Victory at Yorktown: A Novel

by Newt Gingrich

  He leveled the pistol at the mound of hay in the corner of the barn.

  “Allen, I know you are in there. It is Peter.”

  Silence for a brief moment and then the fresh mown hay seemed to have a life of its own as it stirred, parted, and Allen stood up, a pale-faced trembling youth behind him.

  His pistol was cocked and raised, pointing straight at him.

  “Allen,” he sighed, and for a moment his eyes clouded with tears.

  “Yes, Peter.”

  “It’s over, Allen.”

  He just stood silent staring at him, while outside the crowd of militia was growing in size and volume of protest, demanding that the prisoners belong to them, and would receive the treatment they deserved.

  “You hear that?” Peter asked, and there was a beseeching note in his voice.

  Now he could see tears in Allen’s eyes.

  “Do you remember Elizabeth?” Allen asked, voice trembling.

  “Of course I do. And yes, I knew you were upstairs that day.”

  A momentary pause.

  “You know what to tell her,” Allen whispered softly. “You know what you have to do, my friend. We both saw John Andre die. For God’s sake do it for me, for Elizabeth.”

  He smiled sadly.

  “Peter, I’ve seen things and done things most would not believe in this war, but at the end I thought of her. Tell Elizabeth, I thought of her in my last moments. Now do it.”

  Allen turned his pistol aside and squeezed the trigger. The explosive roar in the confines of the barn startled Peter, and in the next second he aimed true, as he would for any friend.

  Allen tumbled backward, chest shattered, and was dead even before he collapsed into the freshly mown hay.

  Jamie tried to catch his friend as he fell. He looked up at Peter with wide-eyed fury, and charged toward him. Peter reversed his grip on his pistol, the barrel now warm, and caught the lad on the side of the head, knocking him cold, grabbing hold of him, and gently lowering him down to the floor.

  With the explosion of the two pistol shots the militia swarming outside the barn, now pushed past the regulars, and charged in.

  There they found Peter, cradling their quarry in his arms, holding him close, softly crying.

  “Damn all, he killed ’em,” one them said with disappointment. “But at least one is still alive.”

  Peter looked up at them and, recocking his pistol, he leveled it even though it was empty.

  “Damn you all to hell, when will this ever end? Haven’t you had enough of it? Haven’t you had enough?”

  They fell silent, backing up.

  “He’s my prisoner. He’s just a frightened boy. Now leave us be.”

  He barely heard the soft but sharply clear orders of his escorts to clear the hell out. There were whispered comments from the floor below that they knew of this man, and he had just shot and killed his childhood friend to spare him from the hanging mob.

  The shadows lengthened as he held Allen close. Off in the distance there was a muffled rumble of a single cannon shot, something registering within that it was General Washington, whom he had once led to Trenton. The general had just fired the first shot of what was the final siege. Seconds later came the thunder of nearly a hundred more guns, followed by volley after volley greeted with distant cheers.

  At last he came down, bearing Allen’s body, before him a dazed and frightened boy, quietly sobbing.

  One of his guards took the body.

  “We’ll see he’s buried proper, sir,” one of them said softly.

  He looked up at the man, old enough to be his father. Peter Wellsley could not reply.

  “Back to headquarters then, sir?” the old man asked.

  He nodded slowly.

  “Then, when free at last of all of this, to home,” he whispered. “My war is over. I’ve done my duty for my country.”

  Cheer after cheer erupted up and down the entire length of the siege line. If far enough back from musket and rifle fire, men had climbed out of their trenches to watch the show.

  To Billy Lee’s dismay, he was one of them, and at the sight of their commanding general, standing atop a revetment to watch the bombardment, more cheers erupted.

  “By God we are giving them hell, General!” Hamilton cried excitedly, all but jumping up and down like an excited schoolboy.

  Washington struggled to contain himself because he, too, was tempted to let emotion show. To leap with excitement as Hamilton did. Across six years of war he never dreamed he would see such a sight, a scene of such firepower, pouring down upon their enemy, rather than being on the receiving end of it.

  Along the entire front, every artillery piece, from four-pounder field guns to the giant sixteen-inch mortars, was firing as rapidly as possible. Both he and Rochambeau were in full agreement that the first day’s bombardment should be unrelenting, guns pausing only long enough to let barrels cool rather than risk bursting. There was to be no holding back ever again.

  The fire was concentrated on several of the key British redoubts, he had at first ordered. No shots were to be aimed into the town, but when Knox had come to his side, and he truly was in an ecstasy of delight, and pointed out that several of the buildings were, indeed, being used as headquarters, Washington had given approval to fire upon them as legitimate military targets. Besides, any civilians who had remained in that town, even though they might be Loyalists, were, without doubt, down in basements or hastily dug bombproof shelters.

  Dozens of shots slammed into the buildings, the first volley aimed that way, striking away nearly an entire side, and seconds later, dozens of tiny figures in red uniforms came scurrying out and ran off to seek safer shelter, eliciting gales of laughter from the gunners and observing infantry.

