American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years After Yorktown, 1781-1783

365 Pages·2009·2.68 MB·English

by  Fowler William M Jr

CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Plate Section
Acknowledgments
Maps
Notes
Footnote
Bibliography
Appendix 1. Newburgh Address
Appendix 2. A Circular Letter
A Note on the Author
By the Same Author
Imprint
To the staff of Snell Library at Northeastern University. My partners in teaching
and scholarship.
Introduction
On the morning of January 6, 1783, the doors of the Continental Congress in
Philadelphia opened to admit Major General Alexander McDougall, Colonel
John Brooks, and Colonel Matthias Ogden. These officers bore an urgent
message from the American army encamped at Newburgh, New York. The
army, they warned, was on the verge of mutiny. The members were
thunderstruck. After eight years of bloody war the army that had brought the
nation so close to victory now stood as a threat to the very principles for which it
had fought. How could this have happened?
Most Americans in 1783, and many today, believe that the surrender of the
British army under Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, October 19, 1781, marked the
end of the American Revolution. Even British leaders of the time shared this
view. Lord North, for example, the king’s first minister, upon hearing the news
of Yorktown, exclaimed, “O God it is all over.” However, Yorktown did not end
the American Revolution. The war for independence was not over, and no one
understood this better than the American commander in chief.
George Washington had cause to worry. Even after the victory at Yorktown,
the British still held Charleston, Savannah, and New York City. The distant
northern posts of Oswego, Detroit, Michilimackinac, and Niagara remained in
their hands as well, and the Royal Navy, despite the setback in the Battle of the
Chesapeake Capes during the Yorktown campaign, continued to dominate the
seas. Nor was the stubborn King George III ready to admit defeat.
Enemy intentions and the king’s attitude were not Washington’s only
concerns. Six years of war had put a heavy strain on the new nation. The “Spirit
of ’76” had waned, and he feared that the good news of victory would work to
further weaken American resolve. To Virginia’s governor, Thomas Nelson,
Washington wrote anxiously that “instead of exciting our exertions,” the victory
at Yorktown might “produce such a relaxation in the prosecution of the War, as
will prolong the calamities of it.”1
Washington had cause to fret about American firmness. Congress was nearly
bankrupt. The states could not agree on a plan for national revenue, and the
fabric of the union, never strong, was fraying as Congress divided into bickering
factions. In the meantime the French, having financed the war, were balking at
providing additional loans while making plans to withdraw their forces from
North America. The American army with Washington at its head was the only
viable national institution, but it too was under stress as the alarming news from
McDougall, Brooks, and Ogden demonstrated dramatically.
With Congress broke and unable to act, some in the body saw opportunity in
the crisis. They conspired to use the army as a lever to advance an agenda aimed
at strengthening the national government. If not an actual coup d’état, their
machinations certainly rose to the level of a plot to challenge civilian authority
over the military. Had these men succeeded in their aims, they would have
forever broken the trust between the armed forces of the United States and its
citizens. That they did not succeed was due to one man, George Washington,
who on March 15, 1783, stood before the officers of his army “single and alone”
and prevented a mutiny that would have altered the course of American history.
This is the story of these “dangerous years” and the commander who, in the
words of Thomas Jefferson, “prevented this revolution from being closed as
most others have been by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to
establish.”2
Chapter One
It was five in the afternoon on October 9, 1781, the seventh year of the
American Revolution. All eyes were on the American commander in chief as he
approached the line of cannon, their muzzles aimed toward the British
entrenchments at Yorktown. A gunner handed Washington a lit match. The
general’s hand moved slowly toward the touch hole, the cannon roared and
leaped back on its carriage as hundreds of other guns, American and French,
followed with a thunderous barrage. General Charles Cornwallis, the British
commander who five years before, while pursuing Washington across New
Jersey, had boasted that he would “bag the American fox,” was himself brought
to ground.
