LORD RAWDON, AFTERWARD MARQUIS OF HASTINGS
Rawdon defeats Greene at Hobkirk’s Hill, April 25While these things were going on, Greene reached Camden, and, finding his force insufficient either to assault or to invest it, took up a strong position at Hobkirk’s Hill, about two miles to the north. On the 25th of April Lord Rawdon advanced, to drive him from this position, and a battle ensued, in which the victory, nearly won, slipped through Greene’s fingers. Thefamous Maryland brigade, which in all these southern campaigns had stood forth preëminent, like Cæsar’s tenth legion,—which had been the last to leave the disastrous field of Camden, which had overwhelmed Tarleton at the Cowpens, and had so nearly won the day at Guilford,—now behaved badly, and, falling into confusion through a misunderstanding of orders, deranged Greene’s masterly plan of battle.but is none the less obliged to give up Camden and save his army, May 10He was driven from his position, and three days later retreated ten miles to Clermont; but, just as at Guilford, his plan of campaign was so good that he proceeded forthwith to reap all the fruits of victory. The fall of Fort Watson, breaking Rawdon’s communication with the coast, made it impossible for him to stay where he was. On the 10th of May the British general retreated rapidly, until he reached Monk’s Corner, within thirty miles of Charleston; and the all-important post of Camden, the first great prize of the campaign, fell into Greene’s hands.
All the inland posts taken from the British, May-JuneVictories followed now in quick succession. Within three weeks Lee and Marion had taken Fort Motte and Fort Granby, Sumter had taken Orangeburg, and on the 5th of June, after an obstinate defence, Augusta surrendered to Lee, thus throwing open the state of Georgia. Nothing was left to the British but Ninety-Six, which was strongly garrisoned, and now withstood a vigorous siege of twenty-eight days. Determined not to lose this last hold upon the interior, and anxious to crush his adversary in battle, if possible, Lord Rawdon collected all the force he could, well-nigh stripping Charleston of its defenders, and thus, with 2,000 men, came up in all haste to raise the siege of Ninety-Six. His bold movement was successful for the moment. Greene, too prudent to risk a battle, withdrew, and the frontier fortress was relieved. It was impossible, however, for Rawdon to hold it and keep his army there, so far from the seaboard, after all the other inland posts had fallen, and on the 29th of June he evacuated the place, and retreated upon Orangeburg; while Greene,following him, took up a strong position on the High Hills of Santee. Thus, within three months after Greene’s return from Guilford, the upper country of South Carolina had been completely reconquered, and only one successful battle was now needed to drive the enemy back upon Charleston. But first it was necessary to take some rest and recruit the little army which had toiled so incessantly since the last December. The enemy, too, felt the need of rest, and the heat was intolerable. Both armies, accordingly, lay and watched each other until after the middle of August.
Rawdon goes to EnglandDuring this vacation, Lord Rawdon, worn out and ill from his rough campaigning, embarked for England, leaving Colonel Stuart in command of the forces in South Carolina. Greene busied himself in recruiting his army until it numbered 2,600 men, though 1,000 of these were militia. His position on the High Hills of Santee was, by an air line, distant only sixteen miles from the British army. The intervening space was filled by meadows, through which the Wateree and Congaree rivers flowed to meet each other; and often, as now, when the swift waters, swollen by rain, overflowed the lowlands, it seemed like a vast lake, save for the tops of tall pine-trees that here and there showed themselves in deepest green, protruding from the mirror-like surface. Greene understood the value of this meadow land as a barrier, when he chose the site for his summer camp.Greene marches against the British, Aug. 22The enemy could reach him only by a circuitous march of seventy miles. On the 22d of August Greene broke up his camp very quietly, and started out on the last of his sagacious campaigns. The noonday heat was so intense that he marched only in the morning and evening, in order to keep his men fresh and active; while by vigilant scouting parties he so completely cut off the enemy’s means of information that Stuart remained ignorant of his approach until he was close at hand. The British commander then fell back upon Eutaw Springs, about fifty miles from Charleston, where he waited in a strong position.
