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Some Loyalists were deported to the wilderness in the back country. Many took refuge within the British lines, especially at New York. Many Loyalists created homes elsewhere. Some went to England only to find melancholy disillusion of hope that a grateful motherland would understand and reward their sacrifices. Large numbers found their way to Nova Scotia and to Canada, north of the Great Lakes, and there played a part in laying the foundation of the Dominion of today. The city of Toronto with a population of half a million is rooted in the Loyalist traditions of its Tory founders. Simcoe, the first Governor of Upper Canada, who made Toronto his capital, was one of the most enterprising of the officers who served with Cornwallis in the South and surrendered with him at Yorktown.
The State of New York acquired from the forfeited lands of Loyalists a sum approaching four million dollars, a great amount in those days. Other States profited in a similar way. Every Loyalist whose property was seized had a direct and personal grievance. He could join the British army and fight against his oppressors, and this he did: New York furnished about fifteen thousand men to fight on the British side. Plundered himself, he could plunder his enemies, and this too he did both by land and sea. In the autumn of 1778 ships manned chiefly by Loyalist refugees were terrorizing the coast from Massachusetts to New Jersey. They plundered Martha's Vineyard, burned some lesser towns, such as New Bedford, and showed no quarter to small parties of American troops whom they managed to intercept.
What happened on the coast happened also in the interior. At Wyoming in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, in July, 1778, during a raid of Loyalists, aided by Indians, there was a brutal massacre, the horrors of which long served to inspire hate for the British. A little later in the same year similar events took place at Cherry Valley, in central New York. Burning houses, the dead bodies not only of men but of women and children scalped by the savage allies of the Loyalists, desolation and ruin in scenes once peaceful and happy such horrors American patriotism learned to associate with the Loyalists. These in their turn remembered the slow martyrdom of their lives as social outcasts, the threats and plunder which in the end forced them to fly, the hardships, starvation, and death to their loved ones which were wont to follow. The conflict is perhaps the most tragic and irreconcilable in the whole story of the Revolution.
CHAPTER X. FRANCE TO THE RESCUE
During 1778 and 1779 French effort had failed. Now France resolved to do something decisive. She never sent across the sea the eight thousand men promised to La Fayette but by the spring of 1780 about this number were gathered at Brest to find that transport was inadequate. The leader was a French noble, the Comte de Rochambeau, an old campaigner, now in his fifty-fifth year, who had fought against England before in the Seven Years' War and had then been opposed by Clinton, Cornwallis, and Lord George Germain. He was a sound and prudent soldier who shares with La Fayette the chief glory of the French service in America. Rochambeau had fought at the second battle of Minden, where the father of La Fayette had fallen, and he had for the ardent young Frenchman the amiable regard of a father and sometimes rebuked his impulsiveness in that spirit. He studied the problem in America with the insight of a trained leader. Before he left France he made the pregnant comment on the outlook: "Nothing without naval supremacy." About the same time Washington was writing to La Fayette that a decisive naval supremacy was a fundamental need.
A gallant company it was which gathered at Brest. Probably no other land than France could have sent forth on a crusade for democratic liberty a band of aristocrats who had little thought of applying to their own land the principles for which they were ready to fight in America. Over some of them hung the shadow of the guillotine; others were to ride the storm of the French Revolution and to attain fame which should surpass their sanguine dreams. Rochambeau himself, though he narrowly escaped during the Reign of Terror, lived to extreme old age and died a Marshal of France. Berthier, one of his officers, became one of Napoleon's marshals and died just when Napoleon, whom he had deserted, returned from Elba. Dumas became another of Napoleon's generals. He nearly perished in the retreat from Moscow but lived, like Rochambeau, to extreme old age. One of the gayest of the company was the Duc de Lauzun, a noted libertine in France but, as far as the record goes, a man of blameless propriety in America. He died on the scaffold during the French Revolution. So, too, did his companion, the Prince de Broglie, in spite of the protest of his last words that he was faithful to the principles of the Revolution, some of which he had learned in America. Another companion was the Swedish Count Fersen, later the devoted friend of the unfortunate Queen Marie Antoinette, the driver of the carriage in which the royal family made the famous flight to Varennes in 1791, and himself destined to be trampled to death by a Swedish mob in 1810. Other old and famous names there were: Laval-Montmorency, Mirabeau, Talleyrand, Saint-Simon. It has been said that the names of the French officers in America read like a list of medieval heroes in the Chronicles of Froissart.
Only half of the expected ships were ready at Brest and only five thousand five hundred men could embark. The vessels were, of course, very crowded. Rochambeau cut down the space allowed for personal effects. He took no horse for himself and would allow none to go, but he permitted a few dogs. Forty-five ships set sail, "a truly imposing sight," said one of those on board. We have reports of their ennui on the long voyage of seventy days, of their amusements and their devotions, for twice daily were prayers read on deck. They sailed into Newport on the 11th of July and the inhabitants of that still primitive spot illuminated their houses as best they could. Then the army settled down at Newport and there it remained for many weary months. Reinforcements never came, partly through mismanagement in France, partly through the vigilance of the British fleet, which was on guard before Brest. The French had been for generations the deadly enemies of the English Colonies and some of the French officers noted the reserve with which they were received. The ice was, however, soon broken. They brought with them gold, and the New England merchants liked this relief from the debased continental currency. Some of the New England ladies were beautiful, and the experienced Lauzun expresses glowing admiration for a prim Quakeress whose simple dress he thought more attractive than the elaborate modes of Paris.
The French dazzled the ragged American army by their display of waving plumes and of uniforms in striking colors. They wondered at the quantities of tea drunk by their friends and so do we when we remember the political hatred for tea. They made the blunder common in Europe of thinking that there were no social distinctions in America. Washington could have told him a different story. Intercourse was at first difficult, for few of the Americans spoke French and fewer still of the French spoke English. Sometimes the talk was in Latin, pronounced by an American scholar as not too bad. A French officer writing in Latin to an American friend announces his intention to learn English: "Inglicam linguam noscere conabor." He made the effort and he and his fellow officers learned a quaint English speech. When Rochambeau and Washington first met they conversed through La Fayette, as interpreter, but in time the older man did very well in the language of his American comrade in arms.
