Victory at Yorktown: A Novel

by Newt Gingrich

  It would truly shatter the morale of his army if after the years of suffering, the exhausting march of August and September to come to this place, that at the last minute, the French fleet was defeated. Worse yet was, as later dispatches would declare, “and thus the fleet was forced to withdraw out of military necessity,” the standard line of any commander covering the fact that rather than venture all, he had fled.

  Washington knew that ultimately the French had nothing to truly gain by holding this bay four weeks longer, other than the potential glory of then claiming they had helped to bag an entire English army in the worst defeat inflicted upon them since the Hundred Years War. If an English fleet, even a small raiding force, should seize but a few islands of the sugar islands of the Caribbean in exchange for this, de Grasse would be recalled in disgrace. He owed that man much. As he watched his men dig, with shovels, picks, and tools provided by their ally, he found himself praying that no matter what might happen in the future, America owed much to this gallant ally, and if ever asked to repay them in some future war, perhaps on their own soil, we would not hesitate to answer that call, and they, in turn, would remember the eternal pledge made here as allies.

  Seeing that the work was proceeding at a brisk pace, his ceremonial task completed, he turned aside and started the long walk back to return to his headquarters. The trench was lined with men, coming to their feet as he passed, offering salutes, raising hats, but no shouting out all had been repeatedly ordered to remain silent, but more than one whispered “General number one,” as he passed, reaching out to touch his arm as if he were a talisman.

  It could not help but move him, and again he prayed that this campaign would end without a frontal charge upon hearing that the French fleet was withdrawing, and that within hours the English would be relieved, if not destroyed that day. The prayer even went to his enemies as well, because if unleashed in a forlorn assault, by even the European rules of war, the begging for quarter at the last instant was often near impossible to achieve after such slaughter. He did not wish his nation to be founded upon such a legacy.

  Clearing the main redoubt line, he ventured down the now covered causeway, at last reaching the marsh, where to his amazement, he found an extremely upset Lafayette awaiting him.

  “It is infamy, sir, absolute infamy, and you must send a protest to Cornwallis!”

  “What is it, my friend?”

  “Infamy, that is what it is. I never dreamed they would sink to such depravity.”

  He felt a momentary flutter of concern. Had Tarleton raided out again and committed some atrocity? He was still angered, deeply angered that though Cornwallis had promised to investigate, no reply since had come back regarding the murder of the pregnant woman, and his respect for the man had plummeted as a result.

  “They slaughtered all of them. Well, nearly all of them!”

  “Slaughtered who?” he cried, fearing to hear the grim news that might trigger his own army into a rage of bloodlust that could not be contained.

  “Their horses!”

  “What?”

  “Their horses, sir. Cornwallis had every horse in the army, except for those belonging to officers and their dragoons, driven down to the bay, and there they slaughtered them all.”

  “Horses?”

  “Yes, sir, Cornwallis ordered all of them killed.”

  Washington stood silent, not sure how to reply. As a horseman of some renown in Virginia, in his younger days admiring friends said he was the finest horseman in the colony; be it on fox or boar hunt, or on the race track, his heart was close to horses … but this was war with all its tragedies and he was not sure what to say.

  “Hundreds of them. Sir, may I beg that you send a letter of protest to Cornwallis, or at least give me leave to do so.”

  “May I ask why, and what would you wish different?”

  “Sir, we could have arranged a cartel, an exchange of their horses for something, anything.”

  “And what would you have proposed? There is no sense to it now, my dear comrade, the deed is done. But pray what would you have proposed in return?”

  Lafayette extended his arms in a typical Gallic gesture of frustration.

  “A question, my friend.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I am confused by this, why not eat them instead? It would have given the army fresh meat for a week or more.”

  Lafayette looked at him in astonishment.

  “Why they are Englishmen! Everyone knows Englishmen do not eat horse.”

  “We did, at Valley Forge and Morristown.”

  Lafayette dwelled on that for a moment and sighed.

  “I see your point, sir, but we could have given them to my fellow countrymen.”

  “For what purpose, sir?”

  “Why to eat, of course. We do not have your, how shall I say this, prejudice against horseflesh properly stewed or slow roasted over an open flame.”

  He could not reply.

  “The English, they are all stupid, they killed perfectly good rations,” and sighing and muttering to himself, Lafayette walked away.

  Washington stood silent, and then going up to where Billy Lee had patiently waited for him, holding the bridles of their mounts, he paused for a moment and rubbed the snout of his horse.

  “Hope you didn’t hear that,” he whispered into his mount’s ear while fetching a handful of corn out of his pocket as an offering. “I’ll starve before I’ll eat you.”

  HEADQUARTERS OF CORNWALLIS

  AFTERNOON OF OCTOBER 7, 1781

  He sat alone, stunned with disbelief. In one night, under cover of the storm now sweeping these accursed grounds, the enemy had started a traverse of nearly a half mile. It was still shallow, just deep enough and wide enough to provide cover for a few diggers at the front, but behind them he could see hundreds of spades rising and falling, widening the trench, and back near its starting point, it had already been covered over with timbers. They were already beginning to branch out with parallel lines definitely within the range of their deadly riflemen. One in particular seemed to appear like a ghost at one place, strike down one of his officers, who was incautiously peeking up over the lip of a trench, shout an obscene taunt, cackle, and spit, then an hour later kill or nearly hit another of his men.

