The only bright spot in this sea of misery was the presence of their French ally, Rochambeau, with nearly five thousand men. Their old position in Newport, Rhode Island, was finally conceded to be useless thanks to the blockading Royal navy, and the French troops had moved to an encampment nearby—but not too close, out of fear that his own “Continentals” might not take kindly to the “Frenchies,” especially since some of the older men had fought them twenty-five years before, out on the frontier. He had one additional worry: They could be recalled to France or the Caribbean at any time. France had, indeed, entered the war but it was now a global war, and for both sides, possession of but a couple of the sugar islands of the Carib were deemed far more important than the entire North American continent, and both sides had concentrated their fleets and some of their elite troops there. He sensed that unless there was some dramatic turn, once the hurricane season in the Caribbean had passed, Rochambeau and his five thousand would be ordered out of this theater entirely, and then surely his miniscule army of less than seven thousand would collapse.
Reaching the edge of the encampment, he turned sharply and started to walk back. It was only now, at this time that he allowed himself to dwell on these things. By the time he reached headquarters again he would have to affix the look of outward calm and confidence, offer praise where it would help, and pretend an optimism that soon all would change for the better, even if in his heart, exhausted from six years of this, he himself had all but given up hope.
“General, sir!”
He looked up to see young Alexander Hamilton, running toward him in a most uncharacteristic manner. His years as staff officer and even a field command had matured him quickly, but this morning? Had he been drinking?
He slowed as Hamilton, breathless, dashed up, came to attention and saluted, the eyes of hundreds of men around the camp turned his way. He was grinning like a delighted child.
“A dispatch has just come in, sir.”
Washington extended a calming hand; too many of the men were standing close by, straining to hear every word. Already rumors would fly through the camp, and perhaps, before the day was even out, have crossed into British lines.
“No more of it until we are inside,” he said softly, as if any dispatch that could excite Hamilton was of no real concern. Dispatches arrived by the score every day, most of them mundane, some depressing, some enraging—especially those from Congress that offered the usual excuses about pay, rations, supplies, and demands that he recall Greene or better yet dismiss him and return Gates to command.
He braced his shoulders, measured his pace, commented that it was going to be another scorching day, and to pass the order that the men were to drill in the morning but then have midafternoon off for their leisure, making sure that was overheard, and continued on.
Headquarters guard, turned out smartly in their buff and blue, sweat already trickling down from beneath their powdered wigs, snapped to attention and presented arms at his approach. Tied to a post beside the house he saw a lathered horse, an excellent mount with fine lines, which obviously had been ridden hard. A half mile back, on the road that led to the French encampments, he saw a small cavalcade approaching, the flag of their commanding general held aloft.
Something surely was up, and he actually swallowed nervously as he stepped into the cool exterior of the heavy fieldstone home that was his headquarters. Had Rochambeau received orders to prepare to be pulled out? The French general had, ever since his arrival, shown the utmost decorum and sense of protocol, deferring to the American as “mon Général,” insisting before all that the French presence was under Washington’s direct command, only to be superseded by direct orders from France.
The courier, without doubt, had first ridden to him, and he, without opening the dispatch, had ordered him to go to the commander. Yet curiosity could not contain the French general who was now riding in to hear the news.
The courier, a French officer, his white uniform dust covered, hatless, most likely lost in the hard riding, wig slightly askew, snapped to rigid attention as Washington stepped into the corridor. The courier held forth the envelope, wrapped in wax-impregnated string in case of threat of capture, so that it could be burned quickly. It bore a red seal, which Washington could not identify. He motioned for the courier and Hamilton to enter his office, picked up a paring knife, cut the cord, the seal, and opened it up. It was in French, and without his spectacles hard to decipher, he handed it to Hamilton.
“Just tell me what it says, Colonel.”
“To His Excellency, General George Washington,”
“My general, it brings me the greatest joy and pleasure to send this missive to you. I cannot begin to express the honor…”
There would be the usual flourishes for another paragraph or two before the meat of the issue was laid out.
“Just tell me what it says,” Washington interrupted.
Hamilton nodded, fell silent, lips moving as he read, and then his eyes widened.
He looked up at Washington for an instant, then back down at the sheet of ornate paper but now his hands were trembling, and then looked back up again.
“It is from Admiral de Grasse! Commanding a fleet of ships of the line in the Caribbean and dated nearly two weeks ago. He is abandoning his station in the Caribbean and at this moment is sailing north,” Hamilton was nearly sputtering with excitement, “it states here, ‘with twenty-eight ships of the line, aboard as well, three thousand troops of three of France’s finest regiments, supplies, siege equipment for land operations, and currency of silver and gold.’”
“To where?”
Hamilton looked back down at the letter, tracing out the sentences with one finger. “To the mouth of the Chesapeake, there to blockade the British army of Cornwallis and he prays that sufficient troops shall meet him by land to effect a siege and the defeat of said army!”
Hands shaking, Hamilton handed the letter back to Washington, who stood silent, shocked beyond the ability to speak.