For a long time the French army effected nothing. Washington longed to attack New York and urged the effort, but the wise and experienced Rochambeau applied his principle, "nothing without naval supremacy," and insisted that in such an attack a powerful fleet should act with a powerful army, and, for the moment, the French had no powerful fleet available. The British were blockading in Narragansett Bay the French fleet which lay there. Had the French army moved away from Newport their fleet would almost certainly have become a prey to the British. For the moment there was nothing to do but to wait. The French preserved an admirable discipline. Against their army there are no records of outrage and plunder such as we have against the German allies of the British. We must remember, however, that the French were serving in the country of their friends, with every restraint of good feeling which this involved. Rochambeau told his men that they must not be the theft of a bit of wood, or of any vegetables, or of even a sheaf of straw. He threatened the vice which he called "sonorous drunkenness," and even lack of cleanliness, with sharp punishment. The result was that a month after landing he could say that not a cabbage had been stolen. Our credulity is strained when we are told that apple trees with their fruit overhung the tents of his soldiers and remained untouched. Thousands flocked to see the French camp. The bands played and Puritan maidens of all grades of society danced with the young French officers and we are told, whether we believe it or not, that there was the simple innocence of the Garden of Eden. The zeal of the French officers and the friendly disposition of the men never failed. There had been bitter quarrels in 1778 and 1779 and now the French were careful to be on their good behavior in America. Rochambeau had been instructed to place himself under the command of Washington, to whom were given the honors of a Marshal of France. The French admiral, had, however, been given no such instructions and Washington had no authority over the fleet.
Meanwhile events were happening which might have brought a British triumph. On September 14, 1780, there arrived and anchored at Sandy Hook, New York, fourteen British ships of the line under Rodney, the doughtiest of the British admirals afloat. Washington, with his army headquarters at West Point, on guard to keep the British from advancing up the Hudson, was looking for the arrival, not of a British fleet, but of a French fleet, from the West Indies. For him these were very dark days. The recent defeat at Camden was a crushing blow. Congress was inept and had in it men, as the patient General Greene said, "without principles, honor or modesty." The coming of the British fleet was a new and overwhelming discouragement, and, on the 18th of September, Washington left West Point for a long ride to Hartford in Connecticut, half way between the two headquarters, there to take counsel with the French general. Rochambeau, it was said, had been purposely created to understand Washington, but as yet the two leaders had not met. It is the simple truth that Washington had to go to the French as a beggar. Rochambeau said later that Washington was afraid to reveal the extent of his distress. He had to ask for men and for ships, but he had also to ask for what a proud man dislikes to ask, for money from the stranger who had come to help him.
The Hudson had long been the chief object of Washington's anxiety and now it looked as if the British intended some new movement up the river, as indeed they did. Clinton had not expected Rodney's squadron, but it arrived opportunely and, when it sailed up to New York from Sandy Hook, on the 16th of September, he began at once to embark his army, taking pains at the same time to send out reports that he was going to the Chesapeake. Washington concluded that the opposite was true and that he was likely to be going northward. At West Point, where the Hudson flows through a mountainous gap, Washington had strong defenses on both shores of the river. His batteries commanded its whole width, but shore batteries were ineffective against moving ships. The embarking of Clinton's army meant that he planned operations on land. He might be going to Rhode Island or to Boston but he might also dash up the Hudson. It was an anxious leader who, with La Fayette and Alexander Hamilton, rode away from headquarters to Hartford.
The officer in command at West Point was Benedict Arnold. No general on the American side had a more brilliant record or could show more scars of battle. We have seen him leading an army through the wilderness to Quebec, and incurring hardships almost incredible. Later he is found on Lake Champlain, fighting on both land and water. When in the next year the Americans succeeded at Saratoga it was Arnold who bore the brunt of the fighting. At Quebec and again at Saratoga he was severely wounded. In the summer of 1778 he was given the command at Philadelphia, after the British evacuation. It was a troubled time. Arnold was concerned with confiscations of property for treason and with disputes about ownership. Impulsive, ambitious, and with a certain element of coarseness in his nature, he made enemies. He was involved in bitter strife with both Congress and the State government of Pennsylvania. After a period of tension and privation in war, one of slackness and luxury is almost certain to follow. Philadelphia, which had recently suffered for want of bare necessities, now relapsed into gay indulgence. Arnold lived extravagantly. He played a conspicuous part in society and, a widower of thirty-five, was successful in paying court to Miss Shippen, a young lady of twenty, with whom, as Washington said, all the American officers were in love.
Malignancy was rampant and Arnold was pursued with great bitterness. Joseph Reed, the President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, not only brought charge against him of abusing his position for his own advantage, but also laid the charges before each State government. In the end Arnold was tried by court-martial and after long and inexcusable delay, on January 26, 1780, he was acquitted of everything but the imprudence of using, in an emergency, public wagons to remove private property, and of granting irregularly a pass to a ship to enter the port of Philadelphia. Yet the court ordered that for these trifles Arnold should receive a public reprimand from the Commander-in-Chief. Washington gave the reprimand in terms as gentle as possible, and when, in July, 1780, Arnold asked for the important command at West Point, Washington readily complied probably with relief that so important a position should be in such good hands.
The treason of Arnold now came rapidly to a head. The man was embittered. He had rendered great services and yet had been persecuted with spiteful persistence. The truth seems to be, too, that Arnold thought America ripe for reconciliation with Great Britain. He dreamed that he might be the saviour of his country. Monk had reconciled the English republic to the restored Stuart King Charles II; Arnold might reconcile the American republic to George III for the good of both. That reconciliation he believed was widely desired in America. He tried to persuade himself that to change sides in this civil strife was no more culpable then to turn from one party to another in political life. He forgot, however, that it is never honorable to betray a trust.
It is almost certain that Arnold received a large sum in money for his treachery. However this may be, there was treason in his heart when he asked for and received the command at West Point, and he intended to use his authority to surrender that vital post to the British. And now on the 18th of September Washington was riding northeastward into Connecticut, British troops were on board ships in New York and all was ready. On the 20th of September the Vulture, sloop of war, sailed up the Hudson from New York and anchored at Stony Point, a few miles below West Point. On board the Vulture was the British officer who was treating with Arnold and who now came to arrange terms with him, Major John Andre, Clinton's young adjutant general, a man of attractive personality. Under cover of night Arnold sent off a boat to bring Andre ashore to a remote thicket of fir trees, outside the American lines. There the final plans were made. The British fleet, carrying an army, was to sail up the river. A heavy chain had been placed across the river at West Point to bar the way of hostile ships. Under pretense of repairs a link was to be taken out and replaced by a rope which would break easily. The defenses of West Point were to be so arranged that they could not meet a sudden attack and Arnold was to surrender with his force of three thousand men. Such a blow following the disasters at Charleston and Camden might end the strife. Britain was prepared to yield everything but separation; and America, Arnold said, could now make an honorable peace.
