Part 3 (1/2)

This led to an alteration of military methods in America. The policy of moving heavy armies was abandoned; and the British, forced to withdraw troops to garrison the West Indies and Florida, began the practice of wearing down the revolted colonies by raids and destruction of property. George III especially approved this punitive policy. As a first step, the army in Philadelphia marched back to New York, attacked on its retreat by Was.h.i.+ngton at Monmouth on June 27, 1778.

The American advance was badly handled by General Lee, and fell back before the British; but Was.h.i.+ngton in person rallied his men, resumed the attack, and held his position. {100} Clinton, who succeeded Howe, continued his march, and the British army now settled down in New York, not to depart from its safe protection except on raids.

Was.h.i.+ngton accordingly posted his forces, as in 1777, outside the city, and awaited events. He could a.s.sume the offensive only in case a French fleet should a.s.sist him, and this happened but twice, in 1778, and not again for three years. The first time, Admiral D'Estaing with a strong fleet menaced New York and then Newport, the latter in conjunction with an American land force. But before each port he was foiled by the superior skill of Admiral Howe; and he finally withdrew without risking a battle, to the intense disgust of the Americans. For the rest, the war in the northern States dwindled to raids by the British along the Connecticut coast and into New Jersey, and outpost affairs on the Hudson, in some of which Was.h.i.+ngton's Continental troops showed real brilliancy in attack. But with the British in command of the sea little could be done to meet the raids, and southern Connecticut was ravaged with fire and sword.

At the same time, the States suffered the horrors of Indian war, since the Tories and British from Canada utilized the Iroquois and the Ohio Valley Indians as allies. The New York frontier was in continual distress; {101} and the Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia settlements felt the scalping knife and torch. Hamilton, the British commander at the post of Detroit, paid a fixed price for scalps, and was known as ”the hair buyer.” Against the Iroquois, Sullivan led an expedition in 1779 which could not bring the savages to a decisive battle, although he ravaged their lands and crippled their resources.

Against the north-western Indians, a daring Virginian, George Rogers Clark, led a counter-raid which captured several posts in the territory north of the Ohio River, and finally took Hamilton himself prisoner at Vincennes. In every such war the sufferings of the settlers outnumbered a hundred-fold all that they could inflict in return, and this consciousness burned into their souls a lasting hatred of England, the ally of the murdering, torturing devils from the forests.

While the British fleets fought indecisive actions in European waters, or near the West Indies, the British raiding policy was transferred to a new region, namely, the southern States, which thus far had known little of the severities of war. In December, 1778, an expedition under Prevost easily occupied Savannah, driving the Georgia militia away. The next year an effort was made by an American force, in combination with the French fleet under D'Estaing, who returned from {102} the West Indies, to recapture the place. The siege was formed, and there appeared some prospects of a successful outcome, but the French admiral, too restless to wait until the completion of siege operations, insisted on trying to take the city by storm on October 9.

The result was a complete repulse, after which D'Estaing sailed away, and the American besiegers were obliged to withdraw. The real interests of the French were, in fact, in the West Indies, where they were gradually capturing English islands; their contributions so far to the American cause consisted in gifts of munitions and loans of money, together with numerous adventurous officers who aspired to lead the American armies. The most amiable and attractive of these was the young Marquis de Lafayette, owing largely to whose influence a force of French soldiers under de Rochambeau was sent in 1780 to America. But for months this force was able to do no more than remain in camp at Newport, Rhode Island, blockaded by the English fleet.

In 1780, the British raiding policy was resumed in the southern States and achieved a startling success. In January, Clinton sailed from New York with a force of 8,000 men, and after driving the American levies into the city of Charleston, South Carolina, besieged and took it on May 12, with all its {103} defenders. He then returned to New York, leaving Lord Cornwallis with a few troops to complete the conquest of the State. Congress now sent General Gates southward to repeat the triumph of Saratoga. At Camden, on August 16, 1780, the issue was decided. The American commander, with only 3,000 men, encountered Cornwallis, who had about 2,200, and, as usual, the militia, when attacked by British in the open field, fled for their lives at the first charge of the redcoats, leaving the few continentals to be outnumbered and crushed.

For a period of several weeks all organized American resistance disappeared. Only bands of guerillas, or ”partisans,” as they were called, kept the field. Clinton had issued a proclamation calling all loyalists to join the ranks; and Cornwallis made a systematic effort to compel the enrolment of Tory militia. The plan bore fruit in an apparent large increase of British numbers, but also in the outbreak of a murderous civil war. Raiding parties on both sides took to ambuscades, nocturnal house-burning, hanging of prisoners, and downright ma.s.sacres. Pre-eminent for his success was the British Colonel Tarleton, who with a body of light troops swept tirelessly around, breaking up rebel bands, riding down militia, and rendering his command a terror to the {104} State. Marion, Sumter, and other Americans struggled vainly to equal his exploits.

