Until now, Sir Henry Clinton’s expeditions had continued to dominate Virginia and Maryland through naval control of the Chesapeake. In mid-March 1781, Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot had prevented a French fleet from cutting off support of Benedict Arnold’s Virginia army. It seemed to Clinton that the Royal Navy was capable of rescuing any British army that was in trouble in the Southern colonies. It appeared the revived state navies and Chesapeake gentlemen could not possibly change this situation.
However, events elsewhere began to unravel these assumptions. To the north in May 1781, the two army commanders, George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, gravitated toward a joint effort to oppose the British.1 Rochambeau was in Newport, Rhode Island, his troops and small fleet bottled up by the Royal Navy, while Washington’s army of only 4,500 was at the Hudson Highlands. For some time, Washington had contemplated attacking New York City and sought Rochambeau’s cooperation for this. Rochambeau, however, felt that their forces were not adequate to attack the strongly fortified city and instead he suggested that they look to joint operations in the Chesapeake. The problem was getting there, especially as both armies had so little naval transport. It would also be necessary to have a strong French fleet in the Chesapeake to prevent the Royal Navy from reinforcing their army in Virginia.
In late May, Rochambeau wrote to Admiral Francois de Grasse in the West Indies asking him to come to the Chesapeake, bringing troops and money as well as his ships because ‘none of the means within our control can be made available without your cooperation and without the naval superiority which you can bring here.’2
De Grasse was a career navy officer who had been serving under d’Estaing since 1779. By now almost 60, Francois Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse was born in the seaside Alps at the outlet of the Gorges du Loup. He grew to be over 6 feet tall. Of a noble family, from his thirteenth birthday until age 41, he was a Knight of Malta, that medieval military religious order founded to defend the Holy Land, but in later centuries a bulwark against the expanding Ottoman Turks and North African pirates. France’s Louis XIV had allied with the Knights in the Mediterranean, as they were experts in galley warfare. Command of an old-fashioned galley offered de Grasse the opportunity for chivalric hand-to-hand fighting to gain recognition, a great contrast to the artillery duels of fleet actions, in which the wind gauge was the determining factor. Still, de Grasse must have tired of monastic life for when he left the order it was to marry. In his new naval career he was not popular, reputedly, ‘Few men are more feared and less loved in the entire [French] navy.’3
Putting aside his instructions from France, de Grasse agreed to leave the West Indies and come north to free the French squadron at Newport.4 Meanwhile in July, the allied armies came together at White Plains above New York City, preparing for Washington’s desired assault on Clinton’s fortifications. However, the New York defenses proved formidable and thus Washington was forced to return to Rochambeau’s Chesapeake suggestion. De Grasse’s fleet of twenty-six ships of the line sailed in early August by way of Havana, where they were able to raise considerable cash.
The West Indies had continued to be a focal point of Atlantic trade. St Eustatius, a small unproductive island that flew the Dutch flag, had become the war’s great trading entrepot, an open port following the Dutch belief in free trade.5 Even before the war, ships of all nations had gathered there, refitting as they exchanged their cargos for sugar, molasses and slaves. Cut off from British manufactures, rebel ships made for St Eustatius to gain what was needed for war and trade. At first, most ships were sent to the island by Councils of Safety, especially from Maryland and Virginia, which established island agents to protect their trade. This activity was carried on despite the fact that Britain and the Dutch Republic were bound as allies by several treaties. The British ambassador protested the situation to no avail; indeed, British merchant ships were at St Eustatius, as it offered them protection from French naval patrols. Finally in December 1780, frustrated by this continuing illicit trade, Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic.
The same day as the declaration, orders were sent to Admiral Rodney and Major General Vaughan of Hudson River fame to seize St Eustatius. You will remember that after Rodney had defeated the Spanish in the Moonlight Battle and relieved Gibraltar, he went to the West Indies to command the British fleet.6 He was at Barbados on December 6 and after embarking Vaughan’s men, on February 3, 1781, he arrived and demanded St Eustatius’ surrender. The island had minimal fortifications so defense was impossible. Rodney viewed the island as ‘a nest of villains’, so that ‘they shall be scouraged’.7 All of its inhabitants were to be held as prisoners of war, and property, whether of friend or foe, was to be confiscated for the king. The governor and the Dutch, American, Bermudian and British merchants were compelled to retire and take with them their household goods. Congress’s agent Samuel Curzon and his partner Isaac Gouverneu Jr. were sent to England and confined for thirteen months. Reverberations in American ports like Philadelphia caused renewed decline in Continental currency and a search for an alternative to St Eustatius, in which Spain’s Havana, with its precious coin and demand for flour, came up first. Rodney would spend three months at St Eustatius conducting a gigantic auction of its properties and putting together a fleet to carry the spoils to England, rather than following de Grasse’s fleet.