  It was impossible, simply impossible. The best of his engineers had assured him that such a traverse would take four days, perhaps a week to construct, and once spotted, proper countermeasures could be taken. Either a direct counterassault by light infantry at night, or a counter-traverse, to meet them in the middle of the siege grounds, and there, man to man, the light infantry backed up by grenadiers would surely hurl them back.

  It was now, however, an accomplished fact. They had burrowed ahead like moles, digging deep enough to provide cover for their damn riflemen and skirmishers to get within killing range. Several of their regimental flags had been hoisted up out of the trenches at dawn and waved defiantly, greeted with huzzas and jeers toward his own men, who stunned, were all but silent, hunkered down behind their earthen walls. As he walked down their battle line, though roused by officers to come to attention and salute, few showed the enthusiasm and eager cheers that had once greeted him when, triumphant, he had ridden up Market Street of Charleston, fifes and drummers playing.

  Damn Clinton, damn him, he sighed.

  Yet there was no use in damning him. He was hundreds of miles away, and that despite the reassuring message slipped through the blockade that even now he was mounting a rescue force that, God willing, would arrive by the end of the month.

  A sheet of paper, vague promises, and that was it.

  He sat in silence. The gunfire of his batteries, ordered now to conserve ammunition to but ten rounds a day per gun and fire only if all but certain of a kill, thumped. The French and American guns did not reply, and he knew what that meant as well. They had a surfeit of ammunition, but would not fire one round until all was in place. Washington had, indeed, matured into a commander wor
thy of any European battlefield, unlike the man who he had thought was an amateur, a bumpkin so easily routed at Long Island. He had matured into a trained professional. He would patiently wait the few more days until the parallel was well established with gun emplacements well dug in and masked with a single night’s digging. His estimates were they had near to a hundred pieces on hand, without doubt the heavy siege train that Hood and Graves had let slip past them within the hulls of Admiral Barre’s ships. He would wait until every precious gun was in place, well secured against anything but the luckiest of hits, and then unleash them all at once in a withering barrage that would last for days and tear open his inner line and shatter what little will his men still had.

  The noose was tightening with every passing moment, and if he did survive this, a day would come when he had to face his king to explain what happened here, while Clinton standing to one side would but shrug and have his excuses ready. History, as it usually did with such affairs, would all but forget Clinton’s name, but forever remember him as the general defeated and humiliated.

  Tarleton had tried a breakout a few days ago and been soundly repulsed. In one, at most two, days from now their parallels would place into position a battery of guns that would drive out of Yorktown bay the small fleet of light ships still at his disposal. Breakout here on this front would be impossible.

  To try for a breakout, yet again, in a night action. If a hole could be cut in their lines on the north shore, at Gloucester, spike his guns, abandon this line, and in what would be a last hope, cut his way out and into the open countryside of Virginia.

  It would be at least some sort of force intact, that by living off the land could survive until the Royal navy, bearing Clinton and his men in their hulls, did show up for the rescue, which, of course, Clinton would claim as his own action. To hell with him. At least it was a slim hope in the face of what was now utter humiliation and ruin at the hands of the upstart Washington. He still had one card up his own sleeve in response, and it was time to play it.

  Cornwallis rose up, stepped out of his private chamber, the grenadier guards posted to either side of the door coming to rigid attention, and out in the corridor his staff came to their feet.

  “Send for Tarleton and,” he paused for a moment trying to remember a name, “that Loyalist Yankee, what’s his name … van Dorn. He apparently knows these kinds of operations, let’s give him something to do other than draw rations, I’m certain he’ll be delighted to lead it.”

  Sixteen

  HEADQUARTERS OF GENERAL WASHINGTON

  NIGHT OF OCTOBER 8, 1781

  He looked around at his assembled officers. All were grinning, their delight obviously enhanced as well by the case of brandy sent over with the warmest of compliments by Admiral de Grasse, a note attached, yet again, assuring Washington that the navy of France stood in amazement at all that had been accomplished since their last meeting and would stand by his side even if the entire British fleet now did suddenly appear.

  He nodded to General Knox who now stood.

  “All is prepared, sir, as per your orders. Ninety guns are in place along the line, including those of our French allies. Proper reserve bunkers have been dug for speedy resupply of every piece along the siege line, with batteries of light field artillery ready to move out and deploy at a moment’s notice if the enemy should attempt a sortie. We have a hundred rounds per siege gun moved forward, and, as you have ordered, steady fire shall be maintained starting just before sunset tomorrow and continue throughout the night. Sighting sticks have been set out so the fire will be accurate enough to strike their works in spite of darkness, and flare rounds for the mortars are in place as well if illumination is needed. We’ll expend just under five thousand rounds of heavy fire throughout the first night.”