The Revolution had not gone well for the British. Initially a colonial rebellion,
by 1778 it had spilled into a world war with the entry of the French as American
allies. Forced to defend their possessions on a global scale, the British ministers
abandoned any hope of subduing the northern and middle colonies and instead
concentrated their forces on retaking the southern colonies, where they
anticipated a surge of loyalist support.1 In 1780, while retaining New York City
as his principal American base, the British commander in chief Sir Henry
Clinton struck south, taking Charleston, South Carolina. After securing the city
he returned to New York, leaving General Cornwallis in charge. Soon
Cornwallis managed to move beyond the city and secured a good portion of
South Carolina and Georgia.
Had Cornwallis been more cautious and less ambitious, he might well have
been satisfied with what he had captured. But after inflicting a humiliating defeat
on an American army commanded by General Horatio Gates at Camden, South
Carolina, on August 16, 1780, Cornwallis elected to forge north toward North
Carolina and Virginia.2 These colonies, he boasted, “would fall without much
resistance and be retained without much difficulty.”3
Unfortunately for the British, Cornwallis’s march into the interior proved
costly. He had not taken into account the sapping of his strength by constant
attacks from southern partisans like Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter; nor did
he appreciate the brilliance of Nathanael Greene, the American commander who
replaced General Gates. Described by the British military historian Sir John
Fortescue as “a general of patience, resolution, and profound common sense,”
Greene took Cornwallis on a wild chase through the interior of North Carolina in
a campaign dubbed “the Country Dance.” Although he never defeated
Cornwallis, Greene so weakened and frustrated his enemy that Cornwallis gave
up chasing him down and marched his army into Virginia, to search for a secure
coastal location where he might either be resupplied or be evacuated by Clinton.
Cornwallis eventually chose Yorktown, a small port town on the banks of the
York River close by the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. By the end of August 1781
he had assembled his entire army there to await word from General Clinton.4
Washington and General Rochambeau, commander of French forces in North
America, had been watching Cornwallis’s march north with great interest.5
Having shut himself up in Yorktown, thus putting his back to the river, the
general, they knew, was in a vulnerable spot. Salvation for the British depended
upon control of the seas. Only by sea could Clinton reenforce or remove the
trapped army. Although Clinton did have a naval squadron at New York, and a
sizable army, he hesitated to act, fearing that if he should weaken his own
position to rescue Cornwallis, the allies might take the opportunity to attack New
York City.
As both sides pondered their options, grand news arrived for the allies: the
French West Indian fleet under Admiral François-Joseph-Paul de Grasse was
sailing north to escape the hurricane season and would be stationed near the
Chesapeake Capes until mid-October. Might his fleet, the admiral queried, be
usefully employed? Instantly Washington and Rochambeau saw the opportunity
for an allied concentration of naval and military forces aimed at Cornwallis.
With impressive speed and coordination the two generals, Washington from
the Hudson Valley, Rochambeau from Rhode Island, put their troops on the
move toward Virginia, while summoning de Grasse to join them. Clinton was
caught unawares. Not until September 2 did he realize the peril of the situation,
and by that time the allied armies and the French fleet were both closing on
Yorktown. Desperate to prevent the French fleet from rendezvousing with
Rochambeau and Washington, Clinton ordered his admirals to take whatever
force they could assemble at New York and sail to intercept de Grasse. Six days
after clearing Sandy Hook, the British sighted the French. For three days the two
fleets tacked about with intermittent engagements. While neither side could gain
a decisive advantage, the British finally elected to withdraw, leaving command
of the sea to the French. Cornwallis’s fate was sealed. By late September the
combined armies, with de Grasse standing off shore, had assembled and taken up
positions surrounding Yorktown. It was a classic eighteenth-century siege. The
besiegers formed a semicircle facing the enemy, French on the left, Americans
on the right. Engineers went to work laying out and digging zigzagging trenches.
By the ninth all was in readiness as Washington fired the first American shot.
Each day four hundred allied guns fired more than seventeen hundred rounds
onto the enemy. The British response was pitiful. At about nine on the morning
of October 17, 1781, American sentries caught sight of a young British drummer
boy clutching for a hold as he struggled to reach the top of an earthen parapet.