A chapter of accidents prevented the testing. Had Andre been rowed ashore by British tars they could have taken him back to the ship at his command before daylight. As it was the American boatmen, suspicious perhaps of the meaning of this talk at midnight between an American officer and a British officer, both of them in uniform, refused to row Andre back to the ship because their own return would be dangerous in daylight. Contrary to his instructions and wishes Andre accompanied Arnold to a house within the American lines to wait until he could be taken off under cover of night. Meanwhile, however, an American battery on shore, angry at the Vulture, lying defiantly within range, opened fire upon her and she dropped down stream some miles. This was alarming. Arnold, however, arranged with a man to row Andre down the river and about midday went back to West Point.
It was uncertain how far the Vulture had gone. The vigilance of those guarding the river was aroused and Andre's guide insisted that he should go to the British lines by land. He was carrying compromising papers and wearing civilian dress when seized by an American party and held under close arrest. Arnold meanwhile, ignorant of this delay, was waiting for the expected advance up the river of the British fleet. He learned of the arrest of Andre while at breakfast on the morning of the twenty-fifth, waiting to be joined by Washington, who had just ridden in from Hartford. Arnold received the startling news with extraordinary composure, finished the subject under discussion, and then left the table under pretext of a summons from across the river. Within a few minutes his barge was moving swiftly to the Vulture eighteen miles away. Thus Arnold escaped. The unhappy Andre was hanged as a spy on the 2d of October. He met his fate bravely. Washington, it is said, shed tears at its stern necessity under military law. Forty years later the bones of Andre were reburied in Westminster Abbey, a tribute of pity for a fine officer.
The treason of Arnold is not in itself important, yet Washington wrote with deep conviction that Providence had directly intervened to save the American cause. Arnold might be only one of many. Washington said, indeed, that it was a wonder there were not more. In a civil war every one of importance is likely to have ties with both sides, regrets for the friends he has lost, misgivings in respect to the course he has adopted. In April, 1779, Arnold had begun his treason by expressing discontent at the alliance with France then working so disastrously. His future lay before him; he was still under forty; he had just married into a family of position; he expected that both he and his descendants would spend their lives in America and he must have known that contempt would follow them for the conduct which he planned if it was regarded by public opinion as base. Voices in Congress, too, had denounced the alliance with France as alliance with tyranny, political and religious. Members praised the liberties of England and had declared that the Declaration of Independence must be revoked and that now it could be done with honor since the Americans had proved their metal. There was room for the fear that the morale of the Americans was giving way.
The defection of Arnold might also have military results. He had bargained to be made a general in the British army and he had intimate knowledge of the weak points in Washington's position. He advised the British that if they would do two things, offer generous terms to soldiers serving in the American army, and concentrate their effort, they could win the war. With a cynical knowledge of the weaker side of human nature, he declared that it was too expensive a business to bring men from England to serve in America. They could be secured more cheaply in America; it would be necessary only to pay them better than Washington could pay his army. As matters stood the Continental troops were to have half pay for seven years after the close of the war and grants of land ranging from one hundred acres for a private to eleven hundred acres for a general. Make better offers than this, urged Arnold; "Money will go farther than arms in America." If the British would concentrate on the Hudson where the defenses were weak they could drive a wedge between North and South. If on the other hand they preferred to concentrate in the South, leaving only a garrison in New York, they could overrun Virginia and Maryland and then the States farther south would give up a fight in which they were already beaten. Energy and enterprise, said Arnold, will quickly win the war.
In the autumn of 1780 the British cause did, indeed, seem near triumph. An election in England in October gave the ministry an increased majority and with this renewed determination. When Holland, long a secret enemy, became an open one in December, 1780, Admiral Rodney descended on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, in the West Indies, where the Americans were in the habit of buying great quantities of stores and on the 3d of February, 1781, captured the place with two hundred merchant ships, half a dozen men-of-war, and stores to the value of three million pounds. The capture cut off one chief source of supply to the United States. By January, 1781, a crisis in respect to money came to a head. Fierce mutinies broke out because there was no money to provide food, clothing, or pay for the army and the men were in a destitute condition. "These people are at the end of their resources," wrote Rochambeau in March. Arnold's treason, the halting voices in Congress, the disasters in the South, the British success in cutting off supplies of stores from St. Eustatius, the sordid problem of money—all these were well fitted to depress the worn leader so anxiously watching on the Hudson. It was the dark hour before the dawn.
CHAPTER XI. YORKTOWN
The critical stroke of the war was near. In the South, after General Greene superseded Gates in the command, the tide of war began to turn. Cornwallis now had to fight a better general than Gates. Greene arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina, in December. He found an army badly equipped, wretchedly clothed, and confronted by a greatly superior force. He had, however, some excellent officers, and he did not scorn, as Gates, with the stiff military traditions of a regular soldier, had scorned, the aid of guerrilla leaders like Marion and Sumter. Serving with Greene was General Daniel Morgan, the enterprising and resourceful Virginia rifleman, who had fought valorously at Quebec, at Saratoga, and later in Virginia. Steuben was busy in Virginia holding the British in check and keeping open the line of communication with the North. The mobility and diversity of the American forces puzzled Cornwallis. When he marched from Camden into North Carolina he hoped to draw Greene into a battle and to crush him as he had crushed Gates. He sent Tarleton with a smaller force to strike a deadly blow at Morgan who was threatening the British garrisons at the points in the interior farther south. There was no more capable leader than Tarleton; he had won many victories; but now came his day of defeat. On January 17, 1781, he met Morgan at the Cowpens, about thirty miles west from King's Mountain. Morgan, not quite sure of the discipline of his men, stood with his back to a broad river so that retreat was impossible. Tarleton had marched nearly all night over bad roads; but, confident in the superiority of his weary and hungry veterans, he advanced to the attack at daybreak. The result was a complete disaster. Tarleton himself barely got away with two hundred and seventy men and left behind nearly nine hundred casualties and prisoners.