  Heavy mortar shells, with fuses sparkling in the twilight sky, arched up high, then came screaming down into the British redoubts, great fountains of earth leaping upward seconds later. Plumes of dirt showered up from the earthen walls of the redoubts, support timbers splintering, spinning off through the air, sections of wall already beginning to collapse under the relentless pounding.

  He still thought it incredible, hard to believe that his army had fifty thousand artillery rounds on hand, when the Battle of Trenton had been fought with little more than a hundred.

  Knox promised him that the rate of fire would continue unabated through the night, preventing any of the British engineers and sappers from attempting repairs.

  “By God, General Washington,” he turned to see Dan Morgan, rifle cradled in his arm, coming up the side of their revetment to join him. “I seen many a fireworks display and a few damn good bombardments that we was always on the receiving end of. I almost pity those poor bastards over there. But by God, sir, we’ll remember this the rest of our lives!”

  He heartily clapped Dan on the shoulder in an open display of affection.

  “By God, sir, you are right! We’ll remember this day the rest of our lives!”

  He now knew without any doubt he would remember this day the rest of his life because only one result would come of this now. Cornwallis had no choice left but to surrender. If he attempted to sally now, his men would be slaughtered by such massed firepower undreamed of throughout the war. He could sense that the morale of, as Dan said, those poor bastards over there, would soon be so shattered that they would refuse any order to commit such suicide by some foolhardy attempt to break out.

  He took the moment in. He would never forget it. He prayed none here would ever forget it, and remember as well all that it took to arrive at this moment of triumph.

  Seventeen

  YORKTOWN

  OCTOBER 19, 1781

  The assembled fifers and drummers of all his regiments led the way, repeatedly playing what, long years ago at the start of this war, had been a song of derision of the British against their colonial bumpkins, “Yankee Doodle.” In the previous hours, French engineers had cut an opening through the battered inner defensive works of the Engl
ish to allow passage wide enough for troops arrayed eight abreast to pass. The hastily laid out road from the American lines into the British was now lined to either side, French to the left, Americans to the right, shoulder to shoulder, half a dozen ranks deep. Though he expected no last-minute subterfuge, which would have been viewed as a dishonorable act of the lowest kind, some regiments were kept in reserve behind their own lines, muskets loaded but unprimed, just in case, along with four batteries of Knox’s deadly light field guns. Just in case. Some could still recall with horror the base betrayal after the surrender of Fort William Henry in the last war, when a British regiment, having honorably surrendered that bastion in upstate New York to General Montcalm, had been brutally slaughtered by the native irregulars accompanying the French. It had been reported that some of the British soldiers, especially after some of the atrocities committed in the Carolinas and in their pullback to this position, expected the same treatment once they had laid down their arms.

  Tensions were still high enough that Washington had personally sent an assurance to Cornwallis, on his word of honor, countersigned by Rochambeau, that all honors as agreed upon would be observed. Several points were different from the agreement that Gates had, rather foolishly, signed after Saratoga. Unlike then, all enlisted personal would be held until England should formally sign articles of peace, though officers would be allowed to be paroled upon their word of honor not to engage in further action in North America or the Caribbean, and return back to England. That had caused some bristling, but he held firm on that, actually it was Rochambeau who absolutely insisted upon it. If this entire army was paroled and allowed to go home, what was to then prevent them from relieving or reinforcing other forces at Gibraltar, still under contention, or free up troops there, who without such a pledge might return here next spring. Besides, separating the officers and letting them go free would just increase the divide between the two classes, and without doubt, more than a few of their enlisted men, when comparing what they would return to in London or Dublin, would in the end ask for asylum in this new land.

  Loyalists, however, were to be removed from the main ranks and detained separately, and he had received reports, from a now strangely distant Peter Wellsley, that this had triggered a panic with scores of them actually attempting to swim the bay to escape, one group of them commandeering a small brig to try to run the French blockade. He had Wellsley’s report of the running down of several dozen such men, who had tried to slip out in civilian garb, as he had so wisely predicted, and that a dozen of them had been caught and summarily hanged for being out of uniform, or worse yet, attempting to pass while wearing Continental uniforms. It was not until several days later, that Morgan had come to Washington with a report as to why the young officer, so energetic and diligent, had withdrawn into total silence, unless directly spoken to by him, apparently in some sort of malaise or state of shock.

  He had given Wellsley a position with his staff to witness this moment, the young man riding behind him, but he saw no exuberant open joy as there was with everyone else. As the cavalcade of victorious officers passed between the assembled ranks of French and Continentals, discipline all but broken, cheer upon cheer resounding, though he had passed strict orders that there were to be no overt displays once the British came marching out. Again, a breach of proper formality and protocol, fueled by a little too much liquor that had without doubt flowed in his camp, and was rumored to be rampant in the English camp. He had been informed that a frightened, leaderless mob of English troops had broken into a supply warehouse filled with liquor, reserved for officers, and a couple of them had been executed to restore order. It was just such things that could turn the ceremony ahead into violence that would forever bring shame to his cause. An area had been cleared just forward of the enemy bastion, smoothed out, even covered with sand so their mounts would have firm footing. Rochambeau parted from his side, going to the left, to take position at the front of his columns of assembled troops. Arrayed behind him were the proud regimental standards carried into battles here, and as far away as India, while Washington moved to the right. Washington took his final position, his staff dismounting, horses led to the rear, flag bearers of all regiments that had fought in this campaign, moving in behind him, proudly holding shot-torn standards aloft.

