CHAPTER XXVI.SHIFTING SCENES.—TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE.—SAVANNAH.
If the mind weary of the recital of events which by night and by day burdened the soul and tasked the energies of the American Commander-in-Chief to their utmost strain, it cannot but be refreshed by evidence of his abiding confidence and patience in the cause of American Independence, as the theatre of war enlarged and gradually placed every colony under the weight of British pressure. The issue of two hundred millions of paper money had indeed been authorized, and a loan was invited abroad; but, as ever, men were wanted, and were not forthcoming. Even the States which had longest borne the brunt of battle, and had only just been relieved from its immediate dangers, seemed to weary under the reaction of that relief, as if the storm had passed by, never again to sweep over the same surface. It was also very natural as well as true, that the pledge of French intervention and the gleam of the oriflamme of France, did, in a measure, compose anxiety and lessen the sense of local responsibility for such a contribution of troops from every section as would make the nation as independent of France as of Great Britain.
There was a sense of weariness, a tendency to fitful strokes of local energy, without that overwhelming sense of need which first rallied all sections to a common cause. Congress also seemed, at times, almost to stagger under its load. But Washington, who sometimes grew wearyand groaned in spirit, and sometimes panted with shortened breath while toiling upward to surmount some new obstruction, never, never staggered. For him, there were “stepping-stones in the deepest waters.” For him, though tides might ebb and flow, the earth itself forever kept its even course about the guiding sun; and for him, the sun of Liberty was the light of the soul. Every circling year but added blessings from its glow, and energy from its power. The intensity of his emotion when he penned those solemn truthful words to Harrison, showed but the impulse of a spiritual power which the times demanded, but would neither comprehend nor brook if from other sources than Washington’s majestic will and presence. From the summit of his faith, he clearly indicated with pen-point the driveling selfishness which postponed triumph and made the chariot-wheels drag so heavily through the advancing war.
The scenes were suddenly shifted to the southern stage of operations. New characters were to take the parts of some who had fulfilled their destiny; but many of both men and ships that participated in the siege of Boston itself, were still to act an honored part until the revolution should be complete. The cities of Charleston and Savannah were to be visited, as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia had been visited: not with a paternal yearning for their return to a cheerful “mother-home”; but in the spirit of a master dealing with overworked and fractious slaves. But the slaves had both burst and buried their shackles; and whether in city or country, on mountain or in valley, in forest or in swamp—wherever animal life could exist, there, and everywhere, the South, ever generous, ever proud, ever self-respecting, and ever loyal to completions of duty, were to besprinkle the altar of their country with life-blood, and consummate the War for American Independence upon her consecrated soil.
The short-sighted critics of the North who had tried to play upon sectional prejudice, that some one of their self-sufficient number might till Washington’s saddle, began to wonder why he remained at his post in New Jersey; why he did not surrender the northern command to one of their number, and then go where his ancestral home was endangered and the companions of his youth were to struggle for very life itself. But the greatness of Washington the Soldier was never more apparent than now. Calmly he sustained himself at this point of vantage; stretching out his arm—in turn to soothe and warn, or to hurl defiance in the teeth of foes or stragglers, but ever to nerve the nation to duty.
There was no costly throne set up at Morristown, or Middlebrook. There was no luxury there. There were camp-cots, and camp-chairs, and usually, rations sufficient for the daily need; but the centre of the upheaving energies of American Liberty was there; and these energies were controlled and directed, with no loss in transmission, by the immediate presence of the Commander-in-Chief.
It will be remembered, at the very mention of Southern Colonies, or Southern States, how peculiar was their relation to the mother country, from the earliest British supremacy along the eastern Atlantic coast. The Romanist, the Churchman, the Presbyterian, and the Huguenot, in their respective search for larger liberty and missionary work, had shared equally in a sense of oppression, before their migration to America. They had much in common with the early settlers of the New England coast. The Hollanders of New Jersey and the Quakers of Pennsylvania, between the extremes, were not wholly absorbed in business ventures. But all alike had additional incentives to a more independent life, far removed from those social and artificial obligations which reigned supreme in the Old World. There were indeedadventurers for conquest, for wealth, and for political power, among them; and the aristocratic usages which accompanied the royal prerogative were fostered by the presence of slavery, so that they affected the vital functions of the new Republic for generations. But, with the exception of elements earlier noticed, the “ferment of American Liberty” was never more decided, pure, and constant in Massachusetts than in Virginia; nor more bold, desperate and defiant, among the Green Mountains of Vermont than among the pine woods and palmetto groves of North and South Carolina.