Cornwallis had lost one-third of his effective army. There was nothing for him to do but to take his loss and still to press on northward in the hope that the more southerly inland posts could take care of themselves. In the early spring of 1781, when heavy rains were making the roads difficult and the rivers almost impassable, Greene was luring Cornwallis northward and Cornwallis was chasing Greene. At Hillsborough, in the northwest corner of North Carolina, Cornwallis issued a proclamation saying that the colony was once more under the authority of the King and inviting the Loyalists, bullied and oppressed during nearly six years, to come out openly on the royal side. On the 15th of March Greene took a stand and offered battle at Guilford Court House. In the early afternoon, after a march of twelve miles without food, Cornwallis, with less than two thousand men, attacked Greene's force of about four thousand. By evening the British held the field and had captured Greene's guns. But they had lost heavily and they were two hundred miles from their base. Their friends were timid, and in fact few, and their numerous enemies were filled with passionate resolution.
Cornwallis now wrote to urge Clinton to come to his aid. Abandon New York, he said; bring the whole British force into Virginia and end the war by one smashing stroke; that would be better than sticking to salt pork in New York and sending only enough men to Virginia to steal tobacco. Cornwallis could not remain where he was, far from the sea. Go back to Camden he would not after a victory, and thus seem to admit a defeat. So he decided to risk all and go forward. By hard marching he led his army down the Cape Fear River to Wilmington on the sea, and there he arrived on the 9th of April. Greene, however, simply would not do what Cornwallis wished—stay in the north to be beaten by a second smashing blow. He did what Cornwallis would not do; he marched back into the South and disturbed the British dream that now the country was held securely. It mattered little that, after this, the British won minor victories. Lord Rawdon, still holding Camden, defeated Greene on the 25th of April at Hobkirk's Hill. None the less did Rawdon find his position untenable and he, too, was forced to march to the sea, which he reached at a point near Charleston. Augusta, the capital of Georgia, fell to the Americans on the 5th of June and the operations of the summer went decisively in their favor. The last battle in the field of the farther South was fought on the 8th of September at Eutaw Springs, about fifty miles northwest of Charleston. The British held their position and thus could claim a victory. But it was fruitless. They had been forced steadily to withdraw. All the boasted fabric of royal government in the South had come down with a crash and the Tories who had supported it were having evil days.
While these events were happening farther south, Cornwallis himself, without waiting for word from Clinton in New York, had adopted his own policy and marched from Wilmington northward into Virginia. Benedict Arnold was now in Virginia doing what mischief he could to his former friends. In January he burned the little town of Richmond, destined in the years to come to be a great center in another civil war. Some twenty miles south from Richmond lay in a strong position Petersburg, later also to be drenched with blood shed in civil strife. Arnold was already at Petersburg when Cornwallis arrived on the 20th of May. He was now in high spirits. He did not yet realize the extent of the failure farther south. Virginia he believed to be half loyalist at heart. The negroes would, he thought, turn against their masters when they knew that the British were strong enough to defend them. Above all he had a finely disciplined army of five thousand men. Cornwallis was the more confident when he knew by whom he was opposed. In April Washington had placed La Fayette in charge of the defense of Virginia, and not only was La Fayette young and untried in such a command but he had at first only three thousand badly-trained men to confront the formidable British general. Cornwallis said cheerily that "the boy" was certainly now his prey and began the task of catching him.
An exciting chase followed. La Fayette did some good work. It was impossible, with his inferior force, to fight Cornwallis, but he could tire him out by drawing him into long marches. When Cornwallis advanced to attack La Fayette at Richmond, La Fayette was not there but had slipped away and was able to use rivers and mountains for his defense. Cornwallis had more than one string to his bow. The legislature of Virginia was sitting at Charlottesville, lying in the interior nearly a hundred miles northwest from Richmond, and Cornwallis conceived the daring plan of raiding Charlottesville, capturing the Governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, and, at one stroke, shattering the civil administration. Tarleton was the man for such an enterprise of hard riding and bold fighting and he nearly succeeded. Jefferson indeed escaped by rapid flight but Tarleton took the town, burned the public records, and captured ammunition and arms. But he really effected little. La Fayette was still unconquered. His army was growing and the British were finding that Virginia, like New England, was definitely against them.
At New York, meanwhile, Clinton was in a dilemma. He was dismayed at the news of the march of Cornwallis to Virginia. Cornwallis had been so long practically independent in the South that he assumed not only the right to shape his own policy but adopted a certain tartness in his despatches to Clinton, his superior. When now, in this tone, he urged Clinton to abandon New York and join him Clinton's answer on the 26th of June was a definite order to occupy some port in Virginia easily reached from the sea, to make it secure, and to send to New York reinforcements. The French army at Newport was beginning to move towards New York and Clinton had intercepted letters from Washington to La Fayette revealing a serious design to make an attack with the aid of the French fleet. Such was the game which fortune was playing with the British generals. Each desired the other to abandon his own plans and to come to his aid. They were agreed, however, that some strong point must be held in Virginia as a naval base, and on the 2d of August Cornwallis established this base at Yorktown, at the mouth of the York River, a mile wide where it flows into Chesapeake Bay. His cannon could command the whole width of the river and keep in safety ships anchored above the town. Yorktown lay about half way between New York and Charleston and from here a fleet could readily carry a military force to any needed point on the sea. La Fayette with a growing army closed in on Yorktown, and Cornwallis, almost before he knew it, was besieged with no hope of rescue except by a fleet.
Then it was that from the sea, the restless and mysterious sea, came the final decision. Man seems so much the sport of circumstance that apparent trifles, remote from his consciousness, appear at times to determine his fate; it is a commonplace of romance that a pretty face or a stray bullet has altered the destiny not merely of families but of nations. And now, in the American Revolution, it was not forts on the Hudson, nor maneuvers in the South, that were to decide the issue, but the presence of a few more French warships than the British could muster at a given spot and time. Washington had urged in January that France should plan to have at least temporary naval superiority in American waters, in accordance with Rochambeau's principle, "Nothing without naval supremacy." Washington wished to concentrate against New York, but the French were of a different mind, believing that the great effort should be made in Chesapeake Bay. There the British could have no defenses like those at New York, and the French fleet, which was stationed in the West Indies, could reach more readily than New York a point in the South.
Early in May Rochambeau knew that a French fleet was coming to his aid but not yet did he know where the stroke should be made. It was clear, however, that there was nothing for the French to do at Newport, and, by the beginning of June, Rochambeau prepared to set his army in motion. The first step was to join Washington on the Hudson and at any rate alarm Clinton as to an imminent attack on New York and hold him to that spot. After nearly a year of idleness the French soldiers were delighted that now at last there was to be an active movement. The long march from Newport to New York began. In glowing June, amid the beauties of nature, now overcome by intense heat and obliged to march at two o'clock in the morning, now drenched by heavy rains, the French plodded on, and joined their American comrades along the Hudson early in July.
