Discomfort, chill and misgiving attended the birth of 1780 at Morristown. In the absence of furloughed Generals, the business of the Army took so much of Washington’s time that he felt he was not devoting himself as he should to the “military parts” of his task. He was isolated as well as burdened, because Congress had ordered the dismissal of the expresses in order to save the cost of the service. Communication was rendered more nearly impossible and all the miseries of camp were made torture by extreme cold. On January 2 and 3 a storm piled up snow drifts of four to six feet, with temperature so low that prolonged venture out of doors was self-murder. For weeks before the storm, bread had been scarce. On the first of the cruel new month, some of the regiments ate the last of their meat; the second found still more of the troops with nothing except their meagre, unpalatable bread. Some increase in ration was arranged on the third. After that, the badness of the public credit, added to the severity of the weather, reduced almost to nil the provisions offered the Commissaries. Washington was not sure he could provide three days’ rations even for the equivalent of one full company, assigned to special duty. Nathanael Greene broke out: “Poor fellows! They exhibit a picture truly distressing—more than half naked and two thirds starved. A country overflowing with plenty are now suffering an Army, employed for the defence of everything that is dear and valuable, to perish for want of food.”
The Continentals were patient because they were powerless, so long as the storm roared over Jersey, but as soon as they could make their way, many of those who had clothing began to slip away from their quarters. Marauding parties robbed nearby farms of food and wandered about in the darkness almost as they pleased. Washington asked himself, Would it not be less of a hardship to the natives for the Commissaries to determine what the farmers could provide, and then to take this, making lawful compensation, rather than to have the householders lose even the bread of the children to desperate prowlers? Action was dictated as soon as the question was put. Provisions in surprising volume were accumulated; within a few days Washington’s immediate task became one of transportation. It was not easy to get the meat, grain and flour to camp, with the few and hungry teams of the Army.
For a time, then, the troops would have full rations with which to combat the continuing cold, but this was reprieve and not release from the threat of famine. The weather grew colder and colder. Travelers soon were crossing the Hudson on the ice at King’s Ferry; passage of North River to and from Powles Hook was practicable about January 19 even for heavy cannon on trucks. Once the fury of the lashing wind and the pelting snow had subsided, the worst sufferers were Lord Stirling’s men, who were sent on a vain raid January 15 in the hope of catching the British garrison of Staten Island off guard. Numbers of Americans were frostbitten; a sergeant and sixteen men were captured; the failure was complete. In every respect the Army continued to decline. The roster was swollen with men listed as “absent, sick”; some companies were almost without officers, while others had more than regulations permitted. Because of lack of clothing, one Captain wrote, “many a good lad [had] nothing to cover him from his hips to his toes, save his blanket.” The greatest shortage was in the most critical item—shoes.
While doing everything possible to relieve the misery of his benumbed troops, Washington had to seek recruits for 1780. He previously had outlined to Congress a plan for meeting uniformly by annual draft the deficiency in the quota of each state, but he could not prevail on the Delegates to act. Nor could he hold his half-frozen little Army to full vigilance. Although the General had given warning, the advanced parties at Elizabeth Town and Newark permitted themselves to be surprised on January 25—with the loss of more than sixty men and considerable damage to property.
About two weeks later, on the night of February 11/12, when a new snow still lay heavily on Headquarters, a hardy rider brought Washington a dispatch in which Arthur St. Clair reported that hostile parties had made an incursion into American positions—three from Staten Island and one from Powles Hook. The objective of the largest force appeared to be Elizabeth Town, but withdrawal was rapid after the American guard had been found on the alert. Little or nothing was done by detachments that went to Woodbridge and Rahway. About three hundred cavalry came from Powles Hook to Hackensack and apparently started towards Morristown but turned back because of the depth of the snow. Many officers believed this column hoped to capture Washington himself and that the weather had defeated the attempt. Next came news that an outpost near White Plains had been surprised February 2 and that the greater part of five companies of infantry had been killed or captured—an altogether discreditable affair. Then, on the nineteenth, the British attempted another raid on Newark, but they met with swift challenge and quickly retired.
One of the principal reasons for these humiliating affairs was the continuing absence of officers. The greater part of those who could find any excuse for leaving the Army during the winter procured furloughs, which Washington indulgently granted for periods unduly long. The officers who remained at their posts were overworked and, in some instances, incapacitated by sickness. In the New York regiments, no less than sixty-four ensigns, lieutenants and captains were preparing a paper to ask the privilege of leaving the service because they thought their state had failed to make decent provision for them. The General was alarmed and depressed by this disintegration of command, but he had two contrasting assurances that may have comforted him: Benedict Arnold, who had had charges brought against him in Philadelphia, soon was to return to field-duty; Charles Lee would not come back.
Arnold was convicted on two charges—that he had given permission for a ship to leave Philadelphia without the permission of the State authorities or the Commander-in-Chief, and that he had used wagons of the State of Pennsylvania to transport his personal property and that of certain disaffected residents of Philadelphia, but his punishment was to be only a reprimand in General Orders. As for Lee, he wrote Congress arrogantly in January that he had heard of a plan to strike his name from the Army list. Delegates, he said, must know him very little “if they suppose that I would accept of their money since the confirmation of the wicked and infamous sentence which was passed upon me.” Congress took him at his word and terminated his service.
There was no assurance that spring would bring a sufficient number of recruits for offensive operations. Congress was hesitant and blind in assigning quotas. When Delegates finally agreed on February 9 that the call should be for a total of 35,211 men, Washington saw immediately that even if he promptly dispatched estimates to the States of the forces they were to furnish, they would not have six weeks in which to raise and equip the recruits and get these men to the assigned rendezvous by April 1, the date designated in the resolution. With the calendar confronting him, and the Treasury without funds, Washington had to face the likelier probability he had described to Steuben just before Congress acted: “I imagine we must of necessity adopt the principle of a defensive campaign and pursue a system of the most absolute economy.” Even for this defensive, Washington thought a force of close to 24,000 infantry would be necessary, and he did not know where he could procure sufficient small arms if he had the men. So it was with nearly all equipment needed for 1780. Everything was scarce; prices were rising fast.
These new distresses came when the February snows were melting and the roads were bottomless in mud. Everything seemed, once more, to be collapsing simultaneously. Forage was almost exhausted with no future supply assured. The store of meat, if dealt out scantily, might suffice until almost the end of April, but disappointing deliveries and bad roads made it probable the men would have no bread after March 22.
Congress had neither specie nor credit, but when it saw its Army in danger of falling into fragments it goaded itself to a three-fold reform. The first phase of this was a determination of the quotas it would impose on the States in accordance with a plan of direct requisition. In theory, provisions were to be furnished by the States according to their special resources. Washington’s somewhat embarrassed criticisms had to shape themselves to the further warning that the provisions asked of the States would not suffice for the Army. To Philip Schuyler he confided that if some parts of the plan were adhered to, “ruin must follow.” Along with this desperate adventure in the supply of provisions, Congress began a painful study of the reorganization of the Quartermaster Department, though even the inquiry, without specific action, made Greene more sensitive than ever and sharpened his suspicion that Mifflin was seeking to revive the cabal against Washington. The third phase of reform was an effort to give stability to paper money. During two months of intermittent debate, conditions went from wretched to ruinous and compelled a bewildered Congress to agree March 18 on a plan to stop the further printing of unsecured paper money and reissue a limited amount of Continental currency that could be held, it hoped, as a ratio of forty to one.
Of every phase of these ills, Washington could have written dismally and of some despairingly. The enemy raided Paramus on March 22 and might threaten even West Point. If further help was to be sent Lincoln from the main Army, it must start soon; but how could Washington spare men? Seven thousand Continentals only were left in the Jersey camps; of these, about thirteen hundred would terminate their service in May. In the foreground, hourly, remorselessly, were hunger and cold. As of March 25, Washington wrote: “The Army is now upon a most scanty allowance, and is seldom at the expiration of one day certain of a morsel of bread for the next.” At the end of the month, eight inches of snow remained on the ground, and the misery of the troops seemed almost past redemption.
Slow communication with the South obscured Lincoln’s defence of Charleston, but Washington feared that a concentration in that town of the small American forces might involve the loss of the whole. The first decision at Headquarters was to send the Army’s Chief Engineer, Duportail, and Harry Lee’s light horse to South Carolina. Next, the reported embarkation at New York of 2500 British troops led Washington to order the Delaware Regiment and the Maryland Line to start the long march southward. It was doubtful whether provisions and transportation for these troops could be found, but Washington reasoned that if they could reach South Carolina they would be valuable in any situation that might develop after the disaster that seemed almost certain at Charleston.
These days of preparation for a cruelly long journey were made hideous by the nearer approach of starvation. Greene feared the horses would perish before the forage to be supplied by the States would reach the stables. Cattle had to be killed to keep them from starving. On April 12, Washington was compelled to write: “We have not at this day one ounce of meat, fresh or salt in the magazine” and he did not know of any in transit, or procurable within reach of the Army that would suffice for more than three or four days. By the fourteenth the only issue was of bread. This was supplemented by the later arrival of some salted provisions. After this was consumed, the men at Morristown would have to keep alive, if they could, on what the Commissaries could find and deliver day by day.
With an adequate division of duty, Washington should have been able to rely on the Commissaries to do whatever was possible while he devoted himself to general command, or else, if he had to feed the Army and the horses, he should have been able to deputize other men for administration. As it was, he had now to pay the price of his generosity in granting furloughs to senior officers. The nearer the time of opening the campaign, the heavier and more cumbersome his burdens were. A pleasant, but expensive and irksome duty was the entertainment of the French Minister, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, with whom Washington had exchanged letters on the probability of early assistance from the Court of Versailles. Luzerne arrived at Morristown April 19, accompanied by his entourage and by the Spanish agent, Don Juan de Miralles. All that the poor camp could offer Washington tendered his guests—the pomp of welcome, a formal review, a visit to the outposts, and even participation in a fast day ordered by Congress. The General tried to make it plain to Luzerne that America was determined to fight until her independence was acknowledged by Great Britain but did not attempt to conceal from the Minister the condition of the Army, and he could not have done so had he tried. Luzerne left camp convinced “more than ever,” as he wrote his government, “of the very great advantage which the republic derives from [Washington’s] services.”