Ever since the victory of Saratoga and the French entrance into the war their help had been more than could be expected—for after all, regardless of their more liberal philosophers’ platitudes about the glories of liberty and self-rule, France was a monarchy that just might not wish to see the seeds of liberty planted too deeply in another nation, lest it just might pollinate in their own land. England, a sworn enemy for centuries, was now too good a target, tied as it was to a bloody land campaign on the far side of the Atlantic, to let off scot free. Help had, indeed, come. Rochambeau, at this very moment dismounting outside his doorstep, was proof enough of that, but far more effort had been expended by the French in trying to snatch up some of the precious spice islands of the Caribbean, to join the Spanish in an attempt on Gibraltar, and with skirmishing and battles ranging far out to the other side of the world in India, prize taking in the Indies. France had weighed in, but did so with a global war in mind, and perhaps even, when the dust had settled, hoped to regain her lost possessions of Quebec, control of the lucrative trade along the Mississippi from New Orleans to Saint Louis, and the junction of that river and the Missouri. Distant fabled lands of riches from the shores of those rivers to the Pacific.
As he contemplated these thoughts, trying to gather his self-control after receiving such astounding news, he heard footsteps behind him. He struggled for control, realizing he was actually trembling with excitement, Hamilton standing before him grinning like a child.
He forced himself to regain a look of calm composure and turned about.
Rochambeau, with his typical touch of ceremony, entered the house but then stopped at the doorway into Washington’s office, removing his hat with a flourish and bowing low, to which Washington responded in kind, but as he rose, Washington could see that this man did not need be told. Without doubt, the courier was a loyal Frenchman even while serving as an allied courier.
Rochambeau presented nearly as imposing a figure as Washington, standing over six feet tall, st
ill young-looking though he was several years older than the American general, and disdaining the courtly look of some. He wore no rouge and skin lightener and the “birth,” or “beauty mark” on the cheek or jaw, which was all the rage in the courts of Europe. His features were ruddy from long years under the sun, shoulders straight and still strong. The deep tan, a “look” that none of the usual aristocrats would have accepted, but in this war was the mark of a man either in the field or on the quarter deck of a man-o’-war.
He did not say a word as he came in, though his grin revealed all, as Washington handed him the dispatch. The French general feigned surprise, then open delight, and with a most un-Gallic-like gesture reached out and warmly clasped the American general’s hands.
“I knew he would do it,” Rochambeau cried excitedly, “I knew he would see where the real victory was waiting to be snatched.”
Washington, knees actually feeling a bit weak, sat down, motioning for the French general to sit by his side. He looked up at Hamilton.
“Would you please be so kind as to summon a pot of coffee, maps of the Chesapeake region, Colonel Smith to take notes, Colonel Laurens to translate as needed, and Colonel Wellsley.
“Yes, him. He was there last winter and I want him to sit in as well.”
Hamilton rushed from the room. Within minutes, as if reading his general’s mind, the ever-faithful Billy Lee came into the room bearing a tray laden with coffee pot, china cups, and even some fresh baked biscuits smothered in butter. General Washington had been tempted increasingly of late to send Billy back home to Mount Vernon—the rheumatism from long years of campaigning in the field was taking its toll. Yet even the hint of it would send Billy into a defiant silence, with dark mutterings later, just barely within hearing distance, about “All these years of service,” “Who in hell will see he eats right,” and “The Missus herself told me to keep watch.” Washington always relented.
Billy poured the coffee, stood expectant for a moment as if hoping to hear the gossip, for it was obvious by the behavior of Rochambeau’s staff outside and the way young Alexander was running about that something was afoot. Washington just smiled at him and nodded a dismissal, suggesting he sit by the fire in the kitchen to ward off the morning chill in his bones.
Hamilton was back minutes later with the large portfolio, containing scores of maps of every theater of operation in this war, and shuffling through them started to lay out the pertinent ones on the dining table by the large south-facing window. Standing, he could see that a bit of a crowd was gathering outside. Word did, indeed, travel fast that something was afoot and he looked to Rochambeau.
“I regret having to ask this, sir,” he said slowly, knowing that the French general understood English when spoken clearly and carefully enunciated. “Do any of your staff know of this development?”
“I assure you, sir, I am, as you Americans say, as mum as a cat. The courier first reported to me, and me alone, and gave me verbal news of what the courier ship had brought in to Newport and I ordered him to hurry on to you.”
“Newport?”
Rochambeau grinned with delight.
“The English have abandoned the blockade of that harbor. For some reason the ships based there have apparently sailed for New York harbor. That is, according to two deserters, pressed men, who went over the side just before they sailed.”
“Reliable men?”
“The Americans on my staff said they were Yankee men, born and bred, taken a year ago and pressed off a merchant ship captured trying to run the blockade. The Newport fleet is concentrating with the New York fleet in anticipation that our fleet will strike there.”
“Apparently so.”
“But not to intercept at Newport.”