By the 14th of August Washington knew two things—that a great French fleet under the Comte de Grasse had sailed for the Chesapeake and that the British army had reached Yorktown. Soon the two allied armies, both lying on the east side of the Hudson, moved southward. On the 20th of August the Americans began to cross the river at King's Ferry, eight miles below Peekskill. Washington had to leave the greater part of his army before New York, and his meager force of some two thousand was soon over the river in spite of torrential rains. By the 24th of August the French, too, had crossed with some four thousand men and with their heavy equipment. The British made no move. Clinton was, however, watching these operations nervously. The united armies marched down the right bank of the Hudson so rapidly that they had to leave useful effects behind and some grumbled at the privation. Clinton thought his enemy might still attack New York from the New Jersey shore. He knew that near Staten Island the Americans were building great bakeries as if to feed an army besieging New York. Suddenly on the 29th of August the armies turned away from New York southwestward across New Jersey, and still only the two leaders knew whither they were bound.
American patriotism has liked to dwell on this last great march of Washington. To him this was familiar country; it was here that he had harassed Clinton on the march from Philadelphia to New York three long years before. The French marched on the right at the rate of about fifteen miles a day. The country was beautiful and the roads were good. Autumn had come and the air was bracing. The peaches hung ripe on the trees. The Dutch farmers who, four years earlier, had been plaintive about the pillage by the Hessians, now seemed prosperous enough and brought abundance of provisions to the army. They had just gathered their harvest. The armies passed through Princeton, with its fine college, numbering as many as fifty students; then on to Trenton, and across the Delaware to Philadelphia, which the vanguard reached on the 3d of September.
There were gala scenes in Philadelphia. Twenty thousand people witnessed a review of the French army. To one of the French officers the city seemed "immense" with its seventy-two streets all "in a straight line." The shops appeared to be equal to those of Paris and there were pretty women well dressed in the French fashion. The Quaker city forgot its old suspicion of the French and their Catholic religion. Luzerne, the French Minister, gave a great banquet on the evening of the 5th of September. Eighty guests took their places at table and as they sat down good news arrived. As yet few knew the destination of the army but now Luzerne read momentous tidings and the secret was out: twenty-eight French ships of the line had arrived in Chesapeake Bay; an army of three thousand men had already disembarked and was in touch with the army of La Fayette; Washington and Rochambeau were bound for Yorktown to attack Cornwallis. Great was the joy; in the streets the soldiers and the people shouted and sang and humorists, mounted on chairs, delivered in advance mock funeral orations on Cornwallis.
It was planned that the army should march the fifty miles to Elkton, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, and there take boat to Yorktown, two hundred miles to the south at the other end of the Bay. But there were not ships enough. Washington had asked the people of influence in the neighborhood to help him to gather transports but few of them responded. A deadly apathy in regard to the war seems to have fallen upon many parts of the country. The Bay now in control of the French fleet was quite safe for unarmed ships. Half the Americans and some of the French embarked and the rest continued on foot. There was need of haste, and the troops marched on to Baltimore and beyond at the rate of twenty miles a day, over roads often bad and across rivers sometimes unbridged. At Baltimore some further regiments were taken on board transports and most of them made the final stages of the journey by water. Some there were, however, and among them the Vicomte de Noailles, brother-in-law of La Fayette, who tramped on foot the whole seven hundred and fifty-six miles from Newport to Yorktown. Washington himself left the army at Elkton and rode on with Rochambeau, making about sixty miles a day. Mount Vernon lay on the way and here Washington paused for two or three days. It was the first time he had seen it since he set out on May 4, 1775, to attend the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, little dreaming then of himself as chief leader in a long war. Now he pressed on to join La Fayette. By the end of the month an army of sixteen thousand men, of whom about one-half were French, was besieging Cornwallis with seven thousand men in Yorktown.
Heart-stirring events had happened while the armies were marching to the South. The Comte de Grasse, with his great fleet, arrived at the entrance to the Chesapeake on the 30th of August while the British fleet under Admiral Graves still lay at New York. Grasse, now the pivot upon which everything turned, was the French admiral in the West Indies. Taking advantage of a lull in operations he had slipped away with his whole fleet, to make his stroke and be back again before his absence had caused great loss. It was a risky enterprise, but a wise leader takes risks. He intended to be back in the West Indies before the end of October.
It was not easy for the British to realize that they could be outmatched on the sea. Rodney had sent word from the West Indies that ten ships were the limit of Grasse's numbers and that even fourteen British ships would be adequate to meet him. A British fleet, numbering nineteen ships of the line, commanded by Admiral Graves, left New York on the 31st of August and five days later stood off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. On the mainland across the Bay lay Yorktown, the one point now held by the British on that great stretch of coast. When Graves arrived he had an unpleasant surprise. The strength of the French had been well concealed. There to confront him lay twenty-four enemy ships. The situation was even worse, for the French fleet from Newport was on its way to join Grasse.
On the afternoon of the 5th of September, the day of the great rejoicing in Philadelphia, there was a spectacle of surpassing interest off Cape Henry, at the mouth of the Bay. The two great fleets joined battle, under sail, and poured their fire into each other. When night came the British had about three hundred and fifty casualties and the French about two hundred. There was no brilliant leadership on either side. One of Graves's largest ships, the Terrible, was so crippled that he burnt her, and several others were badly damaged. Admiral Hood, one of Graves's officers, says that if his leader had turned suddenly and anchored his ships across the mouth of the Bay, the French Admiral with his fleet outside would probably have sailed away and left the British fleet in possession. As it was the two fleets lay at sea in sight of each other for four days. On the morning of the tenth the squadron from Newport under Barras arrived and increased Grasse's ships to thirty-six. Against such odds Graves could do nothing. He lingered near the mouth of the Chesapeake for a few days still and then sailed away to New York to refit. At the most critical hour of the whole war a British fleet, crippled and spiritless, was hurrying to a protecting port and the fleurs-de-lis waved unchallenged on the American coast. The action of Graves spelled the doom of Cornwallis. The most potent fleet ever gathered in those waters cut him off from rescue by sea.