Three days after Luzerne started for Philadelphia a committee of Delegates, headed by Philip Schuyler, arrived at camp to work with the Commander-in-Chief, under resolution of Congress, for the economical reorganization of the Army. Washington welcomed them gladly, and he held to his principle that the larger the information of Congressmen the better the prospect of discerning support by them. Schuyler and his colleagues observed the wretched condition and bad spirit of the soldiers. “Their patience,” the committee reported to Congress, “is exhausted.” More ominously, “Their starving condition, their want of pay, and the variety of hardships they have been driven to sustain, has soured their tempers and produced a spirit of discontent which begins to display itself under a complexion of the most alarming hue. . . .” A new line of communication with Congress was opened. If the committee would act for Congress and not merely report to it, Washington would have the benefit of a speed of decision he never had enjoyed previously.
This was the situation near the end of the first week of May. The troops were barely able to keep alive on the meagerest of rations; recruiting had to be pronounced as worse than slow; the enemy was close to victory in Carolina and suspiciously astir in New York; financial ruin apparently hung on the response of the States to the plan for calling in the old, discredited currency; the Army remained too weak for an offensive. In spite of all this, spring came symbolically to the wretched thousands encamped among the hills of Jersey, when on the morning of May 6, Washington received a letter from Lafayette dated at Boston Harbor, April 27, 1780, which read in its principal part:
Here I am, my dear general, and in the midst of the joy I feel in finding myself again one of your loving soldiers. I take but the time of telling you that I came from France on board of a fregatt which the king gave me for my passage. I have affairs of the utmost importance that I should at first communicate to you alone. In case my letter finds you any where this side of Philadelphia, I beg you will wait for me, and I do assure you a great public good may derive from it—tomorrow we go up to the town, and the day after I’ll set off in my usual way to join my belov’d and respected friend and general.
It was natural to surmise that the “affairs” of Lafayette’s letter related to the vital subject of assistance from His Most Christian Majesty—but in what manner and measure? Washington did not have long to wait. On May 10 Lafayette reached Morristown and, as soon as he could, confided the great news: Six French ships of the line and six thousand well-trained troops were to have left France for America early in April and should call at Rhode Island early in June. These allies were not to content themselves with half-measures but were to participate in joint operations for the capture of New York and its defenders, a task that Washington put above all others in desirability and possible results.
To Washington’s ears this was the best news that could have come at that season of gloom, and to his mind it was reassurance of that which he never had doubted for any length of time after the receipt in 1778 of the news of the French alliance. He “considered it,” Lafayette wrote later, “as deciding the successful issue of their affairs”; but it called for hard labor and a measure of cooperation on the part of Congress and the States beyond anything ever effected previously. Washington gave Lafayette the counsel the Marquis’s instructions bade him seek and then, as Lafayette went on to Philadelphia to confer with the French Minister and Congress, Washington wrestled with a new aspect of his old problem of subsistence: How would it be possible to meet the needs of the French reenforcements in a country where provisions were scarce and transportation was a mockery of everything the word ought to imply: A first essential, Washington reasoned at once, was the creation of a committee with authority to speak for Congress. When he came to ask for this, Congress acted promptly but did not confer adequate powers on the committee.
Within a fortnight, the General was overwhelmed with work. Little evidence was forthcoming of any response by the States to the call for troops; Washington no longer could persuade himself, as he had for a few days, that the French would reach America in time to raise the siege of Charleston. From that city, except for the announcement of the arrival of Woodford with his Virginia troops, all the news indicated that the British noose was being pulled remorselessly tighter. It seemed incredible that hope dropped so quickly from the height of Washington’s feeling when he heard that a French fleet and army were coming. After the first news and the initial rejoicing, everything went down, down, until the question, May we not end the war in this campaign? had become, Can we hold out till the French arrive? On May 25, as he reviewed the needs of the French and the effort America must sustain, he solemnly told the committee of Congress: “Drained and weakened as we already are, the exertions we shall make, though they may be too imperfect to secure success, will at any rate be such as to leave us in a state of relaxation and debility, from which it will be difficult if not impracticable to recover.” Then he added, as if he were reading the counts in an indictment posterity might draw of indolent America—“the country exhausted; the people dispirited; the consequence and reputation of these States in Europe sunk; our enemies deriving new credit, new confidence, new resources.”
Washington did not overwrite the tragedy of his Army. Some infantry companies had no more than four rank and file, with the average about fifteen; officers of three regiments were “so naked” they were “ashamed to come out of their huts”; the discontent of hungry men mounted daily; flour moved literally from wagon to hearth. Then, about May 21, the supply of meat failed completely. There was none in camp and no prospect of the early receipt of any.
About dusk on the twenty-fifth the drums began to roll in the camps of the Connecticut Line; in a few minutes word came to Washington that two regiments, the Fourth and the Eighth, were in armed, defiant mutiny. The Connecticut soldiers were ten days behind in their allowance of meat. They had been on the parade for hours, “growling like sore dogs,” and after a sullen evening roll call, a private who was rebuked by the Adjutant suddenly called out, “Who will parade with me?” The whole Eighth Regiment fell in and formed. In a short time, the Fourth Connecticut joined the Eighth. Fortunately, the troops waited irresolutely a few minutes before they decided to go to the camp of the Third and Sixth Connecticut to arouse them. During this brief pause officers ran ahead and gave warning. The soldiers of the quiet regiments were ordered to parade immediately without their arms. After the men hurried out, a guard was thrown between them and their huts so that they could not procure their muskets. Some violence followed; Col. Return Meigs was stabbed with a bayonet; for a few seconds the issue hung on the heating or cooling of temper; presently the mutineers went angrily to their own camps. Courageously, the officers appealed to the men. One after another urged the mutineers to lay down their arms. The pleas, otherwise in vain, served one purpose: they kept the troublemakers quiet while Stewart’s Brigade of the Pennsylvania Line was moved out and thrown around the camp of the Connecticut troops. Would the Pennsylvanians act as guards or would they join the mutiny? Officers, conferring quickly, decided to take no chances. The line was withdrawn; the Connecticut regiments were left to cool down. They stirred about in darkness for a time and then returned to their quarters. Col. Walter Stewart thereupon visited them and prevailed on them to present their complaints in disciplined fashion.
The causes of discontent were indisputably the hunger of the men and the failure of Congress to put any money in their hands for five months. In deepest concern, Washington had to admit that unless food, at least, was supplied, mutiny might break out again and the Army disband. To every official who might find provisions for the Army, immediate calls were sent. The Commissary General was in Philadelphia and was doing his utmost to find meat; but he had to write on May 27: “I am loaded with debt and have not had a shilling this two months.” That day, a little meat was received at camp and was issued; on the twenty-eighth the situation again seemed almost hopeless. Lafayette, who had returned from Philadelphia to Morristown, was appalled to see how low the forces had fallen. “An Army that is reduced to nothing,” he wrote Joseph Reed, “that wants provisions, that has not one of the necessary means to make war, such is the situation wherein I found our troops, and however prepared I could have been to this unhappy sight, by our past distresses, I confess I had no idea of such an extremity.” Washington told the same Pennsylvania leader: “Every idea you can form of our distresses will fall short of the reality. . . . If you were on the spot . . . ; if you could see what difficulties surround us on every side, how unable we are to administer to the most ordinary calls of the service, you would be convinced that . . . we have everything to dread. Indeed, I have almost ceased to hope.”
The twenty-ninth and the daylight hours of the thirtieth dragged by in misery. Then, late in the night, a messenger brought from Col. Elias Dayton a copy of an extra edition of Rivington’s Gazette: Charleston had fallen. Its garrison and all arms and equipment had been surrendered May 12. Washington forwarded the paper to the President of Congress with no comment on the effect of what he styled simply “this unfortunate event,” but he looked squarely into the face of calamity: “Certain I am,” he told Joseph Jones, “unless Congress speaks in a more decisive tone; unless they are vested with powers by the several States competent to the great purposes of war, or assume them as matter of right; and they, and the States respectively, act with more energy than they hitherto have done, that our cause is lost.” Details of the loss of Charleston were so slow in reaching Congress and the Army through American channels that some were tempted to doubt the authenticity of the published report, though it contained documents not easily disputed. Others credited the report and wondered whether it would arouse the public. If that happened, said Reed, “heavy as it now appears,” the disaster might “prove a real blessing to the country.”
In order to meet the enemy’s main effort, wherever directed, Washington on June 2 called for seventeen thousand militia, with instructions to rendezvous, fully armed, at designated stations by July 15. He asked a council of war on June 6 how he best could employ the twenty-four thousand he would have, presumably, by the time the state battalions were filled June 20; but the very night after the council he heard from Colonel Dayton at Elizabeth Town that the enemy had landed in force at nearby De Hart’s Point and was advancing. As Washington could not afford to permit the British to march at will to the district where his heavy cannon were parked and his meager supplies stored, he decided to march his troops towards the hostile column and maneuver without engaging. By afternoon Washington was in the Short Hills that overlook Springfield. Gratifying news awaited him. Dayton’s Regiment of Maxwell’s Brigade had been joined promptly by the militia of the neighborhood, who had fought stubbornly and shrewdly. The advance of the enemy had been retarded with a determination that had led the foe, after reaching Springfield Bridge, to retire a short distance to high ground northwest of Connecticut Farms, a settlement about two and a half miles southeast of Springfield. There the enemy had thrown up a breastwork in front of which skirmishing continued all afternoon.
Surprise over the rally of the militiamen and the hesitation of the British was deepened the next morning, June 8, by the discovery that the invaders had withdrawn to De Hart’s Point. Was the advance merely an attempt to cover an operation on the Hudson? Washington suspected this and sent cavalry to enlarge his range of vision at the same time that he organized under Brig. Gen. Edward Hand a force of five hundred to harass the enemy from the woods. Reconnaissance showed that the British intended to hold De Hart’s Point, at least temporarily, though some of the invaders were being withdrawn to Staten Island. The British commander at De Hart’s Point, identified as Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen, proceeded to throw a pontoon bridge to the mainland and move baggage and mounted troops back and forth to Staten Island—as if he intended to remain indefinitely near Elizabeth Town and threaten severance of communications between the Hudson and the South. “Our situation,” said Washington on June 14, “is as embarrassing as you can imagine,” and then he had to add: “When they unite their force, it will be infinitely more so.”
Knyphausen waited; the American Commander-in-Chief could not hope to do more than maneuver slowly with broken-down teams or resist awkwardly when assailed. Even that much seemed doubtful. The States were indolently backward in meeting the requisitions for men and money, meat and drink, flour and forage, without which the Army could not even hang together. The Delegates in Philadelphia and the committee at Headquarters were pressing their pleas, but Congress, in the words of a Virginia member, was at the time “little more than the medium through which the wants of the Army are conveyed to the States.” Washington saw the long days of June slipping past with scarcely anything accomplished to make cooperation with the French more than mocking promise and futile hope.
