Part 25 (1/2)
The officers and soldiers were allowed to retain their private property.
Such officers as were not required to remain with the troops were permitted to return to Europe or to reside in any part of America not in possession of the British troops.
Dr. Thacher, who was present during the whole siege, thus describes the surrender: ”At about 12 o'clock the combined army was arranged and drawn up in two lines, extending more than a mile in length. The Americans were drawn up in a line on the right side of the road, and the French occupied the left. At the head of the former the great American commander, mounted on his n.o.ble courser, took his station, attended by his aides. At the head of the latter was posted the excellent Count Rochambeau and his suite. The French troops, in complete uniform, displayed a n.o.ble and martial appearance; their band of music, of which the timbrel formed a part, is a delightful novelty, and produced, while marching to the ground, a most enchanting effect. The Americans, though not all in uniform nor their dress so neat, yet exhibited an erect, soldierly air and every countenance beamed with satisfaction and joy.
The concourse of spectators from the country was prodigious, in point of numbers nearly equal to the military, but universal silence and order prevailed. It was about 2 o'clock when the captive army advanced through the line formed for their reception. Every eye was prepared to gaze on Lord Cornwallis, the object of peculiar interest and solicitude, but he disappointed our anxious expectations. Pretending indisposition, he made General O'Hara his subst.i.tute as the leader of his army. This officer was followed by the conquered troops in a slow and solemn step, with shouldered arms, colors cased, and drums beating a British march. Having arrived at the head of the line, General O'Hara, elegantly mounted, advanced to his Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, taking off his hat and apologizing for the nonappearance of Earl Cornwallis. With his usual dignity and politeness, his Excellency pointed to Major-General Lincoln for directions, by whom the British army was conducted into a s.p.a.cious field, where it was intended they should ground their arms. The royal troops, while marching through the line formed by the allied army, exhibited a decent and neat appearance as respects arms and clothing, for their commander opened his store and directed every soldier to be furnished with a new suit complete prior to the capitulation. But in their line of march we remarked a disorderly and unsoldierlike conduct; their step was irregular and their ranks frequently broken. But it was in the field, when they came to the last act of the drama, that the spirit and pride of the British soldier was put to the severest test.
Here their mortification could not be concealed. Some of the platoon officers appeared to be exceedingly chagrined when giving the word, 'Ground arms!' and I am a witness that they performed this duty in a very unofficerlike manner and that many of the soldiers manifested a sullen temper, throwing their arms on the pile with violence, as if determined to render them useless. This irregularity, however, was checked by the authority of General Lincoln. After having grounded their arms and divested themselves of their accoutrements, the captive troops were conducted back to Yorktown and guarded by our troops until they could be conducted to the place of their destination.”
Congress bestowed its thanks freely and fully upon the Commander-in-Chief, Count de Rochambeau, Count de Gra.s.se, and the various officers of the different corps, and the brave soldiers under their command. Two stands of colors, trophies of war, were voted to Was.h.i.+ngton and two pieces of cannon to Rochambeau and de Gra.s.se, and it was also voted that a marble column to commemorate the alliance and the victory should be erected in Yorktown. On the day after the surrender the general orders closed as follows: ”Divine service shall be performed tomorrow in the different brigades and divisions. The Commander-in-Chief recommends that all the troops that are not upon duty do a.s.sist at it with a serious deportment and that sensibility of heart which the recollection of the surprising and particular interposition of Providence in our favor claims.” A proclamation was also issued by Congress appointing the 13th of December as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, on account of this signal and manifest favor of Divine Providence in behalf of our country.
The news of Cornwallis' surrender was received throughout the country with the most tumultuous expressions of joy. The worthy New England Puritans considered it, as Cromwell did the victory at Worcester, ”the crowning mercy.” It promised them a return of peace and prosperity. The people of the middle States regarded it as a guarantee for their speedy deliverance from the presence of a hated enemy. But to the southern States it was more than this. It was the retributive justice of Heaven against a band of cruel and remorseless murderers and robbers, who had spread desolation and sorrow through their once happy homes. It is a.s.serted in Gordon's ”History of the War” that wherever Cornwallis' army marched the dwelling-houses were plundered of everything that could be carried off. The stables of Virginia were plundered of the horses on which his cavalry rode in their ravaging march through that State.
