In the Hurricane's Eye

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  And yet still no word from de Grasse. Inevitably, Washington’s temper began to fray. On August 28, he fired off an admonitory note to twenty-five-year-old William Colfax, the captain of his Lifeguards: “The enclosed are the instructions which I meant to deliver verbally, with some explanation, but your absence has prevented it! When business or inclination (especially on a march) calls you from your command I should be glad to know it, that I may regulate myself and orders accordingly.” Commissary general Pickering was also castigated for his unavailability. But all of them, of course, were doing the best they could.

  And then Washington learned that a large fleet of British warships had arrived at Sandy Hook, most likely from the Caribbean. Had they attacked and defeated the French fleet? Was that why he had not yet heard from de Grasse?

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  ON AUGUST 10, eight days after his commander in chief, Admiral Rodney, sailed for England, Rear Admiral Samuel Hood departed from the British base at Antigua with fourteen ships of the line. By then Hood knew de Grasse had sailed from Cap François to Havana. What he did not know was how many ships the French admiral had taken with him. Assuming a significant number of French ships of the line had been left in the Caribbean to defend Haiti and Martinique, as well as to escort the convoy of merchant ships bound for France, Hood was confident that his and Graves’s fleets were sufficient “to defeat any designs of the enemy, let de Grasse bring or send what ships he may in aid of those under Barras.”

  Rodney had left orders for him to stop at the Chesapeake and Delaware on his way to New York to make sure the French fleet had not arrived at either place ahead of him. Hood, who had left the Caribbean as quickly as possible “lest the enemy should get to America before me,” appeared confident that he was far enough ahead of de Grasse that there was no need to make the intermediary stops Rodney had required. Although Hood claimed he’d found “no enemy . . . either in the Chesapeake or Delaware,” Graves later insisted Hood had never actually stopped at either place, and logbook records from Hood’s fleet appear to bear out the claim. For an officer with a reputation as a stickler, it was a curious lapse in judgment, especially since the French fleet had actually left the Caribbean several days ahead of him. As Graves was soon to discover, now that Hood had been temporarily freed from the overbearing presence of Rodney, he was displaying a rebellious, verging-on-insubordinate tendency to ignore the wishes of his superiors.

  On his arrival at Sandy Hook, Hood discovered that a strange sort of languor had gripped British military leadership in New York. Instead of focusing on the imminent naval threat from the south, Admiral Graves and General Clinton (who had not yet learned that the French fleet in Newport had set sail) were preoccupied with plans to attack de Barras. Graves had spent the summer in a literal fog off the coast of Massachusetts searching for a French fleet he never found. Clinton had cycled through a long list of possible initiatives (one of which had included attacking Philadelphia) but had never been able to settle on a single objective, preferring instead to devote the majority of his energies to criticizing Cornwallis’s actions in Virginia. “Sir Henry is all mystery,” William Smith, the British chief justice of New York, recorded in frustration, “seems to approve [of a plan] but changes and resolves nothing.”

  As a subordinate, Clinton had been full of bold and daring ideas, but now, midway into his third year as commander in chief, he was quite content to coast. Not only was he well paid (his salary was higher than the prime minister’s), he had the use of no less than five sumptuous houses in and around New York and seemed disinclined to begin a campaign that might take him away from his afternoon fox hunt. He was prone to what Smith described as “such gusts of passion that no gentlemen of spirit and independence will long continue in his [military] family.” The sycophants who served under Clinton, Smith continued, “study only to make a use of their general for their own interests. . . . None of the set seeks information. . . . Poor Sir Henry! His want of parts renders him insensible of his dangers.”

  Clinton later insisted that there was nothing he could have done to interfere with the allied army’s crossing of the Hudson and subsequent march across New Jersey since the largest force he could have mounted against them (four thousand men) would have been easily defeated by the combined American and French armies. With the exception of the naval expedition to Newport, his best option was to sit tight and prepare for a siege, even though he was daily receiving intelligence reports (despite Washington’s attempts at subterfuge) that the Americans and French were actually preparing to march to Virginia. From Clinton’s perspective, Cornwallis had nothing to fear from Washington and Rochambeau since the British admiralty had assured him “of our having a naval superiority.” Because of his confidence in the British navy, it would have been wrong of him, he further insisted, to “entertain the most distant suspicion that General Washington really intended to march his army to the Chesapeake, where I knew it was impossible for such a number of troops to be fed without his having command of those waters.”

  Admiral Graves was in a similar state of denial, even proposing that de Grasse was really headed back to France. When Hood first arrived at Sandy Hook, Graves suggested that, for reasons of safety, he bring his fleet over the bar and into New York harbor, a process that would have delayed the fleet’s sailing for several days. Troubled by the lack of urgency, Hood decided he must speak with his superiors face-to-face. “I got into my boat,” he recalled, “and met with Mr. Graves and Clinton on Long Island, who were deliberating upon a plan of destroying the ships at Rhode Island. . . . I humbly submitted the necessity which struck me very forcibly of such of Graves’s squadron as were ready coming without the bar immediately, whether to attend Clinton to Rhode Island or to look for the enemy at sea.”