Washington learned, approximately June 18, that Gates had been directed to take charge of the Southern Department in succession to the captured Lincoln, who was credited with a good defence of Charleston. Intelligence reports to Headquarters on and after the eighteenth indicated that six men-of-war and at least sixty-five other sails had reached New York—almost certainly Clinton’s returning veterans of the Carolina campaign who might proceed directly against West Point. Precautionary orders were issued for vigilance and victualling at the Hudson River posts and for putting the main Army in condition to move, but nothing of importance occurred until June 20. Then Washington heard that six British ships had sailed up the Hudson as far as Verplanck’s and had dropped down the river again. This made him suspicious. If a powerful surprise attack was about to be made on West Point, he was too far away. On the other hand, until this hostile move was certain, he could not afford to be so far north that troops from Staten Island could get astride his communications in New Jersey. His solution was to leave Greene to watch and, if need be, delay the movement of the British on the island and the shore nearby, while the main Army proceeded cautiously to Pompton. From Pompton three or four good marches would carry the troops to West Point.
One day was all the men spent on the road with their faces to the North. During the night of June 22/23, Washington received two dispatches from Greene, who was puzzled by his intelligence reports. In mid-morning there arrived from Greene, near Springfield, this alarming message: “The enemy are out on their march towards this place in full force, having received a considerable reenforcement last night.” That was enough; soon the soldiers were marching back to support Greene. Nothing more was heard from that officer until, in the early afternoon, he reported the enemy driving on Springfield and moving as if to get in his rear. Then, after sunset Washington received news that the British had forced the Americans out of Springfield, burned the village and withdrawn swiftly, as if they were going all the way to Elizabeth Town.
The next morning Washington heard that the Redcoats had abandoned their position on Jersey soil. Their troops had moved across to Staten Island on the pontoon bridge and taken it up. Now none of the King’s soldiers remained in the State. Washington could surmise only that West Point remained the objective of the British; and as the removal of supplies from Morristown relieved him of the necessity of guarding that base, he proceeded towards the Hudson. He advanced the main Army on July 1 to Preakness, there to rest his men, await the drafts from the States and prepare for the coming of the French.
The familiar administrative vexations of command plagued Washington from the very day the Army pitched its tents at Preakness. Expensive, devouring militia were dismissed as soon as it was apparent that West Point was not in immediate danger, but the suffering, poverty and bitterness of men in the Continental service were as bad as ever they had been, perhaps worse. Washington had an embarrassment in the fact that Robert Livingston, as well as Schuyler, now was insisting that a more vigorous man than Howe was needed at West Point, even though Washington saw to it that Steuben remained there and advised with Howe. Livingston’s proposal was that the citadel be assigned Arnold. Arnold, himself, en route to Connecticut on private business, stopped at Headquarters and remarked that he wanted field command but doubted if he was physically equal to it. On returning from Connecticut, he made the same statement and intimated that he would like the assignment at West Point.
The advent of July brought no improvement. Washington had to admit that not more than thirty men had reported, of all the thousands asked of the States. Small and doubtful as was the support of the States, it had to be divided. Gates must have every man and all the supplies that Virginia and the Carolinas would furnish, but more than this Washington did not think he could spare after Clinton returned north. For his part, Gates was receiving many congratulations on his new assignment, but he confessed privately his dismay at succeeding “To the command of an army without strength, a military chest without money, a Department apparently deficient in public spirit, and a climate that increases despondency instead of animating the soldier’s arm. . . .”
The whole inhuman tragedy was deepened now by uncertainty regarding the continuance of the dribble of stores Greene and his deputies had been able to divert to the Army. Congress was hammering again on the reorganization of the Quartermaster Department, and in circumstances that presaged an upheaval. Washington thought the proposed plan about as good as any that could be fitted to limitations that could not be overcome, but it was doubtful whether Greene would agree to remain as Quartermaster General or whether, in event the Rhode Islander and his deputies retired, the most essential requirements of the troops could be met. So desperate was the plight of the Army that Washington began to fear that the French might come, see the helplessness of America, and sail away. He gave warning: “If we do not avail ourselves of their succor by the most decisive and energetic steps on our part, the aid they so generously bring, may prove our ruin, and at best it will be in such case among the most unfortunate events next to that of absolute ruin, that could have befallen us.”
Nearly a fortnight passed during which the enemy did nothing and the States little. As of July 13 Washington had to write: “It cannot be too much lamented that our preparations still are so greatly behindhand. Not a thousand men that I have heard of, have yet joined the Army. . . .” The pettiness of accession made a jest of the plan, nearing completion, for an attack on New York—made, indeed, an embarrassment of reports that the French fleet was off the American coast. The next day a messenger brought Washington a dispatch of July 11 from Heath: “. . . yesterday afternoon the long expected fleet of our illustrious ally appeared off [Newport]. . . , the signals were all made and the fleet standing in to the harbor. . . .”
The dispatch from Rhode Island prompted Washington to complete his outline of operations against New York and entrust Lafayette to carry it and official greetings to the commanders of the allies at Newport. For the attack on New York the General began active preparation. Then adversity trod the heels of hope: Admiral Thomas Graves was said to have arrived at Sandy Hook on the thirteenth with six ships of the line to reenforce Admiral Arbuthnot, who was credited by intelligence reports with seven large ships, three frigates and a sloop. For comparison, by July 18, a dispatch from the General in command of the French troops, Comte de Rochambeau, informed Washington that he had slightly more than five thousand men and that his naval colleague, the Chevalier de Ternay, had eight ships of the line, two frigates and two bomb-galliots. By the simplest calculation, the combined forces of Arbuthnot and Graves were far more powerful than Ternay’s eight. Washington flattered America’s allies when he said that the French were “rather inferior” to their adversary, but he had instant encouragement: Other French war vessels might come from the West Indies. Rochambeau assured him a second division of French ships, with more infantry, soon would arrive in America, but the prospect of early attack on New York undeniably was dimmed.
The fates seemed to be making sport of him. A new rebuff came quickly: A British force of fifteen or sixteen ships appeared off Newport, as if to establish a blockade and intercept the French second division. Within three days more, there was news that transports in large number were proceeding eastward through Long Island Sound to assail the French on Rhode Island. If the troops on these vessels were as numerous as reports indicated, a renewed opportunity presented itself of making a demonstration against New York and perhaps of attacking the city’s defences; but the Quartermaster service, feeble for months, now was crippled and disorganized, because Greene had resigned as head of that department. With some difficulty Washington and John Mathews of the committee at Headquarters prevailed on Greene to continue temporarily on duty, and to their relief they found that while the machinery creaked and rumbled, the service did not collapse entirely.
The troops under the Commander-in-Chief continued their advance across the Hudson until news came at the beginning of August that Clinton’s transports were returning to New York with the regiments still aboard, a movement the American commander attributed to his demonstration against the city. As soon as he was sure the British vessels were headed westward on Long Island Sound, he directed that the Army return to the Jersey side of the Hudson.
The disappointments did not exhaust Washington’s patience or destroy his cheerfulness. He looked confidently for the shift in naval superiority that Admiral Ternay assured him the French King was determined to establish. The United States must do their part, conserve the little they had and organize to strike with all their might when the French squadron arrived. Greene would be available to assist him. His resignation as Quartermaster General had been accepted with no bar on service in the line. He could be assigned to command the right wing, but the man Washington desired to head the left wing, Arnold, said his wounded leg was not strong enough for so active a command. In accordance with his wishes he was assigned to the defence of West Point. None of his juniors was named to command the left wing, because the return of Clinton’s fleet made an immediate order of battle unnecessary.
After New York received its full garrison again, was there any hope of striking a blow before the second division of the French fleet arrived? The British showed no initiative; the only American enterprise of any magnitude was an unsuccessful attack by Wayne July 21 on a blockhouse near Bull’s Ferry. Had opportunity of achieving any larger result offered itself, Washington’s acceptance would have been at the greatest risk, because all the darkest apprehensions of the failure of supply by the States were being realized. Commissary Ephraim Blaine was almost frantic; a general forage had to be authorized. Soon the only device for keeping the Army from starving was to move the camp, eat up everything in reach and then go into another district and strip it.
The misery of the men was matched by the discontent and weakened organization of the officers’ corps. Maxwell resigned; Enoch Poor died; various others were cherishing grievances or debating bitterly with themselves a choice of duty. The new Quartermaster General, Timothy Pickering, failed to report promptly for field orders. By August 15 Washington had received slightly more than six thousand recruits of the 16,500 the States had been asked to supply for the main Army; a large body of Pennsylvania militia, estimated by the Commissary General at 4500, was moving forward to share in the projected attack on the British, but Washington could not feed these reenforcements. He had to order the men turned back and dismissed or encamped where provisions were abundant. He was compelled to warn the Delegates: “. . . If something satisfactory be not done, the Army . . . must either cease to exist at the end of the campaign, or it will exhibit an example of more virtue, fortitude, self denial, and perseverance than has perhaps ever yet been paralleled in the history of human enthusiasm.”
Within a week, food was so scarce that Washington had to move the Army to the vicinity of Fort Lee, on the North River, in order to impress the few days’ food in that area. As the march began, he had still another discouragement, so stern that it was almost a blow in the face. He learned that the useful committee at Headquarters, who had aided him in many ways, had been discharged by Congress on the ground that it had exceeded its authority. With his unflinching acceptance of civil authority, Washington made no protest, even when he attested to Congress the value of the committee’s service, but he had lost advocates who had learned thoroughly the distress of the Army and could interpret it to the States.
On the evening of August 25 Washington received a dispatch of the twentieth from Rochambeau who reported the arrival at Boston of the French frigate Alliance. She brought much-needed arms and powder; but when she left L’Orient, the second division of the French fleet was blockaded at Brest by English squadrons. The division, with the best of fortune, could not be expected in America until October. Economy and common-sense dictated the undoing of much Washington laboriously had undertaken: he dismissed the militia, ordered the Army to return to the vicinity of Hackensack, prepared his thin battalions for a possible British advance, and warned Arnold to assemble at West Point all scattered contingents to meet a probable attack on the highlands.
While the Army was tramping to the Hackensack, rumors reached Headquarters that a disaster had befallen Gates, of whose operations in the Carolinas, Washington had heard little. On September 4 came news that Gates had suffered total defeat in a battle with Cornwallis’s troops on August 16, about eight miles from Camden, South Carolina. Early accounts indicated that Gates’s force had been destroyed, that he had fled 180 miles before he even could file a report, and that, because of the disaster, Virginia was exposed to invasion from the south. Washington had no comment, but he lost no time in directing a new regiment from Maryland south instead of to the main Army.