Millions of property, in tobacco and other merchandise and in private houses and public buildings, were destroyed by Arnold, Philips, and Cornwallis in Virginia alone. The very horse which Tarleton had the impudence to ride on the day of the surrender was stolen from a planter's stable, who recognized it on the field and compelled Tarleton to give it up and mount a sorry hack for the occasion.
It was computed at the time that 1,400 widows were made by the war in the single district of Ninety-Six. The whole devastation occasioned by the British army, during six months previous to the surrender at Yorktown, amounted to not less than 3,000,000 sterling, an immense loss for so short a time, falling, as it did, chiefly on the rural population. No wonder that they a.s.sembled in crowds to witness the humiliation of Cornwallis and his army. To them it was not only a triumph, but a great deliverance. Well might the Virginians triumph.
The return of their favorite commander, a son of the soil, had speedily released their State from ravage and destruction and restored them to comparative peace and repose.
On the very day of Cornwallis' surrender, Clinton sailed from New York with reinforcements. He had been perfectly aware of Cornwallis' extreme peril and was anxious to relieve him, but the fleet had sustained considerable damage in the battle with de Gra.s.se and some time was necessarily spent in repairing it. During that interval four s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line arrived from Europe and two from the West Indies. At length Clinton embarked with 7,000 of his best troops, but was unable to sail from Sandy Hook till the 19th (1781), the day on which Cornwallis surrendered. The fleet, consisting of twenty-five s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line, two vessels of fifty guns each, and eight frigates, arrived off the Chesapeake on the 24th (October, 1781), when Clinton had the mortification to be informed of the event of the 19th. He remained on the coast, however, till the 29th, when, every doubt being removed concerning the capitulation of Cornwallis, whose relief was the sole object of the expedition, he returned to New York.
While Clinton continued off the Chesapeake, the French fleet, consisting of thirty-six sail-of-the-line, satisfied with the advantage already gained, lay at anchor in the bay without making any movement whatever.
Was.h.i.+ngton, considering the present a favorable opportunity for following up his success by an expedition against the British army in Charleston, wrote a letter to Count de Gra.s.se on the day after the capitulation, requesting him to unite his fleet to the proposed armament and a.s.sist in the expedition. He even went on board the admiral's fleet to thank him for his late services in the siege and to urge upon him the feasibility and importance of this plan of operations. But the orders of his court, ulterior projects, and his engagements with the Spaniards put it out of the power of the French admiral to continue so long in America as was required. He, however, remained some days in the bay in order to cover the embarkation of the troops and of the ordnance to be conveyed by water to the head of the Elk. [5]
Some brigades proceeded by land to join their companions at that place.
Some cavalry marched to join General Greene, but the French troops, under Count Rochambeau, remained in Virginia to be in readiness to march to the south or north, as the circ.u.mstances of the next campaign might require. On the 27th the troops of St. Simon began to embark, in order to return to the West Indies, and early in November Count de Gra.s.se sailed for that quarter.
Part of the prisoners were sent to Winchester in Virginia and Fredericktown, Maryland, the remainder to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lord Cornwallis and the princ.i.p.al officers were paroled and sailed for New York. During their stay at Yorktown, after the surrender, they received the most delicate attentions from the conquerors. Dr. Thacher, in his ”Military Journal,” notices particularly some of these attentions: ”Lord Cornwallis and his officers,” he says, ”since their capitulation, have received all the civilities and hospitality which is in the power of their conquerors to bestow. General Was.h.i.+ngton, Count Rochambeau, and other general officers have frequently invited them to entertainments, and they have expressed their grateful acknowledgments in return. They cannot avoid feeling the striking contrast between the treatment which they now experience and that which they have bestowed on our prisoners who have unfortunately fallen into their hands. It is a dictate of humanity and benevolence, after sheathing the sword, to relieve and meliorate the condition of the vanquished prisoner.