  When they learned the next day that the French had sailed from Newport several days before, it became clear even to Clinton and Graves that the British navy must be sent to the Chesapeake. And yet when Hood insisted that they should sail as quickly as possible, the general and the admiral equivocated. “Graves and Sir Henry not fond of it,” William Smith recorded in his journal, “but Hood pressed it, declaring that the French are gone to Havana and will be coming here.” Graves wanted to wait until the Prudent and Robust, the two 74s that had been so badly damaged during the Battle of Cape Henry, were ready to sail. Hood, however, asserted that they already possessed an adequate force. “He is sure they will be superior to the united force of French and Spaniards after their detachment for the trade home,” Smith wrote. “He is confident of their ill condition, and for fighting them wherever they can be met with.”

  Hood, full of arrogant impatience, had already roared up the coast of North America without giving the Chesapeake a serious look. He now disdained the need to bring along as many ships of the line as possible. Graves was hardly the man to impose his will upon an impetuous subordinate. At the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, in 1757, he’d elected not to attack a French merchant vessel because he feared it might be a more powerful ship of the line, an exercise in caution that had earned him a court-martial and public reprimand. At the Battle of Cape Henry, just six months before, his ship, the London, the largest in the action, had been disabled by the smallest vessel in the French fleet.

  On August 31, these two very different admirals and their nineteen warships departed for the Chesapeake.

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  WHEN WASHINGTON LEARNED the British had sailed from Sandy Hook, he had still heard nothing from either de Grasse or de Barras. He feared that “by occupying the Chesapeake,” the British fleet “should frustrate all our flattering prospects in that quarter.” With so much riding on the appearance of the French fleet, Washington confessed to Nathanael Greene that “the present time is as interesting and anxious a moment as I have ever experienced.” There was nothing he could do, however, but “hope . . . for the most propitious issue of our united
exertions.”

  By the end of August both the French and American armies had made enough progress south that it was impossible to hide that they were not headed for Staten Island and New York. “Our destination can no longer be a secret,” James Thacher wrote in his journal. “Lord Cornwallis is unquestionably the object of our present expedition. It is now rumored that a French fleet may soon be expected to arrive in Chesapeake Bay. . . . The great secret respecting our late preparations and movements can now be explained.”

  For Washington, the final leg of the march through New Jersey, from Princeton to Trenton, must have brought back a flood of memories from the winter of 1776–1777, when victories at those two towns had saved the American war effort from collapse. Now, almost five years later, in the sweltering heat of summer, he had a chance to finish what he had started. But first he had to get his army down the Delaware River to Philadelphia and ultimately to Christiana Bridge in Delaware, where they would disembark for a short, twelve-mile march to Head of Elk at the top of Chesapeake Bay.

  Colonel Samuel Miles had rounded up twenty-three sloops, four schooners, and four bargelike scows to transport the army down the Delaware from Trenton. Unfortunately, there was room for only about four thousand men. If the American army (which was in advance of the French) transported all its soldiers by water, there would be enough boats for only a portion of the French army. “Some delicacy must be used,” Washington advised General Lincoln, “without . . . giving umbrage to our allies by taking more care of ourselves than them.” Luckily, the French were more than willing to march by land to Philadelphia, and since the river was much lower than it had been during that stormy Christmas night in 1776 when Washington and his men had crossed the Delaware in the opposite direction, Rochambeau’s soldiers were able to wade across at a fording place just upriver from Trenton.

  By September 1, Washington was in Philadelphia, where he and Rochambeau and their staffs stayed at Robert Morris’s house on Front Street. After having kept the destination of their march a secret for the last two weeks, it was now time to announce that they were headed to the Chesapeake. When Lieutenant Colonel Jean Baptiste Gouvion was sent ahead to assess “the state and condition of the intermediate roads and the measures proper to repair them,” he was also told to “excite the inhabitants” in an effort to “facilitate the movement of our wagons.” Washington sent letters to the leaders of the affected states, calling for their help in providing his army with provisions and livestock. His “strongest fears,” he confessed in a circular sent to New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, were that even though the farmers in the region had enjoyed an excellent growing season, his army would be forced to disband for a lack of food.

  To assist the American army in the purchase of these supplies now that the “Continentals” issued by Congress had depreciated to the point that they were worthless, Morris had gone to the extraordinary length of issuing his own currency. Just as Washington held together the American army, Morris was single-handedly providing the country with a way to pay for the war. Known as Morris notes (“Bobs” for short), this unusual, desperately last-ditch form of currency would prove indispensable in getting the army to Yorktown.

  The citizens of Philadelphia (who had enjoyed several years out of the line of fire) were jubilant about the exciting turn the war had taken. Many of Washington’s soldiers, however, were less than enamored with the prospect of marching several hundred miles into a region known for its infernal temperatures and killing fevers. The Americans were also more than a little envious of their better-supplied comrades in arms, the French. In addition to being paid on a regular basis, the French were allotted a pound and a half (or half a loaf) of bread each day. Back in July and early August, when the two armies were encamped side by side on the Hudson, some of the French soldiers had even tried to sell a portion of their rations to the Americans, who, of course, had no money of their own. Fights had erupted, and the resentment had continued to build until many Continental soldiers were on the verge of mutiny.