A council of war assembled on the sixth to consider plans and a new and mystifying development: the British fleet had disappeared from the vicinity of Newport August 29 and had not been heard of subsequently. The puzzled council could recommend nothing better than the suspension of the attack on New York until the arrival of the French second division. Further dispatch of reenforcements to the south likewise should await events. Washington’s opinion was that the British would detach more troops to Virginia or to North Carolina. America’s reliance should be on slow recovery in the South and on the creation there of a Continental force of about six thousand. If the main operations of the British should develop in the South, the whole or a part of the troops under Washington might be moved to that region.
On these and related questions Washington wished to consult the French commanders, with whom he long had desired to confer, and he now arranged a meeting at Hartford on September 20; but while he was preparing carefully for this, another calamity threatened. On the fourteenth Gen. David Forman wrote from Freehold, New Jersey: “I am this minute informed that Admiral Rodney with twelve sail of the line and four frigates are arrived off Sandy Hook from the West Indies.” Instead of having the help of additional French ships to offset British strength, Washington had now to contend with a hostile superiority greater than ever, perhaps unchallengeably greater.
With regard for these developments, Washington drew up a memorandum of the subjects to be discussed, gave orders to guide the action of Greene during his absence, and on September 17, in the company of staff-officers and attendents, rode towards King’s Ferry and stopped for the night at the home of Joshua Hett Smith. At Smith’s Washington met Arnold. That officer had written his chief numerous letters after reaching West Point and had received hearty commendation for the spirit in which he had been discharging his duties. Now the hero of the northern campaigns wished the judgment of the Commander-in-Chief on a matter of interest. Beverley Robinson, an old-time friend of Washington’s and a leading supporter of the British cause in New York, had sent Arnold a letter requesting a secret interview with him. Arnold wished to know whether he should consent to see Robinson. Washington’s answer was instant and positive: By no means should Arnold do such a thing! If Robinson had any permissible private business to transact, he should address himself to the civil authorities of New York.
When Arnold transmitted a reply of this nature to Robinson, the matter ended. Perhaps this was to the satisfaction of outpost officers, because they were annoyed by frequent flags of truce. Col. Elisha Sheldon, for example, had been the go-between for reports from spies and recently had almost got himself into trouble because of a letter of one John Anderson, a New Yorker, who sought to enter the lines on a matter “of so private a nature that the public on neither side can be injured by it.” Sheldon sent this paper to Arnold but he made a report of it to Washington, who inquired how the letter had come into Sheldon’s hands. The Colonel explained that the communication had been brought by flag of truce. Fortunately for Sheldon, Arnold previously had mentioned the fact that he was opening a new line of intelligence from New York and now confided that Anderson was the man he wished to employ.
Washington proceeded to Hartford, where he had the pleasure of meeting Rochambeau, Ternay and other French officers. Some of these soldiers of King Louis were curious to know what manner of man the leader of the American Revolution was, and most of them were greatly pleased with him. “Enchanted” was the word Claude Blanchard used as he summarized the feelings of those fellow-countrymen who subsequently told him of Washington’s “easy and noble bearing, extensive and correct views and the art of making himself beloved. . . .” Washington, in turn, found the French commanders all he could wish them to be, but he could do little more than give a pleasant personal aspect to a discussion dependent on so many contingencies that neither side could make firm promises. Everything hung on the balance between French and British naval strength, on the time and the extent of help from the Comte de Guichen, French Admiral in the West Indies.
The American leader’s proposals were these: First, if de Guichen arrived by the beginning of October and won a naval victory that would give him entry into New York harbor, the capture of that city should be undertaken. In event allied naval superiority was not obtained until later in the fall, an expedition of at least twelve thousand troops, French and American, should be sent to the Southern States. A second proposal was based on a plan Greene had sketched: The French fleet might proceed to Boston, where it would be secure without the support of land forces, and Rocham-beau’s infantry might march towards the Hudson for cooperation with the Americans in enterprises that would keep the British from making further detachment to the South. Washington’s third project was for a winter campaign in Canada. The first of these three proposals alone met with the favor of Rochambeau. Even in this particular, the French General tactfully made it plain that the King’s fleet and troops were to be kept together and not to be employed contrary to his strict interpretation of his orders. Rochambeau explained that he had instructions to put his troops under Washington personally and under him only; but in the end, Washington concluded that his command of these forces was a flattering fiction.
If Washington could not hope to undertake a general offensive until French naval reenforcements arrived, he must be certain fortifications on the Hudson, and particularly at West Point, were strong enough to discourage attack. Washington wished to see them himself. So, when he left Hartford September 23, with Lafayette, Knox and the members of the staff, he took the upper road, pressed steadily on, and passed Fishkill during the next afternoon. He was continuing towards West Point when he met the Chevalier Luzerne en route to visit Rochambeau. The Minister appealed so earnestly for a conference that Washington turned back to Fishkill, where, no doubt, he traded news from Hartford for Philadelphia gossip.
The next morning, September 25, he was resolved to press straight on to the Headquarters of Arnold. Two officers were assigned to ride ahead and inform Arnold’s household to prepare, if convenient, for a considerable number of hungry guests. Washington followed at a good clip and about 10:30 pulled up at Arnold’s Headquarters, which were in the residence of Beverley Robinson, about two miles southeast of West Point. At the house, one of Arnold’s aides, Maj. David Franks, explained that a short while previously Arnold had received a call to come at once to West Point. He sent his regrets at unavoidable absence. In approximately an hour, he would be back. Such a state of affairs was no welcome for the Commander-in-Chief, but—would the gentlemen excuse it and make themselves comfortable? Washington relieved immediately the embarrassment of Franks. If the Major would order some breakfast, all could be adjusted easily; the visitors intended to cross to the works at West Point and would see Arnold there.
After they had breakfasted the officers were rowed across the Hudson to the defences that towered on the west bank, but something evidently had gone awry. Arnold was not at the landing, nor had he been seen that morning by those who greeted the visitors. Washington concluded that the party would start its inspection and proceed from one work to another until the commander was found. As he made the rounds, Washington encountered shocking conditions of past bad planning and present neglect. Almost every part of the stronghold of the Hudson was decayed, incomplete or inflammable. Repair of the works called for the full service of Arnold’s eighteen hundred militia and of all the artificers he could collect. Strangely enough, very few men were visible as garrison or masons. At each of the forts and redoubts, Washington inquired for Arnold. Nobody had seen him. Washington felt some irritation that Arnold should be negligent in attendance when word of the visit of the Commander-in-Chief had been sent; but as it was important to know the exact condition of the defences, he completed the tour of the place.
It was well past three o’clock when Washington, with vague misgiving started across the river towards Robinson’s house; and it was close to four when the barge tied up at its landing. Arnold had not returned. It was very strange. Washington went to the house and into the room set aside for him. In a few minutes, Hamilton entered and handed Washington a packet that had just been received by Lt. Col. John Jameson of the First Dragoons. Washington opened the bundle and read Jameson’s covering note. This explained that a man who gave the name John Anderson had been caught on the road to New York. When searched, he was found to have in his stockings papers which Jameson forwarded. The General glanced at them. One was a pass for Anderson, dated September 22. Another was a summary of the Army’s strength, with a report of the troops at West Point and an estimate of the forces needed there. A return of the ordnance was in the packet, as were the arrangements for the disposition of the artillery in event of an alarm. One folio was endorsed: “Remarks on Works at Wt. Point a copy to be transmitted to his Excell’y General Washington”; still another was a copy of the minutes Washington had sent Arnold of the council of war on September 6. In short, Washington had in his hands a dossier of the most confidential papers concerning the garrison and defences of West Point and the plans of the Army. This was startling enough. The appalling fact was that two of these papers were in Arnold’s handwriting. Anderson’s pass was signed by the General.
Hamilton had still another document for Washington, a second letter from Jameson. The officer explained that a letter for Washington had been given him by the man who called himself Anderson and that he was forwarding this. It was an amazing communication: the arrested individual was not John Anderson but John André, a Major and Adjutant General in the British Army. He confessed that he had left the man-of-war, Vulture, in Hudson River, “to meet upon ground not within posts of either army, a person who was to give me intelligence.” Against previous stipulations, André said, he had been conveyed “within one of your posts,” whence he had been refused transit back to the vessel and forced to put on civilian dress and start to New York by land. Near Tarrytown he had been captured by some volunteers. “Thus,” he continued, “as I have the honor to relate was I betrayed (being Adjutant General of the British Army) into the vile condition of an enemy in disguise within your posts.”
Undoubtedly, then, this important British staff officer had held a meeting with Arnold and received from the General the papers found on him! Washington never had sustained such a shock, but he gave no indication of distress of mind. He merely made it plain that he wished to be alone with Hamilton and Harrison. When he told them what the papers disclosed, he learned for the first time of an incident that had occurred at breakfast. While Arnold was eating, he was handed a paper which he read with manifest concern. Without remark, he stuffed it in his pocket and in a few minutes got up and left the table. Whatever the origin of the sheet delivered Arnold, it must have been a warning. Arnold doubtless had fled, and if so, he probably had gone down the river to the vessel from which André had come ashore. Colonel Hamilton must take horse and, if possible, intercept the fugitive.
Then, gripping himself, Washington went to dinner at four o’clock without a word to anyone else about Arnold’s disappearance. After the meal, Washington asked Lieut. Col. Richard Varick, Arnold’s chief aide, to come for a walk, and, as they strolled, told him of Arnold’s conduct. There was not, said Washington, the slightest ground of suspicion against Varick or Franks but, in the circumstances, they must consider themselves under arrest. Varick did not protest. Instead, he tried to explain all he knew about Arnold. As Washington listened, the Colonel told with some difficulty how he and Franks had been puzzled and troubled because they had observed an enlarging intimacy between Arnold and Joshua Hett Smith, whom they took to be a spy or a trader in illicit enemy goods, or both. Voluntarily, he and, later, Franks gave up the keys to their chests and to all those of Arnold that were under their care.
Washington took up the task of correcting mistakes deliberately made to expose an American stronghold to successful attack. Arnold had been careful to be careless. What had appeared to be the derelictions of a patriot now were disclosed as the iniquities of a traitor. It seemed that Arnold’s scheme was to invite the enemy’s advance. By seven o’clock Washington knew enough about the situation to begin to issue his orders: Redoubts opposite West Point were to be manned; Greene was to advance his nearest division immediately to King’s Ferry, where further orders would await it; all the troops of the main Army were to be held in readiness to move; the militia and men detached as a wood-cutting party were recalled to the east bank of the Hudson; officers of known character were put on duty.