Rodney had his good points. He was an aggressive admiral and a stern disciplinarian with high professional standards, who was ruthless in combating Britain’s enemies. Rodney had been heartless in imprisoning Continental seamen to cripple the recruiting of their navy as well as rebel privateers. His advice to his son, on the duties of a Royal Navy captain, show his command of shipboard procedures.8
Rodney also had a dark side. He was cold and arrogant toward his fellow officers, making him unpopular. He was constantly in debt and bankrupt, forcing him to flagrantly misappropriate public money and abuse his powers of patronage.9 At St Eustatius, he confiscated goods that had no military purpose. He was arbitrary with the island’s 101 Jews, whose personal possessions were seized and they were banished without their families. They were imprisoned and stripped in a search for money secreted in their clothes, and their cemetery was dug up for jewelry in his frenzy for riches. Rodney’s conduct at St Eustatius seemed overly vindictive, so that the opposition in Parliament demanded an inquiry.
In August 1781, Rodney decided to return to England with a few ships for the winter as he was exhausted and needed to defend his conduct, leaving Admiral Samuel Hood with only ten ships of the line, with orders to reinforce the North American station at New York. Arbuthnot had retired and his successor was Admiral Thomas Graves. He was slow to respond to the situation because, like Clinton, he thought that Washington and Rochambeau were still about to attack New York, when in fact they were moving toward the Chesapeake by stages.10 Hood’s reinforcements arrived at Sandy Hook in late August, having scouted the Chesapeake on the way, but found no French fleet, missing the arrival of de Grasse by five days. It appeared to the British that an attack on Newport would prevent the unification of the French fleets from Newport and the West Indies. The Newport attack was delayed, however, allowing the new commander of the Newport fleet, Jacques-Melchoir Comte de Barras, to sail to meet de Grasse’ s fleet at the Virginia Capes, carrying crucial heavy siege guns. Leaving Sandy Hook, Graves’ and Hood’s combined fleet of nineteen ships sought to arrive at the Chesapeake before French ships combined in overwhelming strength.
At the Virginia Capes, the confrontation between the French fleet and the Royal Navy would be a classic battle, following rules instilled in admirals that ships should be formed into lines, which in passing, fired broadsides into each other. Ships with enough heavy ordnance and size qualified for the maneuver and were designated ‘ships of the line’.11 This situation was meant to create order in naval battles, prevent collisions of ships on the same side, and give the advantage to the fleet with the greatest firepower. As usually both fleets suffered damage and the confrontations were often draws, it was rare for either side to claim outright victory.
De Grasse’s fleet, totaling twenty-six ships of the line, entered the Chesapeake. It was in Lynnhaven Bay gathering wood and water when admirals Graves and Hood arrived at the Virginia Capes on September 5. They needed to enter the bay to rescue Cornwallis, who was entrenched at Yorktown in the mid-Chesapeake. The two fleets confronted each other and despite considerable maneuvering and firing, only one ship was lost on either side.12 At the end, Barras’ Newport fleet arrived to reinforce de Grasse and land troops and artillery at Jamestown. In the face of this strength, Graves and Hood had to return to New York to refit, leaving the French inside the Capes, in control of the entrance to the bay.
While the Royal Navy had lost control of the Chesapeake’s mouth, the siege of Yorktown was never a sure thing. In September, when the Washington-Rochambeau army of 7,500 arrived at the Head of Elk military depot, in the northern Chesapeake, their secret journey was stalled because there was insufficient craft to carry them over the bay toward Yorktown. The Maryland council responded that ‘since the enemy has had possession of the bay, our number of sea vessels and craft have been so reduced by captures that we are apprehensive that what remains will not transport so considerable a detachment.’13 A few ships came from de Grasse, but Washington had to split the allied forces between ships that could carry the artillery and fewer than 2,500 men to Annapolis, while the bulk of the armies, including the horses of the French cavalry, marched overland. The chief obstacle to the marchers was crossing the wide Susquehanna River, which they succeeded in doing, later joining the water-borne force. Despite their lack of transport, the two armies were finally on their way to Virginia.
