The next night Cornwallis made his only real attempt to escape. He tried to get his army across the York River to Gloucester, from whence—minus stores and artillery—he might make a run for it. He almost succeeded. As it was he got about one-quarter of his men across before a howling storm arose that compelled him to cease operations. Cornwallis now admitted what he long had known, that there was no hope. The campaign that had seemed so promising a year before when Gates and America’s southern army lay crushed and dispersed at Camden, that still had seemed to be on the cusp of a magnificent success only six months earlier when both Arnold and Cornwallis moved at will about Virginia, now was over. Ignominiously over. At 10:00 A.M. on October 17 Cornwallis initiated surrender talks.35
Washington’s role in the twenty-one days of actual campaigning at York-town was strangely unlike his conduct in earlier engagements. He spoke of the assistance which his allies rendered, but, in fact, he deferred to their expertise. This was a siege operation, a “regular Operation,” as he called it, a form of war common in Europe; as it was the fourteenth siege of which Rochambeau had been a part, moreover, Washington concluded that it was best left to the European professionals and specialists who could assure that Cornwallis’s defeat was “reducible to calculation,” and that it would be brought about with haste. His frequent meetings with Rochambeau during the investment, sessions usually held in the Frenchman’s tent, must have had an air of unreality about them, at least to Washington’s aides, for if the American commander ever had been consistent it was in his insistence that he be fully in charge of every detail of every deployment. As if to compensate, Washington fell into the habit of issuing orders that covered the most minute aspects of supply and weaponry. His instructed the soldiery on hurdles and gabions, on pickets and trenches, on saps and batteries, on angles and avenues.36 For instance, he told his men that the fascines were
to be six feet long and six inches through, to be made of branches, the twigs of which are to be crossed, to be bound with Withs at each end and in the middle, to each fascine [were to be added] three pickets of three feet long and two or three inches diameter.37
In still another way Washington’s life was quite different during this campaign. Never had he lived so comfortably during the course of an engagement. The list of food purchased for his “household” for October alone was staggering: 62 turkeys, 39 ducks, 102 chickens, 4 dozen trout, 3 dozen perch, 29 bushels of oysters, 1 goose, 1 lamb, 138 pounds of pork, 54 pounds of ham, 261 pounds of mutton, 36 pounds of veal, 3 pigs, and 2 sheep. And all this was augmented by a stunning variety of fruit and fresh vegetables.38
Despite his material comforts, Washington remained under enormous pressure. He knew he would not have another chance to crush a British army. Fail here, and the opportunity would never come again. Not only would the British command not repeat the mistakes that had led its army into this trap, but France was unlikely ever again to commit so much naval and land power simultaneously. In addition, disappointment in the face of “these brillant prospects” would certainly result in “disgrace,” not to mention the thorough destruction of American morale.39
Absorbed as was Washington by events at Yorktown, he nevertheless kept an eye on Greene’s war further to the south. The news was good there too, capped by word in September that in an engagement at Eutaw Springs the redcoats had outfought Greene’s army, only to score still another pyrrhic victory. The British lost nine hundred men in the battle, the Americans about one-half that number. From that point on Washington sought to induce de Grasse to fall on Charleston as soon as his siege of Cornwallis ended, hoping that such an action would replicate the Yorktown campaign. But de Grasse refused to be swayed by Washington’s pleas, for his orders were to be gone from mainland America by late October.40
From the moment he arrived on the peninsula Washington was confident of success. A week into the siege, buoyed by the progress of the sappers, he exclaimed that “in all probability Lord Cornwallis must fall into our hands.” His one nagging worry was that the beleaguered Cornwallis might turn the tables on him and escape in the night, as Washington had done on the Assunpink when Cornwallis seemed to have pinioned him. As late as the day before Cornwallis in fact tried that tack, Washington warned that the British might endeavor to slip across the York, then use the Pamunkey as the shield that would enable them to hasten northward out of harm’s way. Only de Grasse could close that escape hatch, however, and no amount of importuning by Washington could convince him to station vessels on the York above Yorktown; the danger from fire rafts was too great, the Frenchman always insisted. Washington’s final appeal to the admiral involved a scheme in which 150 militiamen would be posted in small boats, vessels that they could paddle about to divert each fire raft launched by the British.41 Whatever de Grasse thought of this notion, he was spared a reply by the rapid pace of events.
On the morning of the 17th, cooler and clear now that the storm of the previous night had blown out, Washington was at his desk preparing still another appeal to de Grasse when a messenger arrived with a one-sentence epistle from Cornwallis. The note requested a meeting “to settle terms of the surrender of the posts at York and Gloucester.”42
Never before had Washington negotiated a surrender, except for his own vanquishment at Fort Necessity. Strangely, he acted as if Cornwallis’s appeal had come as a surprise. He did not respond with written demands of his own, but merely inquired into what Cornwallis was willing to concede. For the next forty-eight hours the two sides parleyed under a flag of truce, a time that Cornwallis used to scuttle a couple of his naval craft rather than see them fall to de Grasse. Some time was required to translate the British replies for the French, and Washington and Rochambeau—and an emissary from de Grasse’s fleet—conferred at length after each proposal and counterproposal. Moreover, having been badly burned by the agreement he negotiated at Great Meadows twenty-seven years before, Washington must have wished now to be very certain of what he signed. All the while, as if by magic, the milieu of Yorktown changed as the generals talked. Where only hours before men had sought to make themselves invisible behind fascines and earthen walls, now they ambled about freely, some exercising and playing, others listening to concerts offered by the surviving bagpipers within Britain’s lines.