Before the last of these papers was ready Washington received this letter, which had been sent ashore by flag of truce near King’s Ferry:
SIR: The heart which is conscious of its own rectitude, cannot attempt to palliate a step which the world may censure as wrong; I have ever acted from a principle of love to my country, since the commencement of the present unhappy contest between Great Britain and the Colonies; the same principle of love to my country actuates my present conduct, however it may appear inconsistent to the world who very seldom judge right of any man’s actions.
I have no favor to ask for myself. I have too often experienced the ingratitude of my country to attempt it; but, from the known humanity of your Excellency, I am induced to ask your protection for Mrs. Arnold from every insult and injury that a mistaken vengeance of my country may expose her to. It ought to fall only on me; she is as good and as innocent as an angel, and is incapable of doing wrong. I beg she may be permitted to return to her friends in Philadelphia, or to come to me, as she may choose; from your Excellency I have no fears on her account, but she may suffer from the mistaken fury of the country. . . .
I have the honor to be with great regard and esteem, your Excellency’s most obedient humble servant
BENEDICT ARNOLD
N.B. In justice to the gentlemen of my family, Colonel Varick and Major Franks, I think myself in honor bound to declare that they, as well as Joshua Smith, Esq., (who I know is suspected) are totally ignorant of any transactions of mine, that they had reason to believe were injurious to the public.
Washington did not take time to analyze this paper, with its references to the infamy Arnold knew his betrayal would bring on him. The traitor had escaped. Nothing could be done about that now. Washington then examined a communication from Beverley Robinson that accompanied the one from Arnold. It developed that Robinson, too, was aboard the Vulture and was immensely concerned over the apprehension of André. The former Virginian demanded the release of André on the ground that the British Adjutant General “went up with a flag at the request of General Arnold, on public business with him” and had acted as Arnold had directed, even to using a “feigned name.” This argument Washington instantly rejected, but if André was so much esteemed it would be well to have the captured spy brought to West Point. The transfer consequently was ordered. Next was Smith, the man whom Arnold had described as a suspect. Find him, arrest him and bring him to Headquarters. Collect, too, all possible intelligence.
Washington’s last instructions on these matters were not issued until after 10 P.M. of the twenty-fifth; movement of men to their stations at West Point went on most of the night. Before the return of daylight, there was good augury: The wind shifted and began to sweep strongly downstream, an obstacle to a British approach by water. In event the enemy planned the earliest possible attack, Washington might have the twenty-sixth in which to prepare a defence. The General put all available men to work and was standing on the piazza of the Robinson house when up clattered horsemen who had apprehended Smith. The General soon went into the house, called Lafayette, Knox and Hamilton to his room and then sent for Smith, a voluble individual who began almost immediately to protest against the arrest of so loyal an American as he. He displayed wariness, but he gave information that filled some gaps in Washington’s knowledge of what had happened.
Until the examination of that loquacious individual was completed Washington had been so mired in the detail of Arnold’s treason that he had not been able to stand off and look at the whole. Now he gave instruction for the drafting of a report to Congress and, in outlining what was to be said, saw that Arnold must have been fashioning for a long time a plan to get command at West Point and deliver the American citadel to the British. In the absence of suspicion, Arnold almost certainly would have succeeded but for the chance capture of André. In Washington’s eyes, the circumstances attending that officer’s failure to escape were beyond human fashioning. It was, said Washington, “by a most providential interposition,” and he described the facts as far as he knew them. Assurance was given Congress, and Governor Clinton in a separate letter, that precautions had been taken to prevent a surprise of West Point.
The morning of the twenty-sixth brought still another development when Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge and a party of dragoons delivered to Headquarters a young man, unshorn and untidy—Maj. John André. Would Washington care to question André? No; but he was interested to hear details of the capture of the Adjutant General: On the afternoon of September 22 a number of young militiamen had procured leave of absence to waylay some of the “cowboys” engaged in stealing and driving cattle into the British lines above New York. The next morning the party divided, and three of them took station on the Old Post Road close to Tarry-town. About 9:30 they halted there a solitary rider, who was on his way to New York. In the belief that the trio were Loyalist partisans and that they had established their lookout on the British side of the “neutral ground” the horseman did not show his pass and talked so carelessly that the Americans made him dismount and strip. In the feet of his stockings they found the papers that led them to suspect he was a spy. Although he thereupon tried to bribe them into permitting him to go on his way, they took him to the nearest outpost, which was at North Castle. Jameson, temporarily in command there, read the papers and concluded they were a forgery, written to discredit the Armerican commander at West Point. He consequently wrote Arnold of the capture of André and started the captive on the way to West Point; but the vehement protests of Major Tallmadge induced the bewildered commanding officer to recall the prisoner. Jameson insisted that the letter to Arnold be forwarded but, fortunately, he dispatched to Washington, not to the commander at West Point, the documents André was carrying. Occurrences after the return of André to North Castle already were known to Washington. He did not express an opinion, so far as is known, on a question that much disturbed the more romantic of his young officers—the puzzle of Mrs. Arnold’s involvement. She manifestly feared that public indignation would be visited on her for what her husband had done, and she sought permission to go to Philadelphia. As Washington saw no reason why she should be held at West Point, she left September 27, with Major Franks as her escort.
The departure of Arnold’s wife was followed at once by an examination of his records, from which apparently he had not been able, in his hurry, to extract any papers. His cool request for a map of the country between West Point and New York appeared now to be a device to facilitate the march of the column that was to “surprise” the Hudson defences. Other drafts of orders and dispatches showed how carefully Arnold undertook to get a British agent into the lines without arousing suspicion. The letter of Robinson, concerning which the traitor so ostentatiously had consulted Washington, obviously was intended to make sure that Arnold had reached his station. A full set of the profiles of the West Point fortifications, each on a separate sheet, presumably had been made ready for conveyance to the enemy. The accumulating pile of papers was maddening in its disclosure of a lack of vigilance on the part of senior officers who now saw a score of acts suspicious in retrospect. One consolation only did they have: they went through all the traitor’s correspondence and did not read the name of a single soldier, humble or conspicuous, who had been party to Arnold’s design. Robert Howe, for example, was shown by Arnold’s correspondence to have been asked, and almost ordered, to disclose the identity of his spies, a request Howe had refused politely but inflexibly. So with every other officer represented in Arnold’s papers. The only American, besides the traitor himself, on whom the correspondence cast the faintest shadow of suspicion was Smith.
The Commander-in-Chief put the experienced, if half-incapacitated, Alexander McDougall in charge of West Point and its approaches, until Arthur St. Clair could arrive. It seemed wise, also, to send André and Smith to the custody of the main Army at Tappan, whither Washington himself intended to return as soon as McDougall reached West Point. Washington proceeded to Tappan September 28 and opened Headquarters at the house of John de Windt.
There he had to deal almost immediately with a sustained, desperate effort by Sir Henry Clinton to save André from execution as a spy. The British commander, writing on the twenty-sixth, stated that he had permitted André to “go to Major General Arnold at the particular request” of that general officer. An enclosed letter from Arnold, said Clinton, would show “that a flag of truce was sent to receive Major André, and passports granted for his return.” Arnold’s letter was a cold avowal of his treason and his delivery to the Major of “confidential papers in my own handwriting for Clinton.” Arnold wrote: “I commanded, at that time, at West Point [and] had an undoubted right to send my flag of truce for Major André.”
Preposterous as this contention seemed to Washington, he did not call a drumhead court-martial for the immediate sentence and execution of a spy caught in civilian dress. The American leader named, instead, a board of fourteen general officers to make a careful and speedy examination of André. Greene was designated President of the Board; the Judge Advocate General was to attend. Members assembled the day they were assigned. When André was put on the stand, he confessed readily the authorship of his letter of September 24 to Washington and then volunteered a stage-by-stage account of the manner in which he was brought ashore and subsequently told he must return by the route he was following when captured. After that statement, the Judge Advocate put to André the question his General was arguing vigorously in his behalf: Did André consider he had landed under the sanction of flag of truce? The answer recorded in the minutes of the court, was both honest and impetuous: “It was impossible for him to suppose he came on shore under that sanction, and [he] added, that if he came ashore [under flag] he certainly might have returned under it.” That knocked away the last frail defence. The rest was formality. When André was asked if he acknowledged the facts in the record, he did so, with the simple remark that he “left them to operate with the board.”
Insofar as all this was known in camp it created sympathy for André rather than astonishment that he seemed to be courting death. It was the duty of Washington to see that sentiment did not prompt leniency towards a man engaged in the most dangerous conspiracy the war had hatched. No comfort for the sentimentalists was presented in the report the Board of Officers filed with Washington. The Board reported “ . . . That Major André, Adjutant General to the British army, ought to be considered as a Spy from the enemy, and that agreeable to the law and usage of nations, it is their opinion, he ought to suffer death.”
The sentence accorded exactly with Washington’s own judgment, but the report was received too late September 29 for any action on it that day. On the morning of the thirtieth, the General answered the letter in which Clinton asserted that André had immunity under Arnold’s flag of truce. The American commander quoted in full the report of the Board and added simply: “From these proceedings it is evident that Major André was employed in the execution of measures very foreign to the objects of flags of truce and such as [they] were never meant to authorize or countenance in the most distant degree.”
This letter was intended to be Washington’s last word, though he complied readily with a request that André’s servant be allowed to visit the prisoner and deliver clothing to him. Calmly, methodically, Washington proceeded as in every other death-sentence, except in one particular. In the usual formula, the findings of a court-martial were “confirmed” or “approved.” This time General Orders quoted the report of the Board of Officers and then stated tersely: “The Commander in Chief directs the execution of the above sentence in the usual way this afternoon at 5 o’clock precisely.”
André had spent quietly his hours of imprisonment at Tappan, and, when the General Orders were read to the young officer, he scarcely seemed to change expression; but soon the General received from him an appeal that he be sent before a firing squad rather than hanged. Washington sympathized with a soldier young and accomplished, but he could see no reason for deviating from the rule that sent spies to the gallows. All the mercy that could be shown would be to give no direct answer to André and thereby save him from certainty that her was to die on the gallows.
About 1 P.M. there arrived another letter from Clinton. The British commander still was trying to save André and insisted that the Board of Officers who passed on the case could “not have been rightly informed of all the circumstances on which a judgment ought to be formed.” Clinton continued: “I shall send his Excellency, Lieutenant General Robertson, and two other gentlemen, to give you a true state of facts, and to declare to you my sentiments and resolutions.” There was no reason for listening to Robertson in any official capacity, though it would be courteous to receive an officer of his rank. Washington consequently instructed Greene to go to Dobbs Ferry and receive Robertson as an individual, not as a bargaining representative of a hostile government that had nothing to do with the enforcement of American military law. The other representatives of Clinton must not be permitted even to come ashore. Until the result of the meeting was reported, the execution of André should be postponed without any formal reprieve. Washington waited until his senior lieutenant returned with a report that Robertson merely had restated feeble arguments and, in the end, virtually had made a plea for the release of André as a personal favor to Clinton, who would reciprocate generously. Washington listened to the statement of his lieutenant but found nothing to justify any revision of the sentence imposed on André. Greene was told that he was to notify Robertson in writing the next day that the American commander had not changed his opinion. Meantime, orders must receive this addition: “Major André is to be executed tomorrow at twelve o’clock precisely a Battalion of Eighty files from each wing to attend the Execution.”