  Knox was speaking half aloud, and most proudly pointing out the horrific damage “his guns” had inflicted on the enemy works. Over thirty-five thousand rounds had been fired since the opening of the bombardment on October 9. The first shot, of course, fired by His Excellency the general, and legend was already afoot that the round he fired had actually crashed into a gathering of English officers, shattering the table they sat about and had sent them scattering.

  Washington was still amazed at what the more cynical and insensitive had always called the “butcher bill” now that the battle was done. Less than a hundred dead for the combined French and American forces and three hundred wounded. When this campaign had started, he had, with the cold pragmatism of the price of war, anticipated ten times as many lost before Cornwallis was subdued, if he could be subdued.

  On the British side, there had been half a thousand killed or wounded, most fallen victim to the unrelenting artillery barrage, the rest sick with ague or the flux. Artillery was not just a killing weapon; it was a morale destroyer as well for those suffering under its blows, even if unharmed. The redoubts to either side of where the generals now waited had, indeed, been pounded into rubble, artillery rounds striking with such unrelenting fury that no work parties at night dared to venture out to attempt repairs. The few that did were driven back into their works or scattering when a single deadly rifle shot out of the dark killed a sergeant directing the work.

  Old Mose was part of Washington’s invited party, standing behind him alongside of Dan Morgan, the shuffling bearlike figure at least cleaned up somewhat by Dan, with a fresh hunting shirt on. He was under the strictest of orders not to say a single word to the surrendering British about the fourteen he claimed to have hit, and definitely not any kind of baleful glance at their French allies on the other side of the road.

  Then, at last, they heard them and it sent a shiver down Washington’s spine, as it always did.

  They played several pieces as they approached, “Scotland the Brave” in honor of the regiment from the far north of the British Isles and then, strangely, an old popular drinking tune, “The World Turned Upside Down.”

  The irony of it was all so obvious and he wondered if it had been chosen deliberately, or had been just a random choice of their drum major. For on this day, the world had, indeed, been turned upside down. “A rabble in arms” of free citizens, with but a handful of them ever trained to war, had risen up in defense of their rights as free men, had finally triggered a global war as a result, lost countless battles, but always kept coming back for more. Now at this very moment, before them, humbled and humiliated, would pass the finest infantry in the world in abject surrender.

  Perhaps that was the true reason for all this, he mused. When free men stand against those dragooned into the service of tyranny, in the end, free men will keep coming back, again and again, to either die or win with sacred honor what it was they believed worth dying for. Whereas the slave of a tyrant? What would he fight for when pressed to the wall?

  If all had been reversed, he would have fought until bled out to hold the outer line, then withdrawn to the inner line, and if need be, his men reduced to eating the boiled marrow of their horses and belt leather rather than submit to this. When freedom was pitted against tyranny, he prayed, that henceforth and forever, those fighting for freedom, for the rights of man, would, if need be, hold to the last man, and if fated to fall, before doing so, they would train their sons to remember them and to continue that fight. He thought of the bitter atrocity of the pregnant woman. Cornwallis had yet to reply to that, but he would press to investigate, and at that moment he offered a prayer to her fallen soul that her spirit was here, with that of her
unborn child, to know that their suffering had insured that others would never suffer the same fate, for good and honest men, aroused to protect innocence, had come to the side of their cause for this fight. She, poor suffering woman, had contributed to this victory, and he prayed history would not forget her, and that those who did such a cruel deed would stand before God and her to beg forgiveness.

  The drum major, the fifers, pipers, and drummers passed, and now came their officers. To his shock and, yes as well, his disdain, Cornwallis did not lead the march, it was their second in command, General O’Hara, a decent opponent, most definitely not Tarleton or Grey. Yet it was not Cornwallis, and what respect he still had for the man was shattered at that moment, never to return.

  O’Hara caught his glance, but then, and this was yet another shock, averted his gaze. He had heard O’Hara, whom he had never faced in battle, was an honorable man, who had been severely wounded at Guilford Court House and had lost his son in that action. O’Hara angled across the road and reined in directly in front of Rochambeau.

  “Sir, I regret to say that General Cornwallis is indisposed due to the ague,” O’Hara cried so that all could hear. “I therefore bear his sword that I now present to you as token of our surrender to your forces.”

  There were gasps of protest from those around Washington. Lafayette, Knox, von Steuben, and the son of President Laurens, Colonel John Laurens, returned from France, who had served as the direct agent negotiating the surrender. Dan Morgan and his lifelong companion Old Mose, and a host of others, including the young silent Peter Wellsley, threatened to ride forward at this effrontery, but a gesture from their general held them.

  He smiled, knowing what his trusted friend and ally would do.

  Rochambeau, with a wave of his hand so beautifully French, made a gesture of disdain, and then stood in his stirrups and pointed directly at Washington.