The closing months of the nineteenth century seem to have been reserved, in the providence of God, for the consummation of that lofty anticipation of Washington which Daniel Webster formulated in one sublime utterance, “The Union; now and forever; One and Inseparable.”
And now, in the spirit of this memory of the pioneers of American civilization, the narrative returns to the immediate burdens upon the mind of Washington; as, in the closing months of 1779, we face the mirror southward, and catch its reflections.
As the winter season of 1779–’80 drew on, and the ordinary hurricanes of the West India storm-belt indicated a very restricted use of the French navy in those waters, an effort was made to induce Count d’Estaing to support an American attack upon Savannah. He responded promptly; and besides sending five ships to Charleston to perfect details for the combined movement of both southern armies, anchored his principal squadron of twenty ships-of-the-line, two 50’s and eleven frigates, outside the bar of Tybee Island, on the eighth day of September. Six thousand French troops accompanied the fleet. Governor Rutledge of South Carolina soactively aided the enterprise, that a sufficient number of small craft were procured to land thirty-five hundred and twenty-four of these troops at Bieulien, on Ossahaw Inlet, about twelve miles from Savannah. The march was immediately begun. On the sixteenth, Count d’Estaing demanded surrender of the city. The Legislature of South Carolina adjourned. Militia replaced the regulars at Fort Moultrie, and within four days, on the eighth, quite a strong force marched for Savannah. General Lincoln left on the tenth. Meanwhile, the British General Prescott had so actively destroyed bridges and obstructed roads, that the Americans did not join the French troops until the sixteenth. Trenches were not begun until the twenty-fourth of September, and the difficulty of obtaining draught animals for hauling heavy siege-guns to their proper position, still longer delayed the movement. The enthusiasm of the American officers over the prospect of French coöperation led them to assure Count d’Estaing that his delay before Savannah would not exceed from ten to sixteen days; and upon this distinct assurance, he had thus promptly disembarked his land forces. The French West Indies had been left without naval support; and already an entire month had passed with every probability that a British fleet from New York would take advantage of the opportunity to recapture West India posts so recently captured by the French. Abandonment of the siege, or an assault, became an immediate necessity, especially as Count d’Estaing had undertaken the enterprise, urged by Lafayette, with no other authority than his general instructions as to America, and his deep interest in the struggle.
The assault was made on the ninth day of October. It was desperate, with alternate success and failure at different portions of the works; but ultimately, a repulse. The British casualties were few, four officers and thirty-sixmen killed; four officers and one hundred and fifteen men wounded and missing. The French loss was fifteen officers and one hundred and sixteen men killed; forty-three officers and four hundred and eleven men wounded. Count d’Estaing was twice wounded, and Count Pulaski, as well as Sergeant Jasper, so brave at Moultrie in 1776, were among the killed. Colonel Laurens, aid-de-camp to Washington, was conspicuous in the assault, as he proved himself at Newport, and afterwards at Yorktown.
The French withdrew their artillery, and sailed on the twenty-ninth. The Americans returned to Charleston. The result of the siege affected both northern armies. Washington abandoned an attack upon New York, for which he had assembled a large force of New York and Massachusetts militia. Learning that Clinton was preparing to go South, either to Georgia or South Carolina, he ordered the North Carolina troops to march to Charleston in November, and the Virginia regulars to follow in December. Clinton left New York on the twenty-sixth of December for Charleston with seven thousand five hundred men, leaving Lieutenant-General Knyphausen in command.
Washington again placed General Heath in command of the Highlands; sent the cavalry to Connecticut, and with the remainder of the army marched to Morristown, which for the second time became his winter headquarters.