”On one occasion, while in the presence of General Was.h.i.+ngton, Lord Cornwallis was standing with his head uncovered. His Excellency said to him, politely, 'My lord, you had better be covered from the cold.' His lords.h.i.+p, applying his hand to his head, replied, 'It matters not, sir, what becomes of this head now.'” The reader will not have failed to notice that the capture of Cornwallis was effected solely by the able and judicious strategy of Was.h.i.+ngton. It was he that collected from different parts of the country the forces that were necessary to enclose that commander and his. .h.i.therto victorious army as it were in a net, from which there was no possibility of escape. It was he who, by personal influence and exertion, brought de Gra.s.se to renounce his expected triumphs at sea and zealously a.s.sist in the siege by preventing Cornwallis from receiving any aid from British naval forces. It was he who detained de Gra.s.se at a critical moment of the siege, when he was anxious to go off with the chief part of his force and engage the British at sea. In short, it was he who provided all, oversaw all, directed all, and having, by prudence and forethought, as well as by activity and perseverance, brought all the elements of conquest together, combined them into one mighty effort with glorious success.
It was the second siege on a grand scale which had been brought to a brilliant and fortunate conclusion by the wisdom and prudence as well as the courage and perseverance of Was.h.i.+ngton. In the first he expelled the enemy and recovered Boston uninjured, freeing the soil for a time from the presence of the enemy. In the second, he captured the most renowned and successful British army in America and dictated his own terms of surrender to a commander who, from his marquee, had recently given law to three States of the Union.
1. Footnote: Dr. Thacher, in his Military Journal, has an entry: ”July 7th. Our army was drawn up in a line and reviewed by General Rochambeau, with his Excellency, General Was.h.i.+ngton, and other general officers.--July 10th. Another review took place in presence of the French amba.s.sador from Philadelphia, after which the French army pa.s.sed a review in presence of the general officers of both armies.” Speaking of the French army, Dr. Thacher says: ”In the officers we recognize the accomplished gentlemen, free and affable in their manners. Their military dress and side-arms are elegant. The troops are under the strictest discipline, and are amply provided with arms and accoutrements, which are kept in the neatest order. They are in complete uniform--coats of white broadcloth, trimmed with green, and white under-dress, and on their heads they wear a singular kind of hat or chapeau. It is unlike our c.o.c.ked hats, in having but two corners instead of three, which gives them a very novel appearance.”
2. Footnote: The amount was $20,000 in specie, to be refunded by Robert Morris on the 1st of October. On the 31st of August, Dr. Thacher says: ”Colonel Laurens arrived at headquarters, camp, Trenton, on his way from Boston to Philadelphia. He brought two and a half millions of livres in cash, a part of the French subsidy,--a most seasonable supply, as the troops were discontented and almost mutinous for want of pay.”
3. Footnote: Lafayette (letter to Was.h.i.+ngton, 16th October, 1781) says ”Your Excellency having personally seen our dispositions, I shall only give you an account of what pa.s.sed in the execution. Colonel Gimat's battalion led the van, and was followed by that of Colonel Hamilton, who commanded the whole advanced corps. At the same time a party of eighty men, under Colonel Laurens, turned the redoubt. I beg leave to refer your Excellency to the report I have received from Colonel Hamilton, whose well-known talents and gallantry were, on this occasion, most conspicuous and serviceable. Our obligations to him, to Colonel Gimat, to Colonel
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4. Footnote: The whole number of prisoners, exclusive of seamen, was over 7,000, and the British loss during the siege was between five and six hundred. The army of the allies consisted of 7,000 American regular troops, upward of 5,000 French, and 4,000 militia. The loss in killed and wounded was about 300. The captured property consisted of a large train of artillery--viz., 75 bra.s.s and 69 iron cannon, howitzers, and mortars; also a large quant.i.ty of arms, ammunition, military stores, and provisions fell to the Americans. One frigate, 2 s.h.i.+ps of twenty guns each, a number of transports and other vessels, and 1,500 seamen were surrendered to de Gra.s.se.
5. Footnote: On his departure, the Count de Gra.s.se received from Was.h.i.+ngton a present of two elegant horses as a token of his friends.h.i.+p and esteem.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CLOSE OF THE WAR. 1782-1783.
After the surrender of Cornwallis, the combined forces were distributed in different parts of the country, in the manner we have described at the close of the last chapter. Having personally superintended the distribution of the ordnance and stores, and the departure of the prisoners as well as the embarkation of the troops, who were to go northward under General Lincoln, Was.h.i.+ngton left Yorktown on the 5th of November (1781) for Eltham, the seat of his friend, Colonel Ba.s.set.
He arrived there the same day, but he came to a house of mourning. His stepson, John Parke Custis, was just expiring when he reached the house.