Occasional American successes could not turn back the tide. On October 18, 1780, a band of Tories under General Ferguson ventured too far to the westward, and at King's Mountain were surrounded and shot or taken prisoners by a general uprising of the frontiersmen. General Greene, who replaced Gates in December, managed to rally a few men, but dared not meet Cornwallis in the field. His lieutenant, Morgan, when pursued by Tarleton, turned on him at the Cowpens, and on January 17 managed to inflict a severe defeat. The forces were diminutive--less than a thousand on each side--but the battle was skilfully fought. After it, however, both Morgan and Greene were forced to fly northward, and did not escape Cornwallis's pursuit until they were driven out of North Carolina. The State seemed lost, and on February 23, Cornwallis issued a proclamation calling upon all loyalists to join the royal forces.

Meanwhile, encouraged by the striking successes in the Carolinas, Clinton sent a force under Arnold to Virginia, which marched unopposed through the seaboard counties of that State in the winter of 1781. It seemed as though the new British policy were on the verge of a great triumph.

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By this time it was becoming a grave question whether the American revolution was not going to collapse from sheer weakness. The confederation, as a general government, seemed to be on the verge of breaking down. The State governments, although badly hampered wherever British raids took place, were operating regularly and steadily, but the only common government continued to be the voluntary Continental Congress, whose powers were entirely undefined, and rested, in fact, on sufferance. In 1776 a committee, headed by John d.i.c.kinson, drafted Articles of Confederation which, if adopted promptly, would have provided a regular form of government; but, although these were submitted in 1777 for ratification, inter-state jealousy sufficed to block their acceptance. It was discovered that all those States which, by their original charters, were given no definite western boundaries, were disposed to claim an extension of their territory to the Mississippi River. Virginia, through her general, Clark, actually occupied part of the region claimed by her, and a.s.sumed to grant lands there. The representatives of Maryland in Congress declared such inequality a danger to the union, and refused to sign the Articles unless the land claims west of the mountains were surrendered to the general government. {106} This determination was formally approved by the Maryland legislature in February, 1779, and matters remained at a standstill. At last, in 1780, Congress offered to hold any lands which might be granted to it, with the pledge to form them into States, and, following this, New York, and Virginia intimated a willingness to make the required cessions. Then Maryland yielded and ratified the Articles, so that they came into operation on March 2, 1781.

The self-styled ”United States” had now travelled so far on the road to bankruptcy that the adoption of the ”Articles of Perpetual Union”

seemed scarcely more than an empty form. In the first place, the federal finances were prostrate. The device of issuing paper money had proved fatal, for, after a brief period, in 1775, the excessive issues depreciated in spite of every effort to hinder their decline by proclamations, price conventions, and political pressure. The only way of sustaining such notes, namely, the furnis.h.i.+ng by the States of a full and sufficient revenue, was never attempted; for the States themselves preferred to issue notes, rather than to tax, and when called upon by the Continental Congress for requisitions they turned over such amounts of paper as they saw fit. By 1780, the ”continental currency” was {107} practically worthless. Congress could rely only upon such small sums of money as it could raise by foreign loans through Franklin and by the contributions of a few patriotic people, notably Robert Morris.

The maintenance of the army exhausted the resources of Congress, and every winter saw the story of Valley Forge repeated. To secure supplies, Congress was driven to authorize seizure and impressment of food and payment in certificates of indebtedness. It was for this reason, as well as from the unwillingness of the Americans to enlist for the war, that the Continental forces dwindled to diminutive numbers in 1781. Nothing but Was.h.i.+ngton's tireless tenacity and loyalty held the army together, and kept the officers from resigning in disgust.

Yet it seemed impossible that Was.h.i.+ngton himself could carry the burden much longer. The general government appeared to be on the point of disintegrating, leaving to the separate States the task of defending themselves. Everywhere la.s.situde, preoccupation with local matters, a disposition to leave the war to the French, a willingness to let other States bear the burdens, replaced the fervour of 1776. In other words, the old colonial habits were rea.s.serting themselves, and the separate States, reverting to their former accustomed negative politics, were {108} behaving toward the Continental Congress precisely as they had done toward England itself during the French wars. With hundreds of thousands of men of fighting age in America it was impossible, in 1781, to collect more than a handful for service away from their homes. The essentially unmilitary nature of the Americans was not to be changed.

Fortunately for the rebels, the policy of Great Britain was such as to give them a lease of hope. In spite of the great British naval power during the first two years of the war, no blockade had been attempted; and after 1778 the British fleets were thoroughly occupied in following and foiling the French. The result was that commerce of a sort continued throughout the war, armed privateers and merchantmen venturing from the New England and other ports, and trading with France, Spain and the West Indies. Hundreds were taken by British cruisers, but hundreds more continued their dangerous trade, and so America continued to receive imports. The Dutch, especially, supplied the revolted colonies with some of the commodities which their exclusion from British ports rendered scarce. So, except for paper money, there was no economic distress.