Yorktown fronted on the York River with a deep ravine and swamps at the back of the town. From the land it could on the west side be approached by a road leading over marshes and easily defended, and on the east side by solid ground about half a mile wide now protected by redoubts and entrenchments with an outer and an inner parallel. Could Cornwallis hold out? At New York, no longer in any danger, there was still a keen desire to rescue him. By the end of September he received word from Clinton that reinforcements had arrived from England and that, with a fleet of twenty-six ships of the line carrying five thousand troops, he hoped to sail on the 5th of October to the rescue of Yorktown. There was delay. Later Clinton wrote that on the basis of assurances from Admiral Graves he hoped to get away on the twelfth. A British officer in New York describes the hopes with which the populace watched these preparations. The fleet, however, did not sail until the 19th of October. A speaker in Congress at the time said that the British Admiral should certainly hang for this delay.
On the 5th of October, for some reason unexplained, Cornwallis abandoned the outer parallel and withdrew behind the inner one. This left him in Yorktown a space so narrow that nearly every part of it could be swept by enemy artillery. By the 11th of October shells were dropping incessantly from a distance of only three hundred yards, and before this powerful fire the earthworks crumbled. On the fourteenth the French and Americans carried by storm two redoubts on the second parallel. The redoubtable Tarleton was in Yorktown, and he says that day and night there was acute danger to any one showing himself and that every gun was dismounted as soon as seen. He was for evacuating the place and marching away, whither he hardly knew. Cornwallis still held Gloucester, on the opposite side of the York River, and he now planned to cross to that place with his best troops, leaving behind his sick and wounded. He would try to reach Philadelphia by the route over which Washington had just ridden. The feat was not impossible. Washington would have had a stern chase in following Cornwallis, who might have been able to live off the country. Clinton could help by attacking Philadelphia, which was almost defenseless.
As it was, a storm prevented the crossing to Gloucester. The defenses of Yorktown were weakening and in face of this new discouragement the British leader made up his mind that the end was near. Tarleton and other officers condemned Cornwallis sharply for not persisting in the effort to get away. Cornwallis was a considerate man. "I thought it would have been wanton and inhuman," he reported later, "to sacrifice the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers." He had already written to Clinton to say that there would be great risk in trying to send a fleet and army to rescue him. On the 19th of October came the climax. Cornwallis surrendered with some hundreds of sailors and about seven thousand soldiers, of whom two thousand were in hospital. The terms were similar to those which the British had granted at Charleston to General Lincoln, who was now charged with carrying out the surrender. Such is the play of human fortune. At two o'clock in the afternoon the British marched out between two lines, the French on the one side, the Americans on the other, the French in full dress uniform, the Americans in some cases half naked and barefoot. No civilian sightseers were admitted, and there was a respectful silence in the presence of this great humiliation to a proud army. The town itself was a dreadful spectacle with, as a French observer noted, "big holes made by bombs, cannon balls, splinters, barely covered graves, arms and legs of blacks and whites scattered here and there, most of the houses riddled with shot and devoid of window-panes."
On the very day of surrender Clinton sailed from New York with a rescuing army. Nine days later forty-four British ships were counted off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. The next day there were none. The great fleet had heard of the surrender and had turned back to New York. Washington urged Grasse to attack New York or Charleston but the French Admiral was anxious to take his fleet back to meet the British menace farther south and he sailed away with all his great array. The waters of the Chesapeake, the scene of one of the decisive events in human history, were deserted by ships of war. Grasse had sailed, however, to meet a stern fate. He was a fine fighting sailor. His men said of him that he was on ordinary days six feet in height but on battle days six feet and six inches. None the less did a few months bring the British a quick revenge on the sea. On April 12, 1782, Rodney met Grasse in a terrible naval battle in the West Indies. Some five thousand in both fleets perished. When night came Grasse was Rodney's prisoner and Britain had recovered her supremacy on the sea. On returning to France Grasse was tried by court-martial and, though acquitted, he remained in disgrace until he died in 1788, "weary," as he said, "of the burden of life." The defeated Cornwallis was not blamed in England. His character commanded wide respect and he lived to play a great part in public life. He became Governor General of India, and was Viceroy of Ireland when its restless union with England was brought about in 1800.
Yorktown settled the issue of the war but did not end it. For more than a year still hostilities continued and, in parts of the South, embittered faction led to more bloodshed. In England the news of Yorktown caused a commotion. When Lord George Germain received the first despatch he drove with one or two colleagues to the Prime Minister's house in Downing Street. A friend asked Lord George how Lord North had taken the news. "As he would have taken a ball in the breast," he replied; "for he opened his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced up and down the apartment during a few minutes, 'Oh God! it is all over,' words which he repeated many times, under emotions of the deepest agitation and distress." Lord North might well be agitated for the news meant the collapse of a system. The King was at Kew and word was sent to him. That Sunday evening Lord George Germain had a small dinner party and the King's letter in reply was brought to the table. The guests were curious to know how the King took the news. "The King writes just as he always does," said Lord George, "except that I observe he has omitted to mark the hour and the minute of his writing with his usual precision." It needed a heavy shock to disturb the routine of George III. The King hoped no one would think that the bad news "makes the smallest alteration in those principles of my conduct which have directed me in past time." Lesser men might change in the face of evils; George III was resolved to be changeless and never, never, to yield to the coercion of facts.
Yield, however, he did. The months which followed were months of political commotion in England. For a time the ministry held its majority against the fierce attacks of Burke and Fox. The House of Commons voted that the war must go on. But the heart had gone out of British effort. Everywhere the people were growing restless. Even the ministry acknowledged that the war in America must henceforth be defensive only. In February, 1782, a motion in the House of Commons for peace was lost by only one vote; and in March, in spite of the frantic expostulations of the King, Lord North resigned. The King insisted that at any rate some members of the new ministry must be named by himself and not, as is the British constitutional custom, by the Prime Minister. On this, too, he had to yield; and a Whig ministry, under the Marquis of Rockingham, took office in March, 1782. Rockingham died on the 1st of July, and it was Lord Shelburne, later the Marquis of Lansdowne, under whom the war came to an end. The King meanwhile declared that he would return to Hanover rather than yield the independence of the colonies. Over and over again he had said that no one should hold office in his government who would not pledge himself to keep the Empire entire. But even his obstinacy was broken. On December 5, 1782, he opened Parliament with a speech in which the right of the colonies to independence was acknowledged. "Did I lower my voice when I came to that part of my speech?" George asked afterwards. He might well speak in a subdued tone for he had brought the British Empire to the lowest level in its history.