Battle of Eutaw Springs, Sept. 8The battle of Eutaw Springs may be resolved into two brief actions between sunrise and noon of the 8th of September, 1781. In the first action the British line was broken and driven from the field. In the second Stuart succeeded in forming a new line, supported by a brick house and palisaded garden, and from this position Greene was unable to drive him. It has therefore been set down as a British victory. If so, it was a victory followed the next evening by the hasty retreat of the victors, who were hotly pursued for thirty miles by Marion and Lee. Strategically considered, it was a decisive victory for the Americans. The state government was restored to supremacy, and, though partisan scrimmages were kept up for another year, these were but the dying embers of the fire. The British were cooped up in Charleston till the end of the war, protected by their ships. Less than thirteen months had elapsed since the disaster of Camden had seemed to destroy all hope of saving the state. All this change had been wrought by Greene’s magnificent generalship. Coming upon the scene under almost every imaginable disadvantage, he had reorganized the remnant of Gates’s broken and dispirited army, he had taken the initiative from the first, and he had held the game in his own hands till the last blow was struck.Greene’s superb generalshipSo consummate had been his strategy that whether victorious or defeated on the field, he had, in every instance, gained the object for which the campaign was made. Under one disadvantage, indeed, he had not laboured: he had excellent officers. Seldom has a more brilliant group been seen than that which comprised Morgan, Campbell, Marion, Sumter, Pickens, Otho Williams, William Washington, and the father of Robert Edward Lee. It is only an able general, however, who knows how to use such admirable instruments. Men of narrow intelligence do not like to have able men about them, and do not know how to deal with them. Gates had Kalb and Otho Williams, and put them in places where their talent was unavailable and one of themwas uselessly sacrificed, while he was too dull to detect the extraordinary value of Marion. But genius is quick to see genius, and knows what to do with it. Greene knew what each one of his officers could do, and took it into the account in planning his sweeping movements. Unless he had known that he could depend upon Morgan as certainly as Napoleon, in after years, relied upon Davoust on the day of Jena and Auerstadt, it would have been foolhardy for him to divide his force in the beginning of the campaign,—a move which, though made in apparent violation of military rules, nevertheless gave him the initiative in his long and triumphant game. What Greene might have accomplished on a wider field and with more ample resources can never be known. But the intellectual qualities which he showed in his southern campaign were those which have characterized some of the foremost strategists of modern times.
Lord Cornwallis arrives at Petersburg, May 20, 1781When Lord Cornwallis heard, from time to time, what was going on in South Carolina, he was not cheered by the news. But he was too far away to interfere, and it was on the very day of Eutaw Springs that the toils were drawn about him which were to compass his downfall. When he reached Petersburg, on the 20th of May, the youthful Lafayette, whom Washington had sent down to watch and check the movements of the traitor Arnold, was stationed at Richmond, with a little army of 3,000 men, two thirds of them raw militia. To oppose this small force Cornwallis had now 5,000 veterans, comprising the men whom he had brought away from Guilford, together with the forces lately under Arnold and Phillips. Arnold, after some useless burning and plundering, had been recalled to New York. Phillips had died of a fever just before Cornwallis arrived. The earl entertained great hopes. His failure in North Carolina rankled in his soul, and he was eager to make a grand stroke and retrieve his reputation. Could the powerful state of Virginia be conquered, itseemed as if everything south of the Susquehanna must fall, in spite of Greene’s successes. With his soul thus full of chivalrous enterprise, Cornwallis for the moment saw things in rose colour, and drew wrong conclusions. He expected to find half the people Tories, and he also expected to find a state of chronic hostility between the slaves and their masters. On both points he was quite mistaken.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA, MAY TO OCTOBER, 1781
His campaign against LafayetteBut while Cornwallis underrated the difficulty of the task, he knew, nevertheless, that 5,000 men were not enough to conquer so strong a state, and he tried to persuade Clinton to abandon New York, if necessary, so that all the available British force might be concentrated upon Virginia. Clinton wisely refused.GREAT SEAL OF VIRGINIA (OBVERSE)GREAT SEAL OF VIRGINIA (OBVERSE)A state like Virginia, which, for the want of a loyalist party, could be held only by sheer conquest, was not fit for a basis of operations against the other states; while the abandoning of New York, the recognized strategic centre of the Atlantic coast, would be interpreted by the whole world, not as a change of base, but as a confession of defeat. Clinton’s opinion was thus founded upon a truer and clearer view of the whole situation than Cornwallis’s; nor is it likely that the latter would ever have urged such a scheme had he not been, in such a singular and unexpected way, elbowed out of North Carolina. Being now in Virginia, it was incumbent on him to do something, and, with the force at his disposal, it seemed as if he might easily begin by crushing Lafayette. “The boy cannot escape me,†said Cornwallis; but the young Frenchman turned out to bequite capable of taking care of himself. Although not a man of original genius, Lafayette had much good sense and was quick at learning. He was now twenty-three years old, buoyant and kind, full of wholesome enthusiasm, and endowed with no mean sagacity. A Fabian policy was all that could be adopted for the moment. When Cornwallis advanced from Petersburg to Richmond, Lafayette began the skilful retreat which proved him an apt learner in the school of Washington and Greene.GREAT SEAL OF VIRGINIA (REVERSE)GREAT SEAL OF VIRGINIA (REVERSE)From Richmond toward Fredericksburg—over the ground made doubly famous by the movements of Lee and Grant—the youthful general kept up his retreat, never giving the eager earl a chance to deal him a blow; for, as with naïve humour he wrote to Washington, “I am not strong enough even to be beaten.