By the 19th, only two issues were left unresolved, and Washington made concessions on both matters in order to wrap up the proceedings. Initially, he had not only demanded the surrender of all British soldiers and vessels at Yorktown but also insisted that Cornwallis hand over all Tories and American deserters who had taken refuge behind British lines. Now, however, he agreed that Cornwallis could send the H.M.S. Bonetta to New York. Ostensibly it was only to transmit letters to the British High Command, but, as Washington waived the right to inspect the craft before it sailed, all expected its cargo to consist of turntails and Loyalists.43 Otherwise, the surrender was complete, with Cornwallis even consenting to yield up the American slaves who had fled to his protection. By noon everything was finalized, save for the actual ceremony of surrender.
That afternoon, bright and sunny and pleasantly warm, the three armies gathered for one last time. Early in the day, while French and American military bands played, the two victorious armies marched out to line Yorktown Road, Gallic soldiers on one side, Americans on the other. They waited three hours for the British and Hessian troops to appear and parade between them. At 2:00 P.M. their foes finally arrived, marching and wheeling into formation. Soon high-ranking British officers appeared, riding slowly to a point where Washington and Rochambeau sat on horseback with their principal subordinates. Cornwallis, it was noticed, was not among the redcoats. Pleading illness, he had remained behind, sending an Irishman, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara in his stead. The proceedings were swift and uneventful, except that O’Hara mistook Rochambeau for Washington and had to be rerouted to the proper party. Off in another corner of this plain—at least according to tradition—British musicians had begun to play a march. It wa
s “The World Turned Upside Down.” Some British officers wept as they watched and listened; it struck Private Martin that the Germans did not much care. Soon all that remained was for the defeated soldiery to march out, company by company, and lay down their arms. And by the time that was concluded the long shadows of late afternoon had begun to creep over the killing ground, for on this day Cornwallis surrendered 7241 men.44
Washington referred to his victory as “an important success” and a “glorious event,” but like other contemporaries he could not be certain of its full meaning. Clinton, for instance, initially expressed an interest in continuing in command as if nothing had happened, planning still another campaign for still another year. Britain’s admirals did go on with the business of war, and, in fact, when de Grasse sailed from North America at the end of the month the suzeranity of the Royal British Navy once again was magically restored. What Washington was certain of were the opportunities and the dangers of the moment. He continued to plead with de Grasse to fall upon Charleston or Wilmington in North Carolina, but the French commander was equally recalcitrant. Orders were orders, he always replied. Washington soon sent Wayne, St. Clair, and Lafayette with about two thousand men to reinforce Greene, but that was as much as he could do, for he felt compelled to return the bulk of his army to the defense of the Highland passes. Indeed, within two weeks of Cornwallis’s capitulation his thoughts had returned to his old notion of a siege of New York. He also preached the need for a firm, resolute commitment to the war; nothing, he repeated, would so discourage the British or so impress the European powers, who might yet have to settle America’s boundaries by arbitration, as to gaze across the Atlantic and see that the United States had maintained its war footing. But he feared that just the opposite would occur. Thinking the war now was as good as over, the weary public would let down, prompting Whitehall to continue the war.45
General Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Tench Tilghman at Yorktown, by Charles Willson Peale (1784). Courtesy of the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property. Lafayette is in the center.
That last concern was his “only apprehension,” however. He remained at Yorktown for two weeks following Cornwallis’s surrender, overseeing the removal of the prisoners and meeting with the French commanders. Once those duties were tended to he planned to hurry to Mount Vernon for a few days’ rest, then rejoin the army above New York. But on the eve of his planned departure grievous news arrived. It was a summons from his old friend Burwell Bassett: Jackie Custis lay dying at his estate. Come at once.
Although still recuperating from an illness that had stricken him early in the fall, Jackie had come to Yorktown in the course of the siege, anxious to contribute something to the war effort. He spent several days at headquarters serving as an aide to his stepfather. Sometime after mid-month, probably after the British capitulation, he fell ill with a camp disease and was moved to Eltham, the Bassett estate, about thirty miles away. Little is known of his illness, but it was not uncommon for complications to set in, often after one’s recovery seemed certain. This must have happened in this instance, as Washington was not called until at least two weeks after the young man was taken ill.
The commander left immediately, covering the long distance in one day’s hard ride. He arrived just after dark. Martha and Nelly were at Jackie’s bedside, he discovered, and as each woman was grieving and deeply anguished he must have known instantly that the end was near. And, in fact, death came only moments after the general entered the mansion. Jackie had lived for just twenty-seven years, and he had forfeited his life needlessly.46
Washington left behind no account of his inner feelings at this tragedy, although a contemporary characterized him as “uncommonly affected.”47 He must have been shaken as he had been by Patsy’s death, although Jackie was older and Washington had seen him only infrequently during the past six years. Revealingly, Washington abruptly discontinued his diary, his final entry ending in mid-sentence on the day that Bassett’s message arrived, probably at the moment it reached his hands. It was if in his pain and despair he might record unmanly thoughts.