De Grasse never actually set foot on the shore, remaining aboard his flagship, the Ville de Paris, poised to leave. On September 24, he was looking toward New York, fearing that a Royal Navy rescue fleet was on the way, so that as soon as the weather permitted, he would go to sea and ‘remain outside the bay to prevent the enemy from entering’.14 He would disembark the troops he brought with him, but he would not participate in the Yorktown siege or surrender of Cornwallis. De Grasse left the Chesapeake completely on November 4 to pursue more demanding Franco-Spanish interests in the West Indies. Washington made every effort to keep de Grasse’s fleet in the Chesapeake, to bring about ‘the total extirpation of the British force in the Carolinas and Georgia, if Comte de Grasse could have extended his cooperation two months longer’.15 Instead, Washington would be forced to disperse his Continental and state forces as he had limited supplies to sustain them.
Back in New York, Graves and Hood were reinforced with three ships arriving from England under Admiral Robert Digby. It took time to refit their damaged vessels and to recruit for a relief fleet of twenty-five ships. The city’s Chamber of Commerce offered a bounty and accepted a proposal for raising volunteer seamen and able-bodied landsmen, who were to serve only for the duration of the relief but would receive full navy health benefits, and for those on transports, navy pay above that of their existing compensation. To top it off, the new recruits were to be protected from future impresses; 240 were recruited.16 The fleet sailed on October 19, but Cornwallis had surrendered the previous day. Hood blamed Graves because he failed to respond more rapidly. As the naval war had now shifted to the West Indies, de Grasse would be pursued there by Graves and Hood.
Without a significant French naval presence, the war in the South would continue for another two years, a conflict which would be decided by naval action. The long-standing British blockade by warships and privateers in the Chesapeake and Delaware would reach its apex.17
They aimed to cut American trade with the French and Spanish ports in the West Indies. At the end of 1781, the Royal Navy had four warships off the Delaware Capes, which were active until the river froze. Philadelphia shipping fared badly as at least forty merchant ships were taken.18 By March 1782, the blockade was strengthened because navy ships were no longer required for army operations. Robert Morris informed Admiral de Grasse in May that ‘It is only by a kind of Miracle that any vessel can get in or out’ of the Delaware River or Chesapeake Bay. Morris himself had lost all of his personal shipping and privateer investments.19 The effectiveness of the blockade was a major reason the states had failed to meet the financial quotas Morris had requested. Foreign trade was gone, leaving the American’s only source of revenue to be unpopular taxes. The war effort was dependent on begging for loans from the French and Dutch, who became increasingly reluctant.
Congress attempted to continue the naval war by supporting privateers. Late in 1782, its pride was a privateer named for the state of South Carolina. She had originally been built as a new 40-gun French frigate L’Indien, whose command John Paul Jones had coveted. When completed, however, she was granted to Chevalier de Luxembourg, who leased her for three years to the state of South Carolina. She was the strongest vessel in the war to fly the Stars and Stripes and ‘was commissioned by the Continental Congress to seize and take British property’.20
The South Carolina put into Philadelphia for repairs and raised a crew of 430, including many German and British deserters who were not really experienced seamen. She left Philadelphia under Captain John Joyner guarding three smaller ships: the 10-gun brig Hope, carrying tobacco and flour, another brig Constance, and the 6-gun schooner Seagrove. As the South Carolina came out of Delaware Bay, three Royal Navy ships – the 58-gun Diomede and 38-guns Astrea and Quebec – cornered them. Joyner tried to escape, but after six of his men were killed and wounded, he struck his colors. Only the Seagrove got away. Altogether, 530 crew members were taken and South Carolina’s short career was ended.21 It, the Hope and Constance were sailed by prize crews to New York where the ships were condemned as prizes. The navy was not tempted to refit South Carolina and she was sold to be a merchantman.
Meanwhile, with de Grasse’s fleet gone, the defense of the Chesapeake was left to the Maryland and Virginia navies. They faced the continued operations of Royal Navy ships, Loyalist privateers and watermen barges, frustrating their efforts to control the bay. Insurrection on the lower Chesapeake continued as late as March 1783, although Washington begged the new British commander-in-chief, Guy Carleton, to bring an end to the enduring conflict. It was a barge conflict around its islands which would ultimately decide the fate of the Chesapeake.