†On the 4th of June Lafayette crossed the Rapidan at Ely’s Ford and placed himself in a secure position; while Cornwallis, refraining from the pursuit, sent Tarleton on a raid westward to Charlottesville, to break up the legislature, which was in session there, and to capture the governor, Thomas Jefferson. The raid, though conducted with Tarleton’s usual vigour, failed of its principal prey; for Jefferson, forewarned in the nick of time, got off to the mountains about twenty minutes before the cavalry surrounded his house at Monticello. It remained for Tarleton to seize the military stores collected at Albemarle; but on the 10th of June Lafayette effected a junction with 1,000 Pennsylvaniaregulars under Wayne, and thereupon succeeded in placing his whole force between Tarleton and the prize he was striving to reach. Unable to break through this barrier, Tarleton had nothing left him but to rejoin Cornwallis; and as Lafayette’s army was reinforced from various sources until it amounted to more than 4,000 men, he became capable of annoying the earl in such wise as to make him think it worth while to get nearer to the sea. Cornwallis, turning southwestward from the North Anna river, had proceeded as far inland as Point of Forks when Tarleton joined him. On the 15th of June, the British commander,finding that he could not catch “the boy,†and was accomplishing nothing by his marches and countermarches in the interior, retreated down the James river to Richmond.Cornwallis retreats to the coastIn so doing he did not yet put himself upon the defensive. Lafayette was still too weak to risk a battle, or to prevent his going wherever he liked. But Cornwallis was too prudent a general to remain at a long distance from his base of operations, among a people whom he had found, to his great disappointment, thoroughly hostile. By retreating to the seaboard, he could make sure of supplies and reinforcements, and might presently resume the work of invasion. Accordingly, on the 20th he continued his retreat from Richmond, crossing the Chickahominy a little above White Oak Swamp, and marching down the York peninsula as far as Williamsburg. Lafayette, having been further reinforced by Steuben, so that his army numbered more than 5,000, pressed closely on the rear of the British all the way down the peninsula; and on the 6th ofJuly an action was fought between parts of the two armies, at Green Spring, near Williamsburg, in which the Americans were repulsed with a loss of 145 men.[42]and occupies YorktownThe campaign was ended by the first week in August, when Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, adding the garrison of Portsmouth to his army, so that it numbered 7,000 men, while Lafayette planted himself on Malvern Hill, and awaited further developments. Throughout this game of strategy, Lafayette had shown commendable skill, provinghimself a worthy antagonist for the ablest of the British generals. But a far greater commander than either the Frenchman or the Englishman was now to enter most unexpectedly upon the scene. The elements of the catastrophe were prepared, and it only remained for a master hand to strike the blow.
Elements of the final catastrophe; arrival of the French fleetAs early as the 22d of May, just two days before the beginning of this Virginia campaign, Washington had held a conference with Rochambeau, at Wethersfield, in Connecticut, and it was there decided that a combined attack should be made upon New York by the French and American armies. If they should succeed in taking the city, it would ruin the British cause; and, at all events, it was hoped that if New York was seriously threatened Sir Henry Clinton would take reinforcements from Cornwallis, and thus relieve the pressure upon the southern states. In order to undertake the capture of New York, it would be necessary to have the aid of a powerful French fleet; and the time had at last arrived when such assistance was confidently to be expected. The naval war between France and England in the West Indies had now raged for two years, with varying fortunes. The French government had exerted itself to the utmost, and early in the spring of this year had sent out a magnificent fleet of twenty-eight ships-of-the-line and six frigates, carrying 1,700 guns and 20,000 men, commanded by Count de Grasse, one of the ablest of the French admirals. It was designed to take from England the great island of Jamaica; but as the need for naval coöperation upon the North American coast had been strongly urged upon the French ministry, Grasse was ordered to communicate with Washington and Rochambeau, and to seize the earliest opportunity of acting in concert with them.
The arrival of this fleet would introduce a feature into the war such as had not existed at any time since hostilities had begun. It would interrupt the British control over the water. The utmost force the British were ready to opposeto it amounted only to nineteen ships-of-the-line, carrying 1,400 guns and 13,000 men, and this disparity was too great to be surmounted by anything short of the genius of a Nelson. The conditions of the struggle were thus about to be suddenly and decisively altered. The retreat of Cornwallis upon Yorktown had been based entirely upon the assumption of that British naval supremacy which had hitherto been uninterrupted. The safety of his position depended wholly upon the ability of the British fleet to control the Virginia waters. Once let the French get the upper hand there, and the earl, if assailed in front by an overwhelming land force, would be literally “between the devil and the deep sea.†He would be no better off than Burgoyne in the forests of northern New York.