On the morning of October 2 Washington took up his regular work. Before many hours passed there was much stirring in the camp, all the way from André’s place of confinement to a tall gallows of two forked poles and a crosspiece on a knoll half a mile away, but there was little noise of preparation, because everything had been made ready the previous day. Presently there came the sound of marching in the vicinity of André’s prison. Soon the frenzied shriek of the fife and the fast heartbeat of the drums died in the distance. Washington was left almost alone with his papers. There were vastly greater questions in his mind than that of the just fate of a spy who had come within the American lines to bargain with a traitor. After a long quiet, the sounds of the camp were renewed gradually. Officers returning from the place of execution were talking of what they had seen. It was over; André was dead; every incident of the hanging had increased the respect of witnesses for the young man in the red coat. He had faced the last ordeal as all right-minded men would pray they might if their fate had been his. Washington listened to the reports as any person of amiable nature would, but he had more of wrath towards Arnold than lament for André.
With more of sympathy for André than Washington permitted himself to feel, the country shared in other respects the emotions aroused in the Commander-in-Chief by Arnold’s treason. Dismay turned quickly to wrath. Consternation sobered into amazed gratitude for providential deliverance. The response of one element of the public was less reverent. Some asked, Was there any connection between Arnold’s plot and Lee’s behavior during the Jersey retreat? In Philadelphia, Boston, and other towns, paraders hanged the traitor in effigy and in branding him displayed half consciously their own loyalty to the Revolution. Congress, in the words of James Lovell, was “mighty shocked,” though it was admitted that those Delegates who had examined Arnold’s accounts were not unprepared for disclosure of his business. Many “scandalous transactions,” wrote President Samuel Huntington, were “brought to light that were before concealed.” Arnold’s name was erased from the roster of generals; his infamy was left to time.
Full investigation confirmed initial evidence and failed to show the involvement with Arnold of any person other than Joshua Hett Smith—who was brought to trial before a general court-martial September 30 and acquitted for lack of evidence, but he was arrested soon afterward by the New York Commissioners of Conspiracy and was imprisoned at Goshen until he escaped May 22, 1781, and went to New York City. American spies in New York and at nearby stations were alarmed and for a time afraid to employ their usual channels of communication but they escaped arrest, thanks to the earlier frustration by Howe of Arnold’s efforts to ascertain their names. In the conviction that Arnold had no partner in perfidy, Washington was anxious that suspicions should not be indulged. When he heard from the Board of War that a notorious informer, whom he suspected of being a double spy, had alleged that Howe was in British pay, he protested: “It will be the policy of the enemy to distract us as much as possible by sowing jealousies, and if we swallow the bait, no character will be safe; there will be nothing but mutual distrust.”
While the country still was engaged in the discussion of Arnold’s crime, Washington disposed his troops to protect West Point and find subsistence in districts that had not been swept bare. So far as the northern and middle States were concerned, he felt he had written finis to an “inactive campaign,” throughout which the Army had “lived upon expedients” that no longer availed. He believed a far different task faced the forces in the South. “I have little doubt,” he told James Duane, “should we not gain a naval superiority, that Sir Henry Clinton will detach to the southward to extend his conquests.”
Almost every development of the succeeding weeks of wretchedness bore out the warnings Washington had given. The British manifestly were reenforcing their Carolina contingents. Intelligence from New York was to the effect that Gen. Alexander Leslie was leaving that base with 2500 to 3000 men. The States below the Potomac must raise more men. If Virginia and the Carolinas were to supply recruits, they must have faith in victory. After what had happened at Camden, Gates could not hope to possess the confidence of the people. The simplest way that Congressmen could devise of getting rid of him was to order a court of inquiry into his conduct and direct Washington to put some one else at the head of the Southern Army until the court had acted. Delegates of the three southernmost States immediately asked the assignment of Greene, whom Washington undoubtedly would have selected on his own motion as the most resourceful, skilled general officer he could recommend. Greene, than at West Point, accepted the command, though with a sober understanding of the complexities of his task. Washington encouraged his lieutenant and gave him two of the best of his supporting officers, Steuben and Harry Lee. To Gates Washington sent word that the court would be held, if practicable, where and when it best suited the convenience of the defendant.
Thereafter a continuing question was whether troops could be sent from the main Army to Greene. By the end of October Washington had good news: At King’s Mountain, South Carolina, on October 7 frontier militiamen overwhelmed a mixed British force, chiefly Loyalists. As this advantage might be offset by the British troops who had left New York, Washington thought it wise to consult his council of war on further detachment to Greene. A majority of the Generals replied with an unqualified “No” and urged, in answer to another question, that the Army be placed forthwith in winter quarters that would cover West Point.
The troops by that time needed shelter and everything else. Washington had all his old administrative problems. Conditions never seemed to get better; experience never was applied; each autumn found him threatened with the calamities his men barely had survived the previous winter. Scarcely a week passed that the Army did not have to do without meat one day or even two. Soon there might not be men to eat even the little that could be wrung from embittered farmers. A stripped military chest and a despised currency would not purchase the reenlistment of short-term soldiers or support the intolerable expense of militia. Many of the troops were half-naked in spite of a large accumulation of uniforms in foreign ports. The old restlessness and the ugly jealousies were reawakened angrily. Knox was outraged by the promotion of William Smallwood to Major General. Hamilton also was restive. When Colonel Scammell resigned as Adjutant General, in order to resume field command, Greene and Lafayette sent their endorsement of Hamilton for that post, but before Washington received it he chose Edward Hand. While the appointment was logical, Hamilton may not have been reconciled to it. He now had married a daughter of Philip Schuyler and was thirsting to win fame in the field.
Washington’s daily service continued the same old story, in detail different but in theme so repetitious, so disheartening that it was enough to make a man wonder whether the country deserved to be free! One hope only of larger American effort was held out to Washington. On October 4 he had written John Mathews: “. . . I most firmly believe that the independence of the United States never will be established till there is an Army on foot for the war—that if we are to rely on occasional or annual levies we must sink under the expense, and ruin must follow.” This appeal did not fail completely. A plan of reorganization was adopted October 3—too late to fill the ranks by January 1 but not too late to effect some improvement. The infantry regiments were to be enlisted “for and during the war” and supplemented, if necessary, by one-year drafted recruits. Several important reforms were instituted in the artillery and the mounted forces; but the most substantial gain, in Washington’s judgment, was the provision that the dismissed officers of the consolidated regiments and all officers “who should continue in the service to the end of the war” were to “be entitled to half pay during life.” With the beginning of November, Washington announced the new organization of the Army on a basis of long-term enlistment, adoption of which in 1776, he said privately, would have ended the war before the autumn of 1780.
Washington’s immediate problems of strategy were not eased in the least by military developments. British troops established a base at Portsmouth, Virginia, and then mysteriously evacuated it. Preparations were being made at New York as if Clinton were determined to strengthen still further his southern forces. Greene received gratifying welcomes in Philadelphia and Richmond; but the farther southward he went, the more he realized the feebleness of the resources with which he hoped to conduct a partisan war until larger forces could be collected. Although it was suggested in Congress that Washington’s presence in the South would do more than anything else to assure help for Greene, the Commander-in-Chief felt that in the absence of orders from Congress to this effect, he should remain where he was.
To winter quarters, then! There was no alternative. With the men apportioned in camps from West Point to Morristown, Washington fixed his own “dreary station,” as he styled it, at New Windsor where Martha joined him. Whatever was procured for the Army was requisitioned or impressed. By the middle of December Washington had to confess a doubt whether there was money enough in the entire Army to pay the cost of an express to Rhode Island. At Headquarters no funds, even for table expense, had been received in nearly two months. Greene’s dispatches told of like poverty. Greene was resolute but in need of encouragement as well as of money. Washington could give the one but not the other. By December 27 Washington’s information was that another British fleet had left New York on the nineteenth with 2000 to 2500 troops—and that superiority at sea still hung on the second division which was to leave Brest in a short time. The year’s end was gloomy; the beginning of 1781 was of the same pattern. The patience of the soldiers had worn out.
About noon on January 3 Maj. Benjamin Fishbourne drew up at Headquarters and handed Washington a letter from General Wayne that began:
The most general and unhappy mutiny took place in the Pennsylvania line about 9 o’clock last night. It yet subsists; a great proportion of the troops, with some artillery, are marching toward Philadelphia. Every exertion has been made by the officers to divide them in their determination to revolt; it has succeeded in a temporary manner with near one half; how long it will last, God knows. . . .
Wayne’s dispatch described an affrighting state of affairs at Mount Kemble, near Morristown. The men had risen between 9 and 10 P.M. on the first, had seized field pieces and boldly resisted commanders who tried to restore order. One captain had been killed; several officers had been wounded. The mutineers then scoured the parade with their fire and marched away about eleven o’clock. Wayne and his subordinates retreated southward ahead of the column and kept between the troops and the British. The men said boldly they intended to proceed to Philadelphia, a threat Wayne took so seriously that he had sent warnings to Congress to leave the city.
The appalling reality was undisguised, defiant mutiny: was it to be general? Had the end come? Nothing further came that day from Wayne except confirmation of the news Fishbourne had brought; the Army around New Windsor remained quiet and apparently had not heard of the uprising. The British had not stirred, either, though, of course, the enemy would try to entice the mutineers. The night, too, was quiet. By morning of the fourth Washington concluded reluctantly that he should not attempt to go forthwith to Philadelphia or to the camp of the mutineers. By the time he could reach the scene of trouble the Pennsylvanians either would have joined the enemy or would be negotiating with a committee of Congress. To appear before the mutineers and demand that they submit to discipline without the means of compelling them to do so might impair discipline still more. Orders that could not be enforced should not be given.