  Washington had foreseen the problem weeks before and warned Morris that without the promise of a month’s pay, his men would more than likely desert before proceeding into Maryland. And “Bobs” would not do. They must be paid, for the first time, in real, hard money, just like the coins they could hear clinking in the knapsacks of the French. But where was Morris going to find more than twenty-five thousand dollars in specie?

  On the afternoon of September 2, the majority of the American army marched into Philadelphia “in slow and solemn step,” James Thacher wrote, “regulated by the drum and fife.” Since it was a warm, dry day and the line of march extended for two miles, the soldiers soon “raised a dust like a smothering snow storm, blinding our eyes and covering our bodies with it.” The next day, it was the French soldiers’ turn. About a mile outside of town, the army halted so each soldier could powder his hair and put on fresh white gaiters. And instead of just a drum and fife, they were accompanied by what Thacher described as “a complete band of music.” Baron von Closen recalled, “Rochambeau and his staff entered at the head of the troops and were much acclaimed by the inhabitants, who could never have imagined that the French troops could be so handsome. All the gilded contingent was drawn up between the lancers and the hussars of Lauzun’s legion to salute with all the grace possible the Congress, which was stationed with the president at its head, on the balcony of the hall of Congress.” Thomas McKean, president of the Continental Congress, dressed in a black velvet suit, asked Rochambeau “if it would be proper for him to salute the field officers.” When Rochambeau replied that the king of France usually did, McKean determined that “he might do likewise without demeaning himself” and raised his hand to his forehead.

  While Philadelphia buzzed with anticipation, Washington was desperate for news of the French fleet. “I am distressed beyond expression,” he wrote to Lafayette, “to know what is become of the Count de Grasse. . . . You see how critically important the present moment is: for my own part I am determined still to persist with unremitting ardor in my present plan, unless some inevitable and insuperable obstacles are thrown in our way. Adieu my Dear Marquis! If you get anything new from any quarter send it I pray on the Spur of Speed, for I am almost all impatience and anxiety at the same time.”

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  NOT UNTIL SEPTEMBER 2, by which time Washington and Rochambeau were in Philadelphia, with the two armies soon to follow them into the city, did Henry Clinton have incontrovertible proof that the Americans and French were not about to attack New York. “By intelligence which I have this day received, it would seem that Mr. Washington is moving an army to the southward with an appearance of haste,” he wrote to Cornwallis, “and gives out that he expects the cooperation of a considerable French armament.”

  Clinton had been completely bamboozled, and his officers knew it. “Thus by threatening us with a siege,” British officer Frederick Mackenzie wrote, “the enemy have been suffered to come within sight of our posts, to retire thence again, to pass the Hudson, and to advance a good way into Jersey, without molestation or obstruction; while the army in Virginia . . . is now entirely unprepared for being attacked by a fleet and an army.” It may have been Rochambeau’s idea to head south, but without Washington’s insistence on secrecy and subterfuge, they never would have gotten out of New Jersey. “If this is their scheme,” Mackenzie continued, “the only thing we can do at present is to move with all our force into Jersey, so as to keep close to Washington and prevent him from moving southward and attack him. If the rebel army passes the Delaware unmolested, it will be then in vain to attempt stopping them.” But, of course, by September 2, it was too late.

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  ON SEPTEMBER 5, three days after Clinton sent a message to Cornwallis about the approach of the enemy army from the north, Washington set out for Head of Elk, Maryland, about fifty miles southwest of Philadelphia. Now
that the rear of the French army had reached the city and “everything in a tolerable train here,” he must see firsthand how many boats had been assembled at the northern tip of the Chesapeake to transport the troops to Virginia. He had still heard nothing from de Grasse, an increasingly inexplicable silence that, if his previous experiences with the French were any indication, foretold no good.

  While Washington traveled by land, Rochambeau and his entourage chose to go by water. Several French officers serving in the American army had played a prominent part in the heroic but ultimately unsuccessful defense of Philadelphia in the fall of 1777, when three riverside forts had been the only thing preventing the British navy from sailing into Philadelphia. With Thomas-Antoine de Mauduit du Plessis, a veteran of the action, as their guide, the French high command set out in a cutter from Philadelphia for a tour of the forts before disembarking at the town of Chester and proceeding by land to Head of Elk.

  After stops at Fort Mifflin, Red Bank, and Billingsport, where they enjoyed some bread and butter and tea with the fort’s elderly commandant, they continued on to Chester. While still a good distance from the town’s landing, they noticed a man standing on the waterfront, gesticulating wildly with his hat in one hand and a white handkerchief in the other. He was dressed in blue and buff regimentals and was leaping about like a man possessed. Could this be the commander in chief? Of course not. His Excellency was, in the words of Guillaume de Deux-Ponts, “of a natural coldness and of a serious and noble approach.” He would never allow himself to act this way.

  But sure enough, it was Washington.

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