CORNWALLIS’S HEADQUARTERS AT YORKTOWN
News from Grasse and LafayetteIt was not yet certain, however, where Grasse would find it best to strike the coast. The elements of the situation disclosed themselves but slowly, and it required the master mind of Washington to combine them. Intelligence travelledat snail’s pace in those days, and operations so vast in extent were not within the compass of anything but the highest military genius. It took ten days for Washington to hear from Lafayette, and it took a month for him to hear from Greene, while there was no telling just when definite information would arrive from Grasse. But so soon as Washington heard from Greene, in April, how he had manœuvred Cornwallis up into Virginia, he began secretly to consider the possibility of leaving a small force to guard the Hudson, while taking the bulk of his army southward to overwhelm Cornwallis. At the Wethersfield conference, he spoke of this to Rochambeau, but to no one else; and a dispatch to Grasse gave him the choice of sailing either for the Hudson or for Chesapeake bay. So matters stood till the middle of August, while Washington, grasping all the elements of the problem, vigilantly watched the whole field, holding himself in readiness for either alternative,—to strike New York close at hand, or to hurl his army to a distance of four hundred miles. On the 14th of August a message came from Grasse that he was just starting from the West Indies for Chesapeake bay, with his whole fleet, and hoped that whatever the armies had to do might be done quickly, as he should be obliged to return to the West Indies by the middle of October. Washington could now couple with this the information, just received from Lafayette, that Cornwallis had established himself at Yorktown, where he had deep water on three sides of him, and a narrow neck in front.
WASHINGTON SILHOUETTE BY FOLWELL
Subtle and audacious scheme of WashingtonThe supreme moment of Washington’s military career had come,—the moment for realizing a conception which had nothing of a Fabian character about it, for it was a conception of the same order as those in which Cæsar and Napoleon dealt. He decided at once to transfer his army to Virginia and overwhelm Cornwallis. He had everything in readiness. The army of Rochambeau had marched through Connecticut, and joined him on the Hudson in July. He could afford to leave West Point with a comparativelysmall force, for that strong fortress could be taken only by a regular siege, and he had planned his march so as to blind Sir Henry Clinton completely. This was one of the finest points in Washington’s scheme, in which the perfection of the details matched the audacious grandeur of the whole. Sir Henry was profoundly unconscious of any such movement as Washington was about to execute; but he was anxiously looking out for an attack upon New York. Now, from the American headquarters near West Point, Washington could take his army more than half way through New Jersey without arousing any suspicion at all; for the enemy wouldbe sure to interpret such a movement as preliminary to an occupation of Staten Island, as a point from which to assail New York. Sir Henry knew that the French fleet might be expected at any moment; but he had not the clue which Washington held, and his anxious thoughts were concerned with New York harbour, not with Chesapeake Bay. Besides all this, the sheer audacity of the movement served still further to conceal its true meaning. It would take some time for the enemy to comprehend so huge a sweep as that from New York to Virginia, and doubtless Washington could reach Philadelphia before his purpose could be fathomed.
He transfers his army to Virginia, Aug. 19-Sept. 18The events justified his foresight. On the 19th of August, five days after receiving the dispatch from Grasse, Washington’s army crossed the Hudson at King’s Ferry, and began its march. Lord Stirling was left with a small force at Saratoga, and General Heath, with 4,000 men, remained at West Point. Washington took with him southward 2,000 Continentals and 4,000 Frenchmen. It was the only time during the war that French and American land forces marched together, save on the occasion of the disastrous attack upon Savannah. None save Washington and Rochambeau knew whither they were going. So precious was the secret that even the general officers supposed, until New Brunswick was passed, that their destination was Staten Island. So rapid was the movement that, however much the men might have begun to wonder, they had reached Philadelphia before the purpose of the expedition was distinctly understood.
Portrait: le Cte du Rochambeau
As the army marched through the streets of Philadelphia, there was an outburst of exulting hope. The plan could no longer be hidden. Congress was informed of it, and a fresh light shone upon the people, already elated by the news of Greene’s career of triumph. The windows were thronged with fair ladies, who threw sweet flowers on the dusty soldiers as they passed, while the welkin rang with shouts, anticipating the great deliverance that was so soon to come. The column of soldiers, in the loose order adapted to itsrapid march, was nearly two miles in length. First came the war-worn Americans, clad in rough toggery, which eloquently told the story of the meagre resources of a country without a government. Then followed the gallant Frenchmen, clothed in gorgeous trappings, such as could be provided by a government which at that time took three fourths of the earnings of its people in unrighteous taxation. There was some parading of these soldiers before the president of Congress, but time was precious. Washington, in his eagerness galloping on to Chester, received and sent back thejoyful intelligence that Grasse had arrived in Chesapeake bay, and then the glee of the people knew no bounds. Bands of music played in the streets, every house hoisted its stars-and-stripes, and all the roadside taverns shouted success to the bold general. “Long live Washington!†was the toast of the day. “He has gone to catch Cornwallis in his mousetrap!â€
Portrait: Hood
But these things did not stop for a moment the swift advance of the army. It was on the 1st of September that they left Trenton behind them, and by the 5th they had reached the head of Chesapeake bay, whence they were conveyed in ships, and reached the scene of action, near Yorktown, by the 18th.
