CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The World Turned Upside Down

IN EARLY AUGUST 1781 George Washington began to surrender his dream of taking New York and avenging its early loss. Ironically, his own inadvertent action helped bring about this change. Sir Henry Clinton intercepted a letter in which Washington named New York as his main strategic objective, prompting the British to strengthen their forces there and rendering Virginia more vulnerable. “It seems reduced almost to a certainty that the enemy will reinforce New York with part of their troops from Virginia,” Washington notified Robert Morris on August 2.¹ Turning his attention to Virginia, Washington asked Morris if he could amass a fleet of thirty double-decker transport vessels to ferry the Continental Army southward. Even though Washington reversed course the next day and dangled before the Count de Barras the shimmering prospect of New York Harbor “open and defenseless” for the taking, his mind was preoccupied for the first time by the logistics of a southern move.²

If Washington muddled along in something of a strategic dither, his heroic stature remained unimpaired among ordinary citizens, who thanked him for keeping alive the embers of rebellion. On August 4 Abbé Robin, a chaplain with Rochambeau’s army, witnessed the adulation firsthand at the allied camp at Philipsburg, New York: “Through all the land, [Washington] appears like a benevolent god; old men, women, children—they all flock eagerly to catch a glimpse of him when he travels and congratulate themselves because they have seen him.”³ He noted Washington’s gift for inspired leadership, his capacity to make men vie for his favor. Washington “knew how to impress upon his soldiers an absolute subordination, to make them eager to deserve his praise, to make them fear even his silence.”⁴

On August 14, while still distracted by reports of a large British fleet arriving in New York, Washington absorbed dramatic news from the Count de Barras in Newport: Admiral de Grasse had sailed from St. Domingue with a mighty fleet of up to twenty-nine ships of the line and 3,200 troops. If all unfolded according to plan, the fleet would show up off Chesapeake Bay by September 3. Stunned, Washington retired forever his ambition to conquer New York. In his journal he acknowledged the “apparent disinclination” of his French partners to tackle New York and noted the feeble response from state governors to his despairing pleas for more troops. He decided to discard “all idea of attacking New York,” the fulcrum upon which his strategic calculations had hinged for years.⁵

De Barras told Washington that de Grasse would need to sail back to the Caribbean by mid-October, leaving only a brief interval for a joint operation against Cornwallis. This gave Washington and Rochambeau three weeks to transport two cumbersome armies 450 miles to Chesapeake Bay while de Barras and eight ships of the line and four frigates sailed south from Newport. After a desultory war that had shuffled along for years, Washington, Rochambeau, and de Barras now engaged in a headlong rush to reach Virginia. But orchestrating the movements of three armies and two navies over a vast portion of the eastern seaboard was to prove a fiendishly intricate maneuver.

Two days later Washington learned something from Lafayette that, in its way, was no less momentous than the startling news about de Grasse. Cornwallis had retreated to the eastern tip of the Virginia peninsula that jutted into Chesapeake Bay, dividing the York and James rivers. On high, open ground at a place called Yorktown, he and his men were furiously shoveling trenches and throwing up earthworks. As it turned out, Cornwallis had barged into a trap that Washington had spotted years earlier when Brigadier General Thomas Nelson wanted to station troops at Yorktown to track British ships. Washington had pointed out to Nelson that his troops “by being upon a narrow neck of land would be in danger of being cut off. The enemy might very easily throw up a few ships into York and James’s river . . . and land a body of men there, who by throwing up a few redoubts, would intercept their retreat and oblige them to surrender at [their] discretion.”⁶ The letter uncannily foreshadowed the events of 1781.

As his army hurried south, Washington launched diversionary measures to dupe the enemy into thinking that New York remained his objective. He pitched a small city of tents on the west bank of the Hudson with wagons bustling in and out of this imaginary camp. American boats worked the nearby waters, laying down pontoons, as if readying an amphibious assault. To deceive the enemy, Washington needed to deceive his own men, who thought they were embarked for Staten Island. Instead they found themselves marching inland toward Trenton and then crossed paths with the French at Princeton, where Washington enjoyed a gratifying encounter with French officers. As he strode past their tent, he saw maps unfurled of Boston, Trenton, and Princeton: the officers were re-creating his victorious battles. One observer caught his reaction: “Despite his modesty . . . [Washington] seemed pleased to find thus assembled all the successful and pleasant events of the war.”⁷ The group repaired to a tavern to share Madeira and punch. One wonders whether the French made a fuss over Washington’s early triumphs to soothe his wounded vanity and draw the sting from his disappointment over abandoning New York.

To march his men through New Jersey without betraying his intentions to the enemy, Washington contrived ingenious stratagems. He broke his army into three parallel columns and brought them forward at staggered intervals. The troops had no inkling of their true destination until they reached Trenton, where heavy guns were loaded on boats to carry them down the Delaware River to near Christiana, Delaware. From there it would be a twelve-mile march to Head of Elk, at the northern end of Chesapeake Bay. The original plan envisioned troops sailing with them, but Washington couldn’t rustle up the requisite vessels, so he and Rochambeau made a hugely daring decision to have the men traverse the immense distance to Maryland on foot.

The southern landscape was unknown territory for Washington’s men, who braced for sweltering heat and disease. Fearful of a mutiny, Washington implored Robert Morris to come up with a month’s pay to pacify the men: “The service [in Virginia] they are going upon is disagreeable to the northern regiments, but I make no doubt that a douceur [bribe] of a little hard money would put them in proper temper.”⁸ Perhaps to garner popular support, Washington marched his army through Philadelphia, and cheering ladies jammed every window as a column two miles long filed through sunstruck streets. “The general officers and their aides, in rich military uniform, mounted on noble steeds, elegantly caparisoned, were followed by their servants and baggage,” noted James Thacher.⁹ The common soldiers, lean, sunburned, and spent from their march, padded along wearily to fifes and drums. At night the entire capital was illuminated in honor of Washington, who was thronged by crowds of admirers.

Washington’s stay in Philadelphia was fraught with worry. He was on edge, having heard nothing from de Grasse or de Barras since they sailed from their respective positions. “If you get anything new from any quarter,” he entreated Lafayette, “send it, I pray you, on the spur of speed, for I am almost all impatience and anxiety.” ¹⁰ It was highly unorthodox for Washington to confess to such jitters. On the morning of September 5, after riding out of Philadelphia, he was overtaken at Chester by a messenger bearing phenomenal news: the Count de Grasse had shown up in Chesapeake Bay with a full panoply of military and naval power: 28 ships of the line, 4 frigates, and 3,500 troops. Washington shortly learned that de Grasse had engaged the Royal Navy under Admiral Thomas Graves off the Virginia capes, sending the British squadron scurrying back to New York and leaving the French in undisputed control of Chesapeake Bay. Between Lafayette’s small army on the land side and de Grasse’s massive fleet at sea, Cornwallis was bottled up near the end of the Yorktown peninsula.