  “God’s grace, how many rounds did we have at Trenton?” Greene asked.

  Knox looked at his old comrade and grinned.

  “Just under a hundred rounds total for all guns, sir.”

  “Pray continue,” Washington asked before another round of self-congratulations and toasts erupted, even though he was awed by the numbers. The armies had close to a hundred rounds per heavy gun in reserve, nearly fifty thousand rounds, and de Grasse had promised, as well, that extra ammunition would be provided by his fleet if need be. Six years ago such profligate expenditures were beyond his wildest dreams, recalling a day, the day this Revolution had started, when the British had ventured eighteen miles out of Boston to Concord, to try to snatch a few four-pounders, a couple of barrels of powder, fifty round shot, and twenty grapeshot hidden there.

  If only they had known what it would ultimately cost them, if only we had all known, he realized, recalling the thousands of unmarked graves after Trenton and the long bitter winters at Valley Forge and Morristown. Boys and youths thought that if it was their fate to die as a soldier they would die gloriously upon some battlefield, a relatively painless death, as he was told Andre had said, “but a momentary pang.” For each who died thus, and few of them painlessly, most of them screaming their last breaths out under a surgeon’s knife, ten would die of smallpox, flux, ague, consumption, or locked within the damnable stinking prison hulks on the East River of New York.

  “Sir, as with the turning of the first blade of soil, all of my command begs of you the honor that you will fire the first shot of this final bombardment.”

  He nodded, half listening, as Knox told him the time and place, and that an honor guard would be sent for him and Rochambeau to guide them to the proper bastion where all would be prepared for them.

  Would Cornwallis so abjectly and tamely submit upon his knees to this fate, he wondered. If it was he, at this very moment he would be planning some final riposte, even if but a desperate lunge.

  He interrupted the self-congratulatory celebration as Knox heavily settled back in his chair.

  “Gentlemen, I want every regiment along the line to stand to this night. Half to be on guard, bayonets fixed, muskets loaded, while the other half rests. Guard to then be changed every two hours, all men ordered to clean out their musket pans, and wipe their flints clean of moisture from the night dew. Every regiment to double their skirmisher guards forward with clear orders that if they spot a sortie to withdraw silently back into their lines. Every gun along the line to be charged with a double load of grapeshot, artillery men to have hot lintstocks ready and burning. Every hour on the hour the breech charges of all guns to be wiped clean and replaced with fresh powder.”

  The room fell silent with his words of caution.

  “Let us not grow complacent, my comrades. There is no need to pass this along to the French on our left. They are professionals as we are, and without doubt at this very moment General Rochambeau is passing the same orders. Cornwallis must know what tomorrow will unleash upon him, and if all was reversed, I would order an all-out assault shortly after midnight and attempt a breakout, or least such a disruption of our position and the spiking of the siege guns to set our efforts back a month or more. We know if he succeeds in that, and the Royal navy arrives, all can still be lost. So do not let us grow too fat and complacent, my friends.”

  Knox blushed slightly, always sensitive about his three hundred pounds of girth. Washington looked at him reassuringly and smiled.

  “A master of artillery needs those few extra pounds in order to single-handedly manhandle his guns about, as you do.”

  Henry threw back his head and laughed good-naturedly at his own expense and again there were relaxed chuckles.

  “It will keep our men on their toes and besides, let Cornwallis come and he will receive one hell of a welcoming in the middle of the night.”

  The room relaxed after the stern tone of Washington’s words.

  The bottles of brandy were passed around, their general as usual refraining, along with a young officer at the far end of the table.

  “General, sir?”

  It was Peter Wellsley. Few in the room actually knew his true role; some rec
alled him as a youth who had bravely guided them flawlessly against the Hessians at Trenton and again at the second battle of Trenton, and Princeton the day after. Others had vague recollection of him at Monmouth or standing alongside a British officer to witness the execution of Major Andre.

  The way Washington nodded for him to go ahead and speak, displaying utmost respect, was clear enough indication for the celebratory gathering to fall silent.

  “I have some concern about the Gloucester front, sir.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It is the back door as we all know, on the far side of the river and where their leader of dragoons, Tarleton, is in command. It might be a back door, sir. I know they tried a few days ago and our men guarding that approach gallantly repulsed them, but I must caution that if I were Cornwallis I just might try there again for a breakout.”

  “Go on, sir, I am listening.”

  Peter nervously cleared his throat.

  “We have advanced our lines along this main front and it is obvious to all on both fronts where the main blow shall now fall. Therefore, sir, I suggest that Cornwallis, or at least this beast Tarleton, as he is called, might have orders to attempt to open a breakthrough. Or even without orders and upon his own.”

  “Exactly what that bastard might try,” Morgan snapped. “Excuse my language, sir, but the lad is right. It’d be like him to try to bolt and run, and maybe cut a hole wide enough for the rest of them scoundrels to follow. He knows every man who fought in the South has sworn an oath to put a bullet in him.”