Washington remained at Eltham for five days for the wake and the funeral, then he stopped over at Mount Vernon for a week, resting and meeting daily with Lund to plan the business of the estate. By late in November he was in Philadelphia, closeted with Congress to plan the next campaign—if there was to be another campaign. Washington’s sojourn in Philadelphia was not brief. He remained in the capital for five months, by far his longest absence from the army since this war began.
Washington’s itinerary was indicative that the war had changed, although, to be sure, the military situation could not have seemed more murky. Now Britain might opt for peace. Or, it might press the war, seeking to redress its humiliating loss at Yorktown and still hoping to outlast its war-weary adversary. Or, it might eschew mainland America and contend for bargaining chips in the Caribbean or elsewhere. Washington believed that everything depended on France. If America’s ally maintained its military commitment, he suggested, the war would end quickly and “honourably.” Given the uncertainty, however, what should he do? To act boldly by seizing the initiative was to risk defeat and the negation of every gain procured by the victory at Yorktown. To do nothing was to encourage the French to lose interest in America’s war. In the end Washington and Congress chose merely to assure that the army would be prepared for any eventuality in the next campaign, and Congress voted to maintain the same troop strength of the previous year. That would be adequate for “all the purposes of the American War,” the commander reported. But would the states furnish the men, and would the troops be supplied? That he could not answer, but he knew that if the states failed the army the nation would continue “wasting ourselves in a lingering ineffectual War.”48
As autumn gradually faded from the Delaware Valley, it became obvious that Britain planned no immediate action in the wintry North. Likewise, within a couple weeks of Christmas, it was clear that the foe had no plans for the South. Whitehall replaced Clinton with Sir Guy Carleton, but otherwise Britain’s inaction hinted that the ministry was embroiled in a protracted reexamination of the war. Indeed, at the beginning of the next summer Washington still reported that “the Enemy continue in the same state as they have been in for some time past.” Technically, that was not quite accurate. Signs abounded that Carleton planned to abandon the garrison in Charleston, and at the very moment that Washington penned his observation royal transports were en route to Savannah with orders to gather up every redcoat cantoned at that outpost.49
Ten weeks into 1782 Washington seemed to radiate confidence. The news from Europe convinced him that London was “done with all thoughts of an excursive War.” In fact, the news that eddied across the Atlantic that winter and spring must have been music to his ears, for it was clear that word of Cornwallis’s surrender had hit Great Britain like “a ball in the breast,” to use the metaphor that occurred to Germain as he observed Lord North’s reaction to word of York-town. Early in February Germain resigned, and a month later North’s ministry collapsed, succeeded by a government put together by Marquis Rockingham, long a foe of the coercion of America. North’s demise had been expected, for the reprints of the parliamentary debates that ran in the American press had made it clear that for a substantial number of legislators the luster had worn off this war.50
But Washington’s exultation was shattered by two unrelated events. In April, after a winter of frenetic campaigning in the Caribbean, the British navy inflicted a serious defeat on the French, repulsing a Gallic attack on Jamaica, destroying nearly a fifth of their adversary’s fleet (including the Ville de Paris), and even capturing de Grasse. At the least Washington knew that the engagement doomed any hope for French naval assistance in 1782, and he feared that the Royal Navy’s victory would tantalize Whitehall to persevere in this war. A few weeks later came the news that Rockingham was dead. A new ministry headed by the Earl of Shelburne, an unknown quantity, was in power. “E
vents have shewn, that [America’s] Hopes have risen too high,” Washington noted despondently. “We now begin again to reflect upon . . . a probable Continuance of our present Trouble.”51
Washington’s fears of a resumption of the war on the mainland proved unfounded, however. Outside of the Caribbean, the year 1782 came and went like a lamb. The French army remained in Virginia for six months after their victory at Yorktown, wintering in that happy, sunny climate, positioned to move toward New York or South Carolina as events dictated, but doing neither until midsummer. In July Rochambeau brought his soldiery north, although when he at last moved it was less to begin an action than to deter Carleton from sending succor to the redcoats in the Caribbean.52
Rochambeau and Washington did not even confer about any concerted action in 1782 until the year was half gone, then at a brief conference in Philadelphia they decided against taking any initiative. Curiously, Washington had opened the meeting with a proposal to launch a joint offensive “into the Bowels of Canada,” but Rochambeau expressed no interest in such a venture, and in the end the two agreed to simply camp on the doorstep of New York at least until Versailles was heard from. By September the ministry had made up its mind. Presuming the war on the mainland to be over, its interest had shifted to the West Indies, where France might recoup some of its losses from the Seven Years’ War.53 At a final meeting between the two allied commanders, this one at Verplanck’s Point north of New York, Rochambeau informed Washington of his government’s decision, and he revealed that his army soon would be transported to the Caribbean.54
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