In America, meanwhile, the glow of victory had given way to weariness and lassitude. Rochambeau with his army remained in Virginia. Washington took his forces back to the lines before New York, sparing what men he could to help Greene in the South. Again came a long period of watching and waiting. Washington, knowing the obstinate determination of the British character, urged Congress to keep up the numbers of the army so as to be prepared for any emergency. Sir Guy Carleton now commanded the British at New York and Washington feared that this capable Irishman might soothe the Americans into a false security. He had to speak sharply, for the people seemed indifferent to further effort and Congress was slack and impotent. The outlook for Washington's allies in the war darkened, when in April, 1782, Rodney won his crushing victory and carried De Grasse a prisoner to England. France's ally Spain had been besieging Gibraltar for three years, but in September, 1782, when the great battering-ships specially built for the purpose began a furious bombardment, which was expected to end the siege, the British defenders destroyed every ship, and after that Gibraltar was safe. These events naturally stiffened the backs of the British in negotiating peace. Spain declared that she would never make peace without the surrender of Gibraltar, and she was ready to leave the question of American independence undecided or decided against the colonies if she could only get for herself the terms which she desired. There was a period when France seemed ready to make peace on the basis of dividing the Thirteen States, leaving some of them independent while others should remain under the British King.
Congress was not willing to leave its affairs at Paris in the capable hands of Franklin alone. In 1780 it sent John Adams to Paris, and John Jay and Henry Laurens were also members of the American Commission. The austere Adams disliked and was jealous of Franklin, gay in spite of his years, seemingly indolent and easygoing, always bland and reluctant to say No to any request from his friends, but ever astute in the interests of his country. Adams told Vergennes, the French foreign minister, that the Americans owed nothing to France, that France had entered the war in her own interests, and that her alliance with America had greatly strengthened her position in Europe. France, he added, was really hostile to the colonies, since she was jealously trying to keep them from becoming rich and powerful. Adams dropped hints that America might be compelled to make a separate peace with Britain. When it was proposed that the depreciated continental paper money, largely held in France for purchases there, should be redeemed at the rate of one good dollar for every forty in paper money, Adams declared to the horrified French creditors of the United States that the proposal was fair and just. At the same time Congress was drawing on Franklin in Paris for money to meet its requirements and Franklin was expected to persuade the French treasury to furnish him with what he needed and to an amazing degree succeeded in doing so. The self interest which Washington believed to be the dominant motive in politics was, it is clear, actively at work. In the end the American Commissioners negotiated directly with Great Britain, without asking for the consent of their French allies. On November 30, 1782, articles of peace between Great Britain and the United States were signed. They were, however, not to go into effect until Great Britain and France had agreed upon terms of peace; and it was not until September 3, 1783, that the definite treaty was signed. So far as the United States was concerned Spain was left quite properly to shift for herself.
Thus it was that the war ended. Great Britain had urged especially the case of the Loyalists, the return to them of their property and compensation for their losses. She could not achieve anything. Franklin indeed asked that Americans who had been ruined by the destruction of their property should be compensated by Britain, that Canada should be added to the United States, and that Britain should acknowledge her fault in distressing the colonies. In the end the American Commissioners agreed to ask the individual States to meet the desires of the British negotiators, but both sides understood that the States would do nothing, that the confiscated property would never be returned, that most of the exiled Loyalists would remain exiles, and that Britain herself must compensate them for their losses. This in time she did on a scale inadequate indeed but expressive of a generous intention. The United States retained the great Northwest and the Mississippi became the western frontier, with destiny already whispering that weak and grasping Spain must soon let go of the farther West stretching to the Pacific Ocean. When Great Britain signed peace with France and Spain in January, 1783, Gibraltar was not returned; Spain had to be content with the return of Minorca, and Florida which she had been forced to yield to Britain in 1763. Each side restored its conquests in the West Indies. France, the chief mainstay of the war during its later years, gained from it really nothing beyond the weakening of her ancient enemy. The magnanimity of France, especially towards her exacting American ally, is one of the fine things in the great combat. The huge sum of nearly eight hundred million dollars spent by France in the war was one of the chief factors in the financial crisis which, six years after the signing of the peace, brought on the French Revolution and with it the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy. Politics bring strange bedfellows and they have rarely brought stranger ones than the democracy of young America and the political despotism, linked with idealism, of the ancient monarchy of France.
The British did not evacuate New York until Carleton had gathered there the Loyalists who claimed his protection. These unhappy people made their way to the seaports, often after long and distressing journeys overland. Charleston was the chief rallying place in the South and from there many sad-hearted people sailed away, never to see again their former homes. The British had captured New York in September, 1776, and it was more than seven years later, on November 25, 1783, that the last of the British fleet put to sea. Britain and America had broken forever their political tie and for many years to come embittered memories kept up the alienation.
It was fitting that Washington should bid farewell to his army at New York, the center of his hopes and anxieties during the greater part of the long struggle. On December 4, 1783, his officers met at a tavern to bid him farewell. The tears ran down his cheeks as he parted with these brave and tried men. He shook their hands in silence and, in a fashion still preserved in France, kissed each of them. Then they watched him as he was rowed away in his barge to the New Jersey shore. Congress was now sitting at Annapolis in Maryland and there on December 23, 1783, Washington appeared and gave up finally his command. We are told that the members sat covered to show the sovereignty of the Union, a quaint touch of the thought of the time. The little town made a brave show and "the gallery was filled with a beautiful group of elegant ladies." With solemn sincerity Washington commended the country to the protection of Almighty God and the army to the special care of Congress. Passion had already subsided for the President of Congress in his reply praised the "magnanimous king and nation" of Great Britain. By the end of the year Washington was at Mount Vernon, hoping now to be able, as he said simply, to make and sell a little flour annually and to repair houses fast going to ruin. He did not foresee the troubled years and the vexing problems which still lay before him. Nor could he, in his modest estimate of himself, know that for a distant posterity his character and his words would have compelling authority. What Washington's countryman, Motley, said of William of Orange is true of Washington himself: "As long as he lived he was the guiding star of a brave nation and when he died the little children cried in the streets." But this is not all. To this day in the domestic and foreign affairs of the United States the words of Washington, the policies which he favored, have a living and almost binding force. This attitude of mind is not without its dangers, for nations require to make new adjustments of policy, and the past is only in part the master of the present; but it is the tribute of a grateful nation to the noble character of its chief founder.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
In Winsor, "Narrative and Critical History of America", vol. VI (1889), and in Larned (editor), "Literature of American History", pp. 111-152 (1902), the authorities are critically estimated. There are excellent classified lists in Van Tyne, "The American Revolution" (1905), vol. V of Hart (editor), "The American Nation", and in Avery, "History of the United States", vol. V, pp. 422-432, and vol. VI, pp. 445-471 (1908-09). The notes in Channing, "A History of the United States", vol. III (1913), are useful. Detailed information in regard to places will be found in Lossing, "The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution", 2 vols. (1850).