His soiled red uniform bespoke days of huddling in damp shelters while iron
shot rained down. Unarmed except for a bulky side drum and two sticks, he
finally reached the top. For the moment this boy had the most dangerous job in
America. Amid the dense and acrid smoke left behind by musket and cannon
shot, he beat the “parley.” General Cornwallis wished to discuss terms of
surrender with Generals Rochambeau and Washington.6
Captain Ebenezer Denny of the First Pennsylvania Regiment was among the
first to spot the drummer boy. “He might have beaten away til Doomsday if he
had not been sighted by the men in the front lines,” Denny later recalled. “The
constant firing was too much for the sound of the single drum; but when the
firing ceased, I thought I had never heard a drum equal to it—the most delightful
music to all.”7 Quickly, soldiers passed the order “cease fire.” The guns fell
silent, and the drummer boy advanced toward the American position. Behind
him walked a hatless officer waving a white handkerchief above his head.
Together, to the rhythm of the “parley,” the soldier and the boy marched slowly
across the no-mans-land toward the allied positions. As soon as the party passed
safely through the lines, the guns resumed their pounding. While the cannon
belched iron, Washington read Cornwallis’s message:
To His Excellency General Washington.
Sir, I propose a cessation of hostilities for twenty-four hours, and that
two officers may be appointed by each side, to meet at Mr. Moore’s
house, to settle terms for the surrender of the posts at York and
Gloucester.8
Toward evening the guns stood down again as the drummer boy and the
officer returned through the British lines carrying Washington’s reply.
Sir, I have received your Favor of this Morning. Regard to humanity
induces me to agree to a suspension of hostilities for two hours that your
Lordship may propose the Terms on which you choose to surrender.9
For the British it was all over. Cornwallis understood his fate. His only hope
was to extract concessions. Washington was unwilling to grant any.
Cornwallis responded to Washington with his terms. Although he had no
intention of agreeing to all of Cornwallis’s requests, Washington agreed to send
commissioners to meet the next day at the Moore House, a spacious home
situated near the river about one mile east of the British lines. In the meantime
the guns remained silent.
In the morning British Highland pipers called soldiers to duty with the wailing
of bagpipes. In answer, the Royal Deux-Ponts regimental band struck up a lively
tune. Across the scarred battlefield soldiers and officers, victors and vanquished,
stood at the crest of their fortifications, barely a few hundred feet apart, gazing
anxiously at one another.
Brigade commander Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Dundas and Cornwallis’s
aide-de-camp, Major Alexander Ross, were the first to arrive at the Moore
House. They were soon joined by Colonel John Laurens, aide-de-camp to
General Washington, and Second Colonel Viscount de Noailles of the Regiment
Soissonois, the Marquis de Lafayette’s brother-in-law. After exchanging
pleasantries, the officers took seats in the main room to work out the details. The
meeting lasted more than eight long and unpleasant hours.10
Washington stood firm. He refused the enemy any honors of war. The British
regiments had to march out with colors cased and their bands playing an English
or German tune. Although officers might be paroled (that is, allowed to return
home to England or Germany), rank and file would be held in America as
prisoners of war. Loyalists and deserters who trembled at being left to the tender
mercies of the rebels had begged Cornwallis to protect them. To answer their
pleas, Cornwallis asked that no one be punished “on account of having joined
the British army.”11 Washington refused. However, while he understood that
feelings were riding high against those who had taken up arms for the king, the
commander in chief had little taste for convening endless courts-martial and
ordering multiple executions. To avoid such bloody retribution, Washington
declared that the fate of the loyalists was a civil matter to be decided at a later
date. As for deserters, he agreed to an oblique solution granting Cornwallis’s
request to permit the sloop Bonetta to sail from Yorktown to New York without
inspection. The vessel had ample room for any passengers who might wish to
leave Yorktown in a hurry. Bonetta’s departure with its cargo gave relief to both