Rochambeau shook his head emphatically.
“Your reports and mine from yesterday clearly indicate that the British ships protecting New York harbor are still anchored off Staten Island. If they were to effect a rendezvous for a sortie to the south, they would already be maneuvering to clear the channel of Sandy Hook. Foretop masts and yards on many of the ships are struck down; crews freely wander the city on liberty. The hundreds of tons of supplies to feed such a fleet have not been ordered or loaded on board. It would take a week or more for them to prepare for a sea venture. Years of service there with no action other than the boredom of blockade and the occasional chase of one of our ships trying to slip by them has weakened their readiness for swift preparation and action. They must have received news by now that our good admiral has left the Caribbean, but as to where he is heading, it is apparent they do not yet know and are waiting for more information before acting.”
Washington smiled with open approval, even as he motioned for Hamilton to close the shutters to the window, and then close the window itself as well, so no curious eyes or eavesdroppers could see or hear what they were about.
Hamilton laid out maps, based on the latest information from Lafayette, Cornwallis was in Yorktown. It was easily defendable, readily open to supply from the sea via the Chesapeake Bay, always a British lifeline, and from there could raise havoc all across the fertile lands of eastern Virginia, while at the same time blockading any support coming up from North and South Carolina.
The prophetic report that Colonel Wellsley had carried to him back in early spring had, indeed, come to pass. Cornwallis’s campaign to subdue the huge landmass of Georgia and the Carolinas was an exercise in folly that Greene had immediately learned to exploit, all but begging Cornwallis to venture into Virginia.
Why he had not made such an obvious move earlier, Washington wondered? The fertile belt of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey was the breadbasket of the Revolution. Some of the strongest contingents of troops had come from these states as well. Ravage their homelands, and the Virginia line would have collapsed. Why had he not done so earlier and with the forces he had at his command prior to Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and the bruising confrontation Greene had offered him at Guilford Court House?
Again, was it because of a war office trying to run a continent-sized conflict from nearly four thousand miles away that they were so hampered?
All the British really had to do was simply to dig in at New York and some place in the mid-South, raid out when possible, wear us down as they had been doing. Then a meddlesome Empress Catherine or some other monarch would announce a grand peace conference and many in Congress would fall all over themselves to rush to it. As for himself, if such was the case, he would resign, take those men who would never surrender, head out to the Ohio lands, and perhaps in a generation, try again.
But now, this? This undreamed of turn of events? It seemed that finally a French admiral had pierced the veil of the true grand strategy of this war? He sat back in his chair, in front of Rochambeau, Alexander, and even the courier, who still stood rigid as if expecting to immediately receive a return dispatch. He put his spectacles on, something that only a trusted few ever witnessed him doing, and slowly read through the letter, stumbling here and there, a bit embarrassed asking Alexander to provide translation.
There was one line that Alexander, in his enthusiasm, had not announced. Admiral le Grasse said that upon arrival off the “Cape of the Bay of the Chesapeake” he would hold station for six weeks, but then orders from his own admiralty office and the king would compel him to return to the Caribbean once the hurricane season had passed. He looked at the dating of the letter, dispatched by fast courier frigate at the start of August. It was now August 14, so it was fair to wonder if some unforeseen disaster in his passage—a hurricane or violent storm or misnavigation that could put half a fleet aground on a dark night, or an encounter with an unsuspected British fleet—might have prevented him from being there at all. At this moment the twenty-eight ships of the line, the three thousand troops, the chests filled with freshly minted livres to pay his troops, and twenty thousand sailors, might be lost in a storm off Cape Hatteras, or have turned back or fled to safety in France.
There was no
clue to their whereabouts, other than this one note.
He hesitated, then handed it to Rochambeau.
“I regret to question the veracity of this letter,” he said, “but can you verify it?”
Rochambeau nodded, carefully taking the letter, holding it up to the shaded light from the window to examine the watermark and the secret coding within the water mark personally assigned to each admiral of the French fleet and no other, holding it close to examine the script, looked at the courier and asked if he had personally received it from the captain of the French ship. The courier said he had, and Rochambeau, smiling, handed it back.
“It is the truth.”
He had never been demonstrative, but this time Washington let out a sigh of relief. His hopes had soared in the last few minutes, but then long years of war, of spy and counterspy, ruse and counter-ruse of which he himself was a master had come rushing in. This could be an elaborate British forgery to try to stir him into an action, and into a trap that could be disastrous. One defeat of his army in the field would be a disaster that would, without doubt, end their cause.
If de Grasse’s promise was true, contrary to all the nightmares he had harbored but a scant hour ago, there was just a chance—a vague, one-in-a-hundred chance. Throughout history all military men knew that the coordination of land to sea forces, especially across vast distances, challenged even the best of generals and admirals. The vagaries of wind, tide, storms, faulty charts, miscommunications, the often tragic inability of one service to understand the needs and timing of the other, had seen to it that few such plans come to fruition. What about this one?
Victory at Yorktown: A Novel Page 11