In all his stern disciplinary experience as a soldier Washington had never known precisely the sort of nerve-racking suspense he now had to endure, suspense concerning both the course of the mutineers and the response of the other troops. The only sure way to prevent the spread of trouble was to relieve hunger and neglect. If there was any hope, it was in New England. He wrote the Governors of the States east of the Hudson “it is vain to think that an Army can be kept together much longer, under such a variety of sufferings as ours has experienced.” Unless three months’ pay were forthcoming “in money that will be of some value” to the troops and ways and means were found of clothing the men better and feeding them regularly, then, said Washington, “the worst that can befall us may be expected.” This was all Washington could do—and it was ridiculously inadequate when the mutineers were said to be continuing their march towards Philadelphia.
During the evening of the sixth, Washington received a dispatch of January 4 with details of what had occurred after Wayne had sent the initial reports of the uprising. Wayne had opened negotiations with the mutinous Line, which had appointed a committee of sergeants to act for it. These NCOs asked Wayne which were the classes of men admitted to have a just title to discharge. The General’s reply was that he had sent a plea that the Council of the State name representatives to confer with the soldiers and decide that subject. This arrangement was agreeable to the sergeants, who handed Wayne a list of their demands—that discharges be granted those entitled to them, arrearages of pay and of clothing be made up, and participants in the revolt be exempt from punishment.
For good or for ill, the civil authorities had intervened. They had a right to do so. When they acted, Washington ceased employing the military arm. A just settlement might reconcile the mutineers to renewed service; but the proposals of the men seemed exorbitant, and a civil settlement was almost certain to go beyond anything that military discipline could allow. These perplexities had to be faced. A day’s reflection brought Washington nearer the state of mind that would interpret liberally the scope of a “fair” settlement. He so wrote Wayne on the eighth. An expression of complete confidence in the negotiators ended the letter. Nothing was firm, nothing certain—except the resolution of a few leaders.
Was resolution to be destroyed by torturing suspense? Must Washington and men of like mind remain helpless and idle at New Windsor while the mutineers made a bargain with the enemy or wrung from the Council of Pennsylvania terms that would require the discharge of hundreds from an Army already cut in half? Were the days of December 1776 back again? It must not be so! Active risk was better than passive ruin! Now, on the tenth, letters from St. Clair, Lafayette and John Laurens threw him back on his conviction that a strong hand must be employed against men who could march to the British lines if they did not receive the concessions they demanded. He would proceed to West Point, confer with his general officers, and if they thought he still could rely on the troops, he would pick one thousand men and hasten to Trenton. Then, if need be, he would move against the mutineers.
Almost at the moment Washington left his quarters for West Point he received news that Clinton had sent an emissary to the Pennsylvania troops with generous promises of welcome, pay and provisions. The committee of sergeants was said to have delivered him and his guide to General Wayne. Besides, Washington learned, a committee of Congress was in touch with the Pennsylvania troops. This put a more hopeful face on the crisis, but it did not induce Washington to abandon his plan for a council at West Point. When they assembled, the Generals expressed the belief their men could be relied upon, though there was some wavering over the proposal to detach one thousand troops in five temporary battalions. Washington ordered this and made ready to move towards the Delaware.
A new difficulty arose overnight: The report that the mutineers had delivered Clinton’s agent to Wayne proved to be false. They still held the man and, as Washington saw it, “they seem to say, if you do not grant our terms we can obtain them elsewhere.” Wayne, however, indicated that parleys between the mutineers and the Pennsylvania authorities were progressing, substantially on the basis of the troops’ demands. If, in these circumstances, American regiments were thrown between Trenton and the British lines, this might appear to the mutineers as a show of force and might prompt them to join the enemy.
Washington remained prudently skeptical, but he did not move the detachment which might or might not be willing to fire on the mutineers. Then, one dispatch after another told of small, hopeful developments—that the British emissary and his guide had been turned over to American authorities, that the whole affair was apt to be settled, that the British “spies” had been condemned to die, and that a settlement was expected in a short time. In the evening of the fifteenth a report arrived from Sullivan, with an opening paragraph that read thus:
We are happy to inform your Excellency that the terms offered to the Pennsylvania troops are at length finally, and, as we believe, cordially and satisfactorily agreed on; and tomorrow we expect the Pennsylvania Line will be arranged in its former order. Constitutionally, no concession has been granted them that the critical situation of our affairs did not warrant and justice dictate.
Washington had expected a settlement that would thin the ranks and weaken discipline; precisely how bad was the bargain? The demand of the mutineers had been the discharge of those who had served three years, though enlistment had been for “three years or the war.” Had the settlement been a surrender to the men on this point? It developed that if a mutineer’s military papers were not available for verification, he was to be discharged by the Pennsylvania commissioners if he made oath that he had enlisted for a specific period that had expired. As the records of the regiments were fragmentary, this made the continuance of the Pennsylvania Line dependent, primarily, on the individual soldier’s sense of honor. Washington believed that the Pennsylvania authorities had made the best bargain they could, but he felt that the arrangement would “not only sub-vent the Pennsylvania Line but have a very pernicious influence on the whole Army.” It was, he thought, a result of the sort to be expected where the intervention of the civil authorities made it impossible to restore discipline by military measures.
“It is somewhat extraordinary,” Washington observed to his French colleague at Newport, “that these men, however lost to a sense of duty, had so far retained that of honor, as to reject the most advantageous propositions from the enemy.” Washington went on: “The rest of our Army (the Jersey troops excepted) being chiefly composed of natives, I would flatter myself, will continue to struggle under the same difficulties they have hitherto endured, which I cannot help remarking seem to reach the bounds of human patience.” This was written on January 20, 1781, when Washington had no reason, so far as it is known, for regarding the parenthetical reference to “the Jersey troops” otherwise than as a casual statement of fact. The very next day, he found himself a vindicated prophet of evil: Col. Israel Shreve reported that some of those identical Jersey soldiers, then in camp at Pompton, had mutinied and were marching towards Trenton.
Were all the Jersey troops involved? Was this a movement that was to spread from one command to another until the Army was destroyed? The decision of Washington did not wait on details. This time there must be no negotiations by civil authority, no temporizing, no compromise. If the best soldiers in the Army would stand by him, he would march with them and quell the mutiny. As quickly as dispatches could be drafted and copied they were signed and sent out. Heath at West Point was to pick five or six hundred of the “most robust and best clothed” men of that garrison and place them under proper officers at once. Washington himself would be at the Point the next morning to inspect them. The next day Washington placed Robert Howe in command of the detachment. Instructions were explicit:
The object . . . is to compel the mutineers to unconditional submission, and I am to desire you will grant no terms while they are with arms in their hands in a state of resistance. The manner of executing this I leave to your discretion according to circumstances. If you succeed in compelling the revolted troops to surrender you will instantly execute a few of the most active and incendiary leaders.
The test was slower in developing than Washington had hoped. Horses were difficult to procure, and a heavy snow January 23 delayed all transportation. Washington returned to New Windsor after a single day at West Point but as late as the twenty-fifth he had received neither message nor dispatch to elaborate the first report of mutiny. Consequently, as soon as he learned that Howe’s men were moving without hesitation through the snow, he determined to ride forward and ascertain the “true state of matters.” When Washington reached Ringwood he learned that the number of troops who had defied their officers did not exceed two hundred. A New Jersey commission had undertaken to come to terms with the men—the very thing Washington had wished to avoid—but the commissioners had refused the mutineers’ demand for the benefit the Pennsylvanians won, namely, individual discharge on oath of completed service not disproved by available records. The men had gone back to their quarters eight miles from Ringwood and had begun to riot again. Mutiny continued; military action against the offenders could be taken by Washington without violating any pledge imprudently made by civil authority.
About midnight of January 26/27 Howe marched from Ringwood with his detachment, and by dawn he had taken positions that commanded the cabins where most of the mutineers were asleep. Artillery was trained on the approaches. Howe then directed Lieut. Col. Francis Barber to order the Jersey troops to parade without arms and march to ground he would designate. Some of the men cried out, “What, no conditions?” If they were to die, others shouted, they might as well perish where they were. When Barber reported this, Howe directed Lt. Col. Ebenezer Sprout to advance his troops and cannon and sent word to the mutineers that five minutes only would be allowed for compliance with the orders by Colonel Barber.
The crisis was at hand. Tense seconds of waiting followed. Then, from their shelter, the mutineers began to appear, bundled up for the snow—but without their arms. Who, Howe asked sharply, were the chief offenders? The officers reflected and gave him names. Now, pick the three who had been most violent, one from each regiment. Send a guard directly to the parade, order the three to leave the ranks and bring them to the ground where the General had his post. Keep the mutineers standing in line, organize a field court-martial and try the principal conspirators immediately. Done . . . the three men guilty and sentenced to death . . . Verdict confirmed. Look again at the list of those most active in the meeting. Mark the twelve who had supported most loudly the three about to die. Send this dozen under guard to their huts. Have them carry their muskets to the parade. Promptly done! Let them load their pieces. Take that sergeant who had been the leader. Make him kneel—and pay no heed to his lamentation. The twelve who have loaded, divide them into parties of six each. These six are to fire first, three at the head and three at the heart of the kneeling sergeant. If he struggles after that volley, the remaining six fire. Let them protest and weep if they will. They are fortunate not to be in the sergeant’s place. Fire! Still in spasm? Fire, you second party! He is dead. Now the next villain. Load for him. Proceed as before. Good! . . . dead on the first discharge. The third—are the colonels interceding for him? Was he, as they say, endeavoring to persuade the mutineers to return to their duty? Reprieve him, then. General Washington will pass finally on his case. It is over. Now, all the troops must acknowledge their officers and pledge future good conduct.
“I then spoke to them by platoons,” Howe said later, “representing to them, in the strongest terms I was capable of, the heinousness of their guilt, as well as the folly of it, in the outrage they had offered to that civil authority, to which they owed obedience, and which it was their incumbent duty to support and maintain. They showed the fullest sense of their guilt, and such strong marks of contrition, that I think I may pledge myself for their future good conduct.”
Washington received the report of Howe with deep relief, and he resolved that he would prevent, if he could, any belated concession by New Jersey that would nullify the lesson taught the mutineers. Washington had anticipated, in effect, just such a report as Wayne soon was to make on the outcome of the Pennsylvania review—that more than thirteen hundred were to be discharged and part of the remaining 1150 had been furloughed to dates in March. A corresponding result in New Jersey would be an invitation to New York soldiers to mutiny for like release—and so to the death of the Army. Discipline must be maintained, relief must be afforded, the officers and the intelligent element of the men must be rallied. “The General,” he said in General Orders of thanks to Howe and to that officer’s detachment, “is deeply sensible of the sufferings of the Army.” Then Washington wrote:
He leaves no expedient unessayed to relieve them, and he is persuaded Congress and the several States are doing everything in their power for the same purpose. But while we look to the public for the fulfilment of its engagements, we should do it with proper allowance for the embarrassments of public affairs. We began a contest for liberty and independence ill provided with the means for war, relying on our own patriotism to supply the deficiency. We expected to encounter many wants and distresses and we should neither shrink from them when they happen nor fly in the face of law and government to procure redress. There is no doubt the public will in the event do ample justice to men fighting and suffering in its defence. But it is our duty to bear present evils with fortitude, looking forward to the period when our country will have it more in its power to reward our services.