In recent years American writers on the period have chiefly occupied themselves with special studies, and the general histories have been few. Tyler's "The Literary History of the American Revolution", 2 vols. (1897), is a penetrating study of opinion. Fiske's "The American Revolution", 2 vols. (1891), and Sydney George Fisher's "The Struggle for American Independence", 2 vols. (1908), are popular works. The short volume of Van Tyne is based upon extensive research. The attention of English writers has been drawn in an increasing degree to the Revolution. Lecky, "A History of England in the Eighteenth Century", chaps. XIII, XIV, and XV (1903), is impartial. The most elaborate and readable history is Trevelyan, "The American Revolution", and his "George the Third" and "Charles Fox" (six volumes in all, completed in 1914). If Trevelyan leans too much to the American side the opposite is true of Fortescue, "A History of the British Army", vol. III (1902), a scientific account of military events with many maps and plans. Captain Mahan, U. S. N., wrote the British naval history of the period in Clowes (editor), "The Royal Navy, a History", vol. III, pp. 353-564 (1898). Of great value also is Mahan's "Influence of Sea Power on History" (1890) and "Major Operations of the Navies in the War of Independence" (1913). He may be supplemented by C. O. Paullin's "Navy of the American Revolution" (1906) and G. W. Allen's "A Naval History of the American Revolution", 2 vols. (1913).
CHAPTERS I AND II.
Washington's own writings are necessary to an understanding of his character. Sparks, "The Life and Writings of George Washington", 2 vols. (completed 1855), has been superseded by Ford, "The Writings of George Washington", 14 vols. (completed 1898). The general reader will probably put aside the older biographies of Washington by Marshall, Irving, and Sparks for more recent "Lives" such as those by Woodrow Wilson, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Paul Leicester Ford. Haworth, "George Washington, Farmer" (1915) deals with a special side of Washington's character. The problems of the army are described in Bolton, "The Private Soldier under Washington" (1902), and in Hatch, "The Administration of the American Revolutionary Army" (1904). For military operations Frothingham, "The Siege of Boston"; Justin H. Smith, "Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony", 2 vols. (1907); Codman, "Arnold's Expedition to Quebec" (1901); and Lucas, "History of Canada", 1763-1812 (1909).
CHAPTER III.
For the state of opinion in England, the contemporary "Annual Register", and the writings and speeches of men of the time like Burke, Fox, Horace Walpole, and Dr. Samuel Johnson. The King's attitude is found in Donne, "Correspondence of George III with Lord North", 1768-83, 2 vols. (1867). Stirling, "Coke of Norfolk and his Friends", 2 vols. (1908), gives the outlook of a Whig magnate; Fitzmaurice, "Life of William, Earl of Shelburne", 2 vols. (1912), the Whig policy. Curwen's "Journals and Letters", 1775-84 (1842), show us a Loyalist exile in England. Hazelton's "The Declaration of Independence, its History" (1906), is an elaborate study.
CHAPTERS IV, V, AND VI.
The three campaigns—New York, Philadelphia, and the Hudson—are covered by C. F. Adams, "Studies Military and Diplomatic" (1911), which makes severe strictures on Washington's strategy; H. P. Johnston's "Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn," in the Long Island Historical Society's "Memoirs", and "Battle of Harlem Heights" (1897); Carrington, "Battles of the American Revolution" (1904); Stryker, "The Battles of Trenton and Princeton" (1898); Lucas, "History of Canada" (1909). Fonblanque's "John Burgoyne" (1876) is a defense of that leader; while Riedesel's "Letters and Journals Relating to the War of the American Revolution" (trans. W. L. Stone, 1867) and Anburey's "Travels through the Interior Parts of America" (1789) are accounts by eye-witnesses. Mereness' (editor) "Travels in the American Colonies", 1690-1783 (1916) gives the impressions of Lord Adam Gordon and others.
CHAPTERS VII AND VIII.
On Washington at Valley Forge, Oliver, "Life of Alexander Hamilton" (1906); Charlemagne Tower, "The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution", 2 vols. (1895); Greene, "Life of Nathanael Greene" (1893); Brooks, "Henry Knox" (1900); Graham, "Life of General Daniel Morgan" (1856); Kapp, "Life of Steuben" (1859); Arnold, "Life of Benedict Arnold" (1880). On the army Bolton and Hatch as cited; Mahan gives a lucid account of naval effort. Barrow, "Richard, Earl Howe" (1838) is a dull account of a remarkable man. On the French alliance, Perkins, "France in the American Revolution" (1911), Corwin, "French Policy and the American Alliance of 1778" (1916), and Van Tyne on "Influences which Determined the French Government to Make the Treaty with America, 1778," in "The American Historical Review", April, 1916.
CHAPTER IX.
Fortescue, as cited, gives excellent plans. Other useful books are McCrady, "History of South Carolina in the Revolution" (1901); Draper, "King's Mountain and its Heroes" (1881); Simms, "Life of Marion" (1844). Ross (editor), "The Cornwallis Correspondence", 3 vols. (1859), and Tarleton, "History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America" (1787), give the point of view of British leaders. On the West, Thwaites, "How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest" (1903); and on the Loyalists Van Tyne, "The Loyalists in the American Revolution" (1902), Flick, "Loyalism in New York" (1901), and Stark, "The Loyalists of Massachusetts" (1910).
CHAPTERS X AND XI.
For the exploits of John Paul Jones and of the American navy, Mrs. De Koven's "The Life and Letters of John Paul Jones", 2 vols. (1913), Don C. Seitz's "Paul Jones", and G. W. Allen's "A Naval History of the American Revolution", 2 vols. (1913), should be consulted. Jusserand's "With Americans of Past and Present Days" (1917) contains a chapter on 'Rochambeau and the French in America'; Johnston's "The Yorktown Campaign" (1881) is a full account; Wraxall, "Historical Memoirs of my own Time" (1815, reprinted 1904), tells of the reception of the news of Yorktown in England.
The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" has useful references to authorities for persons prominent in the Revolution and "The Dictionary of National Biography" for leaders on the British side.
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