Movements of the fleetsMeanwhile, all things had been working together most auspiciously. On the 31st of August the great French squadron had arrived on the scene, and the only Englishmancapable of defeating it, under the existing odds, was far away. Admiral Rodney’s fleet had followed close upon its heels from the West Indies, but Rodney himself was not in command. He had been taken ill suddenly, and had sailed for England, and Sir Samuel Hood commanded the fleet. Hood outsailed Grasse, passed him on the ocean without knowing it, looked in at the Chesapeake on the 25th of August, and, finding no enemy there, sailed on to New York to get instructions from Admiral Graves, who commanded the naval force in the North, This was the first that Graves or Clinton knew of the threatened danger. Not a moment was to be lost. The winds were favourable, and Graves, now chief in command, crowded sail for the Chesapeake, and arrived on the 5th of September, the very day on which Washington’s army was embarking at the head of the great bay. Graves found the French fleet blocking the entrance to the bay, and instantly attacked it. A decisive naval victory for the British would at this moment have ruined everything. But after a sharp fight of two hours’ duration, in which some 700 men were killed and wounded on the two fleets, Admiral Graves withdrew.Signature: Saml GravesThree of his ships were badly damaged, and after manœuvering for four days he returned, baffled and despondent, to New York, leaving Grasse in full possession of the Virginia waters. The toils were thus fast closing around Lord Cornwallis. He knew nothing as yet of Washington’s approach, but there was just a chance that he might realize his danger, and, crossing the James river, seek safety in a retreat upon North Carolina. Lafayette forestalled this solitary chance. Immediately upon the arrival of the French squadron, the troops of the Marquis de Saint-Simon, 3,000 in number, had been set on shore and added to Lafayette’s army; and with this increasedforce, now amounting to more than 8,000 men, “the boy†came down on the 7th of September, and took his stand across the neck of the peninsula at Williamsburg, cutting off Cornwallis’s retreat.
MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE
Cornwallis surrounded at YorktownThus, on the morning of the 8th, the very day on which Greene, in South Carolina, was fighting his last battle at Eutaw Springs, Lord Cornwallis, in Virginia, found himself surrounded. The door of the mousetrap was shut. Still, but for the arrival of Washington, the plan would probably have failed. It was still in Cornwallis’s power to burst the door open. His force was nearly equal to Lafayette’s in numbers, and better in quality, for Lafayette’s contained 3,000 militia. Cornwallis carefully reconnoitred the American lines, and seriously thought of breaking through; but the risk was considerable, and heavy loss was inevitable. He had not the slightest inkling of Washington’s movements, and he believed that Graves would soon return with force enough to drive away Grasse’s blockading squadron. So he decided to wait before striking a hazardous blow. It was losing his last chance. On the14th Washington reached Lafayette’s headquarters, and took command. On the 18th the northern army began arriving in detachments, and by the 26th it was all concentrated at Williamsburg, more than 16,000 strong. The problem was solved. The surrender of Cornwallis was only a question of time. It was the great military surprise of the Revolutionary War. Had any one predicted, eight months before, that Washington on the Hudson and Cornwallis on the Catawba, eight hundred miles apart, would so soon come together and terminate the war on the coast of Virginia, he would have been thought a wild prophet indeed. For thoroughness of elaboration and promptness of execution, the movement, on Washington’s part, was as remarkable as the march of Napoleon in the autumn of 1805, when he swooped from the shore of the English Channel into Bavaria, and captured the Austrian army at Ulm.
Clinton’s attempt at a counterstrokeBy the 2d of September, Sir Henry Clinton, learning that the American army had reached the Delaware, and coupling with this the information he had got from Admiral Hood, began to suspect the true nature of Washington’s movement, and was at his wit’s end. The only thing he could think of was to make a counterstroke on the coast of Connecticut, and he accordingly detached Benedict Arnold with 2,000 men to attack New London.