In 1781, when if ever the British might hope to reduce the colonies, the Empire was itself in sore straits for men to fill its s.h.i.+ps and {109} garrison its forts. This made it difficult for England to send any reinforcements to America, and left Clinton and Cornwallis with about 27,000 men to complete their raiding campaign. The task proved excessive. In March, 1781, Greene, having a.s.sembled a small force, gave battle to Cornwallis at Guilford Court House. The little army of British veterans, only 2,219 in all, drove Greene from the field after a stiff fight, but were so reduced in numbers that Cornwallis felt obliged to retreat to Wilmington on the coast, where he was entirely out of the field of campaign. On April 25 he marched northward into Virginia to join the force which had been there for several months, took command, and continued the policy of marching and destroying.

Before his arrival, Was.h.i.+ngton had tried to use the French force at Newport against the Virginia raiders; but the French squadron, although it ventured from port in March, 1781, and had a successful encounter with a British fleet, declined to push on into the Chesapeake, and the plan was abandoned. Cornwallis was able to march unhindered by any French danger during the summer of 1781.

But while the British were terrifying Virginia and chasing militia, the forces left in the Carolinas were being worn down by {110} Greene and his ”partisan” allies. On April 25, at Hobkirk's Hill, Rawdon, the British commander defeated Greene, and then, with reduced ranks, retreated. During the summer, further sieges and raids recaptured British posts, and on September 8 another battle took place at Eutaw Springs. This resulted, as usual, in a British success on the battlefield and a retreat afterwards. By October, the slender British forces in the southernmost States were cooped up in Charleston and Savannah, and a war of extermination was stamping out all organized Tory resistance. The raiding policy had failed through weakness of numbers. The superior fighting ability and tactical skill of Cornwallis, Rawdon, Stuart, and Tarleton were as obvious as the courage and steadiness of their troops; but their means were pitifully inadequate to the task a.s.signed them.

Further north, a still greater failure took place. Was.h.i.+ngton was not deterred by the futile outcome of his previous attempts to use French co-operation from making a patient and urgent effort to induce De Gra.s.se, the French admiral in the West Indies, to come north and join with him and Rochambeau in an attack on Cornwallis in Virginia. He was at last successful; and on August 28 the wished-for fleet, {111} a powerful collection of twenty-eight sail-of-the-line, with frigates, reached Chesapeake Bay. Already the French troops from Newport, and part of the American army from outside New York, had begun their southward march, carefully concealing their purposes from Clinton, and were moving through Pennsylvania. As a third part of the combination, the French squadron from Newport put to sea, bringing eight more sail-of-the-line, which, added to De Gra.s.se's, would overmatch any British fleet on the western side of the Atlantic.

The one disturbing possibility was that the British West India fleet, which very properly had sailed in pursuit, might defeat the two French fleets singly. This chance was put to the test on September 5. On that day Admiral Graves, with nineteen men-of-war, attacked De Gra.s.se, who brought twenty-four into line outside Chesapeake Bay; and the decisive action of the Revolution took place. Seldom has a greater stake been played for by a British fleet, and seldom has a naval battle been less successfully managed. Graves may have intended to concentrate upon part of the French line, but his subordinates certainly failed to understand any such purpose; and the outcome was that the head of the British column, approaching the French line at {112} an angle, was severely handled, while the rear took no part in the battle. The fleets separated without decisive result, and the British, after cruising a few days irresolutely, gave up and returned to New York. The other French squadron had meanwhile arrived, and the allied troops had come down the Chesapeake. Cornwallis, shut up in Yorktown by overwhelming forces, defended himself until October 17, and then surrendered with 8,000 men to the man who had beaten him years before at Trenton and Princeton. Clinton, aware at last of his danger, sailed with every vessel he could sc.r.a.pe together, and approached the bay on October 24 with twenty-five sail-of-the-line and 7,000 men; but it was too late. He could only retreat to New York, where he remained in the sole British foothold north of Charleston and Savannah.

Was.h.i.+ngton would have been glad to retain De Gra.s.se and undertake further combined manoeuvres; but the French admiral was anxious to return to the West Indies, and so the military operations of the year ended. More was in reality unnecessary, for the collapse of the British military policy was manifest, and the surrender of Cornwallis was a sufficiently striking event to bring the war to a close.

Was.h.i.+ngton had not won the last fight with his own {113} Continentals.

The co-operation not only of the French fleet but of the French troops under Rochambeau had played the decisive part. Yet it was his planning, his tenacity, his personal authority with French and Americans that determined the combined operation and made it successful. In the midst of a half-starved, ill-equipped army, a disintegrating, bankrupt government, and a people whose fighting spirit was rapidly dwindling, it was he with his officers who had saved the Revolution at the last gasp.

It was no less the British mismanagement which made this possible, for had not Howe, by delays, thrown away his chances; had not Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton and Cornwallis, by their failures to co-operate, made it possible for their armies to be taken separately; had not the navy omitted to apply a blockade; had not the Ministry, in prescribing a raiding policy, failed to strain every nerve to furnish an adequate supply of men, the outcome would have been different. As it was, the British defeat could no longer be concealed by the end of 1781. The attempt to conquer America had failed.

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