The cure of the two mutinies had been hampered at every stage by the scourging causes of the discontent—hunger, nakedness and lack of money. “There is not a single farthing in the military chest,” Washington had to admit during the first week of January, and daily he had maddening evidence of the truth he put first in a statement he prepared for John Laurens’ use in seeking a loan in Europe—”the absolute necessity of an immediate, ample and efficacious succor of money; large enough to be a foundation for substantial arrangements of finance, to revive public credit and give vigor to future operations.”
In other respects the period of the Pennsylvanians’ uprising was one of routine at Headquarters, but much of importance had beginnings during the terrible time of the disturbance among the Jersey troops. While Heath was organizing at West Point the detachment that suppressed the mutiny at the Jerseymen’s barracks, Gen. Samuel Parsons on January 22/23 had executed successfully an enterprise against De Lancey’s refugee corps in the vicinity of Morrisania, more than three miles within the British lines. The enemy undertook no reprisal but acted as if the hopes and the attention of all the King’s men were fixed on the southern campaign, where Washington realized already that Clinton or Cornwallis or both of them had developed an admirably dangerous strategical plan. Troops that had left New York under Benedict Arnold December 22 had gone to Virginia. Arnold could render hazardous the movement of stores and provision from the middle States overland through Virginia to the Continentals in the Carolinas; and so long as the British Navy dominated Chesapeake Bay nothing could be sent Greene by water otherwise than by risky voyages to some small port on the Carolina coast that might not be blockaded by British ships. In addition, Arnold could leave the patrol of Virginia rivers to the navy and, if reenforced, could send part of his troops to harass Greene. Simultaneously, Cornwallis, based on Charleston, could close on Greene from the south. Cornwallis was strong enough to organize a vigorous offensive because Gen. Alexander Leslie’s expedition, which had left New York ahead of Arnold’s troops, had gone to Charleston and was moving inland to join the main British column. Greene was in danger of being caught later in the year between two hostile armies. The enemy’s plan threatened complete ruin.
How could Washington frustrate the British plan? He did not dally over the answer: he must strengthen Greene, who could do no more than keep resistance alive until reenforced, and, if possible, Washington must strike a blow that would divert some of the enemy’s force from Greene. The offensive manifestly could not be undertaken on any large scale otherwise than by that help for which Washington had been pleading from the hour the alliance was announced—French naval superiority on the American coast. Half-eagerly, half-wistfully, Washington wrote Laurens, “How loud are our calls from every quarter for a decisive naval superiority, and how might the enemy be crushed if we had it.” Washington’s observation had about it a suggestion that those answers might decide not merely the campaign but the war also. Except for keeping the main Army alive, nothing was now to bulk so large in the mind of Washington as the balance between danger and opportunity in the South.
Washington received word from Rochambeau at the end of the first week in February that a storm on January 22/23 had crippled the British squadron off Gardiner’s Island at the eastern end of Long Island. The French, in the haven at Newport, sustained no damage. Superiority had shifted! The wind had done what the French King could not! Surely this was the awaited opportunity; the French naval commander, now the Chevalier Charles Destouches, might not have numerical advantage many weeks but he could proceed to Virginia waters with his entire fleet and part of Rochambeau’s troops and he might destroy Arnold quickly. “If,” Washington wrote Rochambeau, “Mr. Destouches should have acquired a superiority, which would make it prudent to act, Your Excellency may think this detachment an object.”
Almost a week passed without word from Rochambeau or from Destouches. News from Virginia continued bad. That from the Carolinas, paradoxically, was alarming because it was good. Washington received word that on January 17, at Cowpens, South Carolina, Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan, had defeated an attacking British force, captured more than five hundred, and pursued the enemy twenty miles. American losses were said to have been twelve killed and sixty wounded. Greene and Washington both feared the success of Morgan might lead the people to underestimate the enemy and relax their effort.
Washington received February 14 a letter Rochambeau had written him on the third: “I am going this moment aboard of the Admiral to know whether he intends going out with all his ships, or at least send a detachment of some of them to Chesapeake Bay.” Was the entire force under Destouches or a part only going to Virginia? If Destouches could be prevailed upon to do so, he must use the entire French squadron and take with him approximately one thousand of Rochambeau’s troops. Washington would dispatch a column of twelve hundred from his own Army to march to Virginia and share in the operations.
If the allies promptly made the utmost of their brief superiority at sea, the opportunity was immense. So great was it that Washington quickly made another resolution: Even if the French could lend no help, he would try to defeat Arnold with American troops from the Hudson and those already in Virginia, and, as a symbol of desired joint action, he would put Lafayette in command. Just as Washington completed plans to start the detachment southward, he received from Destouches on February 20 a disheartening letter that began:
I have the honor to inform your Excellency that Mr. la Luzerne has informed me of the desire of the States of Virginia and Maryland to have the fleet in shape to destroy and dissipate the pirate flotilla which is laying waste the Chesapeake Bay shores, and having the great desire to be useful to the United States of America, I sent down one ship and two frigates to accomplish that object. . . .
It seemed as if the great opportunity were being thrown away, though there was an explanation, of a sort, in other dispatches and, particularly, in one of Rochambeau’s. The British fleet had not suffered as heavily as had been thought. The squadron, though small, would consist of swift, sure sailors: the ship of the line could keep up with the frigates. As Arnold was believed to have no more than a forty and some frigates, his fleet could be destroyed. Destouches’ three vessels sailed February 9 under Arnaud le Gardeur de Tilly. Washington did not believe this small squadron could destroy the British vessels if Arnold gave them the protection of land batteries, and, in answering Destouches, he had to say so at the same time that he thanked the Chevalier. Whatever prospect there was of defeating Arnold by using Lafayette’s detachment and forces already in Virginia would depend, Washington thought, on the ability of Destouches to “block up Arnold in the Bay” and prevent the dispatch of British help from New York. If this was expecting too much of Destouches, Rochambeau had a rumor that Admiral Comte de Grasse had met and defeated the large British fleet of Admiral Sir Samuel Hood in the West Indies. If confirmation of this could be had, Washington hastened to write Rochambeau, “I think we may regard it as an event decisive of a speedy and glorious termination of the war. . . .”
He awaited news from the Indies and from Hampton Roads and undertook to discharge an accumulation of business with a staff reduced by absence and illness and embarrassed by a most unhappy experience with Alexander Hamilton. On February 16, when the General was much perplexed over the problem of getting the French commanders to send the whole of their fleet to Virginia waters, a snapping of tensions provoked a hasty decision by Hamilton to leave the staff. Washington, in recognition of the young officer’s fine qualities, decided he should make the first move to a reconciliation. He sent Tench Tilghman to Hamilton to ask that the Colonel come and talk over a difference that could have arisen only in a moment of passion. Soon Tilghman was back; the offended young gentleman would not change his mind but offered to go on with his duties as if nothing had happened until Washington could get someone in his place.
A daily ordeal was the subsistence of the Army, and more nearly torture than ordeal was doubt concerning the success Greene would have in avoiding an engagement with Cornwallis till the American forces were stronger. Washington heard nothing from de Tilly, but Rochambeau replied carefully to Washington’s plea for the dispatch of the entire French fleet and one thousand French troops to Virginia waters. Destouches, said Rochambeau, had complied fully and promptly with the “requisition” of Congress and of the Virginia authorities. Had Washington’s appeal for larger assistance arrived earlier, the Admiral perhaps “would have decided to go out with his whole fleet.” Rochambeau himself would have been glad to send the desired infantry. As it was the damaged British ships had returned in good order to Gardiner’s Bay. Destouches consequently was “less strong than the English.”
Washington had to reconcile himself to the fact that the brief period of French naval superiority in American waters was at an end. He admonished Lafayette to take all precautions in moving by water south from Head of Elk. Gravely Washington analyzed the outlook: “The situation of the Southern States is alarming; the more so, as the measure of providing a regular and permanent force was by my last advices still unattempted, where the danger was most pressing and immediate. Unless all the States in good earnest enter upon this plan, we have little to expect but their successive subjugation.”
February 27 brought the long-awaited news of the French in the Chesapeake. De Tilly had captured the Romulus, a British frigate, and had taken five hundred prisoners, two privateers and four small transports, which he had sent to Yorktown. Four other troop vessels had been burned. He had conducted a good raid, if not a successful expedition. Then, on March 1 came the great surprise—a French visitor from Newport, Baron von Closen, placed a dispatch of Rochambeau’s in Washington’s hands. Its opening paragraph read thus:
The letters found on board the vessels taken by M. de Tilly have decided M. Destouches to follow in full the plan given by your Excellency, and to risk everything to hinder Arnold from establishing himself at Portsmouth in Virginia. M. Destouches is arming with the greatest diligence the forty-four-gun ship that was taken, and he hopes that this, with the frigates, will be able to go up Elizabeth River. He will protect this expedition with his whole fleet. Your Excellency has given me orders to join thereto 1000 men. I will send 1120. All my Grenadiers and Chasseurs will be there. The corps will be commanded by the Baron de Vioménil.
Fortune had shifted again! The thing most needed to be done for the American cause was to be done. Rochambeau had urged and Washington desired a conference at Newport. It must be held, if possible, before Destouches sailed. Nothing must be left to chance that could be assured by discussion and clear understanding.
All this seemed to promise fair weather, but while Washington was preparing busily, a letter arrived from Greene which confirmed previous warnings that a hazardous defensive lay ahead. The commander of the Southern Department described the hard marches that his adversary had been able to force on him because the little American army had not equipment or the support of militia in adequate number to give battle. Greene added: “Under these circumstances, I called a council, who unanimously advised to avoid an action and to retire beyond the Roanoke immediately.”
Greene either was being compelled to evacuate all of North Carolina except the northeastern counties or else to seek refuge in Virginia. Cornwallis had no more than 2500 to 3000 men, but he had destroyed his wagons and was operating his entire force as light infantry with dragoon support. Greene must not be run down. North Carolina must be saved. Washington added new instructions to a letter about to be sent to Lafayette: “You are at liberty to concert a plan with the French General and naval commander for a descent into North Carolina, to cut off the detachment of the enemy which had ascended Cape Fear River, intercept if possible Cornwallis and relieve General Greene and the Southern States.” This was daring strategy; could it have even a remote promise of success?