Arnold’s proceedings at New London, Sept. 6It was the boast of this sturdy little state that no hostile force had ever slept a night upon her soil. Such blows as her coast towns had received had been dealt by an enemy who retreated as quickly as he had come; and such was again to be the case. The approach to New London was guarded by two forts on opposite banks of the river Thames, but Arnold’s force soon swept up the west bank, bearing down all opposition and capturing the city. In Fort Griswold, on the east bank, 157 militia were gathered and made a desperate resistance. The fort was attacked by 600 regulars, and after losing 192 men, or 35 more than the entire number of the garrison, they carried it by storm. No quarter was given, and of the littlegarrison only 26 escaped unhurt.[43]The town of New London was laid in ashes; minute-men came swarming by hundreds; the enemy reëmbarked before sunset and returned up the Sound. And thus, on the 6th of September, 1781, with this wanton assault upon the peaceful neighbourhood where the earliest years of his life had been spent, the brilliant and wicked Benedict Arnold disappears from American history.[44]
Surrender of Cornwallis, Oct. 19, 1781A thoroughly wanton assault it was, for it did not and could not produce the slightest effect upon the movements of Washington. By the time the news of it had reached Virginia, the combination against Cornwallis had been completed, and day by day the lines were drawn more closely about the doomed army. Yorktown was invested, and on the 6th of October the first parallel was opened by General Lincoln. On the 11th, the second parallel, within three hundred yards of the enemy’s works, was opened by Steuben. On the night of the 14th Alexander Hamilton and the Baron de Viomenil carried two of the British redoubts by storm. On the next night the British made a gallant but fruitless sortie. By noon of the 16th their works were fast crumbling to pieces under the fire of seventy cannon. On the 17th—the fourth anniversary of Burgoyne’s surrender—Cornwallis hoisted the white flag. The terms of the surrender were like those of Lincoln’s at Charleston. The British army became prisoners of war, subject to the ordinary rules of exchange. The only delicate question related to the American loyalists in the army, whom Cornwallis felt it wrong to leave in the lurch. This point was neatly disposed of by allowing him to send a ship to Sir HenryClinton, with news of the catastrophe, and to embark in it such troops as he might think proper to send to New York, and no questions asked. On a little matter of etiquette the Americans were more exacting. The practice of playing the enemy’s tunes had always been cherished as an inalienable prerogative of British soldiery; and at the surrender of Charleston, in token of humiliation, General Lincoln’s army had been expressly forbidden to play any but an American tune. Colonel Laurens, who now conducted the negotiations, directed that Lord Cornwallis’s sword should be received by General Lincoln, and that the army, on marching out to lay down its arms, should play a British or a German air. There was no help for it; and on the 19th of October, Cornwallis’s army, 7,247 in number, with 840 seamen, marched out with colours furled and cased, while the band played a quaint old English melody, of which the significant title was “The World Turned Upside Down!â€
MOORE’S HOUSE, YORKTOWN, IN WHICH THE TERMS OF SURRENDER WERE ARRANGED
Importance of the aid rendered by the French fleet and armyOn the very same day that Cornwallis surrendered, SirHenry Clinton, having received naval reinforcements, sailed from New York with twenty-five ships-of-the-line and ten frigates, and 7,000 of his best troops. Five days brought him to the mouth of the Chesapeake, where he learned that he was too late, as had been the case four years before, when he tried to relieve Burgoyne. A fortnight earlier, this force might perhaps have seriously altered the result, for the fleet was strong enough to dispute with Grasse the control over the coast. The French have always taken to themselves the credit of the victory of Yorktown. In the palace of Versailles there is a room the walls of which are covered with huge paintings depicting the innumerable victories of France, from the days of Chlodwig to those of Napoleon. Near the end of the long series, the American visitor cannot fail to notice a scene which is labelled “Bataille de Yorcktown†(misspelled, as is the Frenchman’s wont in dealing with the words of outer barbarians), in which General Rochambeau occupies the most commanding position, while General Washington is perforce contented with a subordinate place. This is not correct history, for the glory of conceiving and conducting the movement undoubtedly belongs to Washington. But it should never be forgotten, not only that the 4,000 men of Rochambeau and the 3,000 of Saint-Simon were necessary for the successful execution of the plan, but also that without the formidable fleet of Grasse the plan could not even have been made. How much longer the war might have dragged out its tedious length, or what might have been its final issue, without this timely assistance, can never be known; and our debt of gratitude to France for her aid on this supreme occasion is something which should always be duly acknowledged.[45]
PAROLE OF CORNWALLIS
Effect of the news in EnglandEarly on a dark morning of the fourth week in October, an honest old German, slowly pacing the streets of Philadelphia on his night watch, began shouting, “Basht dreeo’glock, und Gornvallis ish dakendt!†and light sleepers sprang out of bed and threw up their windows. Washington’s courier laid the dispatches before Congress in the forenoon, and after dinner a service of prayer and thanksgiving was held in the Lutheran Church. At New Haven and Cambridge the students sang triumphal hymns, and every village green in the country was ablaze with bonfires. The Duke de Lauzun sailed for France in a swift ship, and on the 27th of November all the houses in Paris were illuminated, and the aisles of Notre Dame resounded with the Te Deum. At noon of November 25th, the news was brought to Lord George Germain, at his house in Pall Mall. Getting into a cab, he drove hastily to the Lord Chancellor’s house in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, and took him in; and then they drove to Lord North’s office in Downing Street. At the staggering news, all the Prime Minister’s wonted gayety forsook him. He walked wildly up and down the room, throwing his arms about and crying, “O God! it is all over! it is all over! it is all over!†A dispatch was sent to the king at Kew, and when Lord George received the answer that evening, at dinner, he observed that his Majesty wrote calmly, but had forgotten to date his letter,—a thing which had never happened before.
