher” Tarleton had just passed by and would catch the governor before he reached Charlottesville. Panicked by the thought that their father had taken the same route, they soon learned that he had been warned in time to escape and, sure enough, here he came to hurry them off to the same place they had spent the night. “Great cause have we for thankfulness,” she added.
Another year later, in 1782, Mildred Smith wrote from Yorktown to her friend Betsy, beginning,
Again are we quietly seated in our old mansion. But oh! How unlike it once was! Indeed, were you to be suddenly and unexpectedly set down in the very spot where you and I have so often played together—in that very garden where we gathered flowers or stole your father’s choice fruit—you would not recognize a solitary vestige of what it once was. Ours is not so totally annihilated, being more remote from the shock and battery—but Heaven knows, it is shocking enough! Others that remain are so mutilated … as to grieve one’s very soul. But it is over!… the great end is accomplished. Peace is again restored, and we may yet look forward to happy days.
But despite Mildred Smith’s assurance, the war was not over.
* * *
IN FACT, THE whole of America was in a state of watchful waiting, dreading a continuation of the fighting, wondering where and when and how it would break out again. Most of the waiting had to do with outside forces, beyond the control or ken of Americans, notably which of the European nations would prevail at sea, and during the winter months the balance of naval power began shifting against the French. De Grasse and the French fleet had sailed for the West Indies, but the British were determined he would not seize Jamaica, and with reinforcements joining the fleet, by April the Royal Navy outnumbered the French fleet. Rodney, who was now in command of the British, had thirty-six ships of the line, while de Grasse’s numbers had been reduced to thirty, and when the inevitable clash came off Guadeloupe de Grasse was taken prisoner, five of his vessels were seized, and two more struck their colors and surrendered to Hood a week later.
* * *
GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS painfully aware of the continuing presence of British troops in Halifax, in Wilmington, North Carolina, in Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine, and, of course, Clinton’s forces in New York—some thirty thousand enemy soldiers, altogether. For all he knew, the ministry would send reinforcements to America in time to launch a fresh campaign in the spring of 1782, and when the Comte de Grasse informed him that he could remain here no longer and sailed for the West Indies on November 4, it was obvious that the British were once again in command of American waters. After lingering at Mount Vernon for a badly needed rest and time dedicated to his plantation and family, Washington rode northward to rejoin his army. Writing to Nathanael Greene, he said he would stop in Philadelphia and try to stimulate Congress to prepare the way for a vigorous and decisive campaign. His greatest fear was that the delegates, persuaded by the victory at Yorktown that “our work [is] nearly closed, will fall into a state of Languor & Relaxation.”
Greene himself was in desperate straits. As he informed Virginia’s governor, Thomas Nelson, “I have the mortification to hear no troops are coming from Virginia & but few from the other States.” If he received no reinforcements, the Carolinas and Georgia might well be lost to the enemy, which, with the reinforcements he heard were coming, would soon outnumber him three to one, not counting the Tories. The southern states had already been “ravaged and distressed so as to pain the humanity of every observer”; his own little army had no meat, not a drop of spirits, hardly a bushel of salt. If neither Virginia nor other states could send him Continentals or state troops, he continued, “I beg you will order out Two Thousand good militia immediately, well-appointed, well-armed, and properly officered to serve three months after their arrival at Camp.”
As ever, Washington wanted to be “prepared in every point for war”—not because he wanted hostilities to continue, only that the Americans must be ready for any eventuality. He had ordered the Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland troops to join Greene in South Carolina, while the rest of his army headed toward their old quarters in New Jersey and on the Hudson. Fortunately for Greene, the rumored British reinforcements proved false, and while he did get some Delaware and Maryland troops, no Virginians turned up; they refused to march unless they were paid for past duty.
Lafayette, who departed for France in late December, two months after Cornwallis surrendered, arrived at Versailles just in time to celebrate, with his wife and various members of the French court, the birth of the dauphin—a glorious event that had been awaited for eleven and a half years since Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were married.
In the Carolinas, sporadic fighting broke out between Greene’s troops and loyalists, between Greene’s men and those of General Leslie, but talk of peace was in the air, American officers were resigning, the “sickly season” of summer took such a toll that funeral services were omitted, and eventually neither the British forces nor Greene’s were strong enough to attack the other. Finally, more than a year after Cornwallis’s surrender, some of the loyalists and the remaining British troops boarded transports and evacuated Charleston.
* * *
FROM THE TIME news of Yorktown reached England, what was to happen in the next session of Parliament was the question that riveted the attention of most Britons and Americans. One dark November day, from his house in Berkeley Square, Horace Walpole was writing a characteristically chatty letter to a close friend, Sir Horace Mann. On the previous Sunday, Walpole had learned that Washington and the French had captured Cornwallis and his army, and he was glad to hear it. At least the troops were not all cut to pieces, he wrote, though it could hardly have come at a worse moment; Parliament was to meet on the morrow, and this news put the king’s speech and others “a little into disorder.” Pleased though he was, Walpole could not find it in himself to “pu
t on the face of the day and act grief,” since whatever brought an end to the war in America would save thousands of lives—millions of money, too. It is not honorable, he concluded, to boast of having been in the right when your country’s shame is what you predicted; nor would anyone want to join in celebrating France’s triumph.
To the Earl of Strafford Walpole revealed his emotions. “I have no patience with my country! And shall leave it without regret! Can we be proud when all Europe scorns us? It was wont to envy us, sometimes to hate us, but never despised us before. James the First was contemptible, but he did not lose an America! His eldest grandson sold us, his younger lost us—but we kept ourselves. Now we have run to meet the ruin—and it is coming!”
Walpole was outraged at the way Cornwallis had abandoned the loyalists. The general surrendered to save his own hide and ensure his safe return to England, and for the sake of his garrison; “but lest the loyal Americans who had followed him should be included in that indemnity, he demands that they should not be punished—is refused—and leaves them to be hanged!”
The devastating news from America found Lord George Germain at the same time Walpole heard it. The secretary of state for the colonies was at home in Pall Mall, speaking with a visitor, Lord Walsingham, when a messenger arrived with official intelligence of the surrender. Without saying anything to another person, the two got into a hackney carriage, picked up several other ministers, and drove immediately to Downing Street, where they knocked on Lord North’s door.
Someone asked Germain how the prime minister took the news when they informed him. “As he would have taken a ball in the breast,” Lord George replied, saying that North spread his arms and exclaimed wildly as he paced up and down the room, saying again and again, “Oh God! it is all over!”
Victory at Yorktown Page 28