“The tidings,†says Wraxall, who narrates these incidents, “were calculated to diffuse a gloom over the most convivial society, and opened a wide field for political speculation.†There were many people in England, however, who looked at the matter differently from Lord North. This crushing defeat was just what the Duke of Richmond, at the beginning of the war, had publicly declared he hoped for. Charles Fox always took especial delight in reading about the defeats of invading armies, from Marathon and Salamis downward; and over the news of Cornwallis’s surrender he leaped from his chair and clapped his hands. In a debate in Parliament, four months before, the youthful William Pitt had denounced the American war as “mostaccursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical,†which led Burke to observe, “He is not a chip of the old block; he is the old block itself!â€
Portrait: W Pitt
Difficult position of Great BritainThe fall of Lord North’s ministry, and with it the overthrow of the personal government of George III., was now close at hand. For a long time the government had been losing favour. In the summer of 1780, the British victories in South Carolina had done something to strengthen it; yet when, in the autumn of that year, Parliament wasdissolved, although the king complained that his expenses for purposes of corruption had been twice as great as ever before, the new Parliament was scarcely more favourable to the ministry than the old one. Misfortunes and perplexities crowded in the path of Lord North and his colleagues. The example of American resistance had told upon Ireland, and it was in the full tide of that agitation which is associated with the names of Flood and Grattan that the news of Cornwallis’s surrender was received. For more than a year there had been war in India, where Hyder Ali, for the moment, was carrying everything before him. France, eager to regain her lost foothold upon Hindustan, sent a strong armament thither, and insisted that England must give up all her Indian conquests except Bengal. For a moment England’s new Eastern empire tottered, and was saved only by the superhuman exertions of Warren Hastings, aided by the wonderful military genius of Sir Eyre Coote. In May, 1781, the Spaniards had taken Pensacola, thus driving the British from their last position in Florida. In February, 1782, the Spanish fleet captured Minorca, and the siege of Gibraltar, which had been kept up for nearly three years, was pressed with redoubled energy. During the winter the French recaptured St. Eustatius, and handed it over to Holland; and Grasse’s great fleet swept away all the British possessions in the West Indies, except Jamaica, Barbadoes, and Antigua. All this time the Northern League kept up its jealous watch upon British cruisers in the narrow seas, and among all the powers of Europe the government of George III. could not find a single friend.
Rodney’s victory over Grasse, April 12, 1782The maritime supremacy of England was, however, impaired but for a moment. Rodney was sent back to the West Indies, and on the 12th of April, 1782, his fleet of thirty-six ships encountered the French near the island of Sainte-Marie-Galante. The battle of eleven hours which ensued, and in which 5,000 men were killed or wounded, was one of the mosttremendous contests ever witnessed upon the ocean before the time of Nelson. The French were totally defeated, and Grasse was taken prisoner,—the first French commander-in-chief, by sea or land, who had fallen into an enemy’s hands since Marshal Tallard gave up his sword to Marlborough, on the terrible day of Blenheim. France could do nothing to repair this crushing disaster. Her naval power was eliminated from the situation at a single blow; and in the course of the summer the English achieved another great success by overthrowing the Spaniards at Gibraltar, after a struggle which, for dogged tenacity, is scarcely paralleled in the annals of modern warfare. By the autumn of 1782, England, defeated in the United States, remained victorious and defiant as regarded the other parties to the war.
Portrait: Rockingham
But these great successes came too late to save the doomed ministry of Lord North. After the surrender of Cornwallis, no one but the king thought of pursuing the war in America any further. Even the king gave up all hope of subduing the United States; but he insisted upon retaining the state of Georgia, with the cities of Charleston and New York; and he vowed that, rather than acknowledge the independence of the United States, he would abdicate the throne and retire to Hanover. Lord George Germain was dismissed from office, Sir Henry Clinton was superseded by Sir Guy Carleton, and the king began to dream of a new campaign. But his obstinacy was of no avail. During the winter and spring, General Wayne, actingunder Greene’s orders, drove the British from Georgia, while at home the country squires began to go over to the opposition; and Lord North, utterly discouraged and disgusted, refused any longer to pursue a policy of which he disapproved. The baffled and beaten king, like the fox in the fable, declared that the Americans were a wretched set of knaves, and he was glad to be rid of them. The House of Commons began to talk of a vote of censure on the administration. A motion of Conway’s, petitioning the king to stop the war, was lost by only a single vote; and at last, on the 20th of March, 1782, Lord North bowed to the storm, and resigned. The two sections of the Whig party united their forces. Lord Rockingham became Prime Minister, and with him came into office Shelburne, Camden, and Grafton, as well as Fox and Conway, the Duke of Richmond, and Lord John Cavendish, staunch friends of America, all of them, whose appointment involved the recognition of the independence of the United States.
GEORGE III
Lord North observed that he had often been accused of issuing lying bulletins, but he had never told so big a lie as that with which the new ministry announced its entrance into power; for in introducing the name of each of these gentlemen, the official bulletin used the words, “His Majesty has beenpleasedto appoint!†It was indeed aday of bitter humiliation for George III. and the men who had been his tools.Signature:W. S. ConwayBut it was a day of happy omen for the English race, in the Old World as well as in the New. For the advent of Lord Rockingham’s ministry meant not merely the independence of the United States; it meant the downfall of the only serious danger with which English liberty has been threatened since the expulsion of the Stuarts. The personal government which George III. had sought to establish, with its wholesale corruption, its shameless violations of public law, and its attacks upon freedom of speech and of the press, became irredeemably discredited, and tottered to its fall; while the great England of William III., of Walpole, of Chatham, of the younger Pitt, of Peel, and of Gladstone was set free to pursue its noble career. Such was the priceless boon which the younger nation, by its sturdy insistence upon the principles of political justice, conferred upon the elder. The decisive battle of freedom in England, as well as in America, and in that vast colonial world for which Chatham prophesied the dominion of the future, had now been fought and won. And foremost in accomplishing this glorious work had been the lofty genius of Washington, and the steadfast valour of the men who suffered with him at Valley Forge, and whom he led to victory at Yorktown.
In the light of the foregoing narrative it distinctly appears that, while the American Revolution involved a military struggle between the governments of Great Britain and the United States, it did not imply any essential antagonism of interests or purposes between the British and American peoples. It was not a contest between Englishmen and Americans, but between two antagonistic principles of government, each of which had its advocates and opponents in both countries. It was a contest between Whig and Tory principles, and it was the temporary prevalence of Toryism in the British government that caused the political severance between the two countries. If the ideas of Walpole, or theideas of Chatham, had continued to prevail at Westminster until the end of the eighteenth century, it is not likely that any such political severance would have occurred. The self-government of the American colonies would not have been interfered with, and such slight grievances as here and there existed might easily have been remedied by the ordinary methods of peace. The American Revolution, unlike most political revolutions, was essentially conservative in character. It was not caused by actually existing oppression, but by the determination to avoid possible oppression in future. Its object was not the acquisition of new liberties, but the preservation of old ones. The principles asserted in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 differed in no essential respect from those that had been proclaimed five centuries earlier, in Earl Simon’s Parliament of 1265. Political liberty was not an invention of the western hemisphere; it was brought to these shores from Great Britain by our forefathers of the seventeenth century, and their children of the eighteenth naturally refused to surrender the treasure which from time immemorial they had enjoyed.
The decisive incident which in the retrospect appears to have made the Revolution inevitable, as it actually brought it upon the scene, was the Regulating Act of April, 1774, which annulled the charter of Massachusetts, and left that commonwealth to be ruled by a military governor. This atrocious measure, which was emphatically condemned by the most enlightened public sentiment in England, was the measure of a half-crazy young king, carried through a parliament in which more than a hundred members sat for rotten boroughs. It was the first violent manifestation of despotic tendency at the seat of government since 1688; and in this connection it is interesting to remember that in 1684 Charles II. had undertaken to deal with Massachusetts precisely as was attempted ninety years later by George III. In both cases the charter was annulled, and a military governor appointed; and in both cases the liberties of all the colonies were openly threatened by the tyrannical scheme. But inthe earlier case the conduct of James II. at once brought on acute irritation in England, so that the evil was promptly removed. In the later case the evil was realized so much sooner and so much more acutely in the colonies than in England as to result in political separation. Instead of a general revolution, overthrowing or promptly curbing the king, there was a partial revolution, which severed the colonies from their old allegiance; but at the same time the success of this partial revolution soon ended in restraining the king. The personal government of George III. was practically ended by the election of 1784.