USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 50
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Arnold's career henceforward was a living death. He took up arms against his countrymen, but was despised and neglected by all true Eng- lishmen. His retribution elicited no pity; and he transmitted to his children a name of hateful celebrity.
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UNPOPULARITY OF THE WAR IN ENGLAND.
Sir Henry Clinton shared in the obloquy attending the treasonable conspiracy. He wrote in anguish of spirit to Lord Germain : " Thus ended this proposed plan, from which I had conceived such great hopes and imagined such vast consequences." Germain himself lost public favor through the notoriety of the affair, and the Opposition were materially strengthened. From the day the news of Arnold's treason reached Par- liament the war increased in unpopularity throughout England.
New York, the key to the continent, which had hitherto so success- fully resisted the shock of armies, and had now narrowly escaped the consequences of insidious operations by an internal foe in league with a powerful foreign enemy, was to taste still further the bitter fruits of war. The work of blood recommenced on a gigantic scale within her northern, central, and western borders. What her people suffered the world can never know. The Tories, who had no future except revenge, and the Indians, who were fighting for their hunting-grounds, marched without baggage by secret paths, never knowing fatigue or wanting for ammunition. Canada and the British forts proved unfailing arsenals, and this terrible enemy inflicted calamities from the recital of which humanity recoils ; they could at any moment retreat into the illimitable forests, every foot of which was familiar ground. A sudden irruption from the north, and the two forts, Anne and George, were captured. At the same time Sir John Johnson, with Brandt and a half-savage force, laid waste the fertile valley of the Mohawk. He was defeated by Gen- eral Van Rensselaer just as Governor Clinton arrived on the scene at the head of the New York militia. General James Clinton was soon ap- pointed to the command of the Northern department. For the next two years the records of New York were stained with fire and blood ; whole families and villages were sometimes swept away in a night. Again and again were the enemy driven from the soil by the resolute militia ; but discipline and skill were powerless to protect the inhabitants.
Before the year closed Greene, in whom Washington reposed implicit confidence, succeeded Gates in command at the South, where Cornwallis had established a reign of terror. About the same time Major Tallmadge, with eighty dismounted dragoons, crossed the Sound from Fairfield, Con- necticut, in the night, marched across Long Island to Fort St. George, at Coram, surprised and captured the garrison, number- Nov. 22. ing fifty-four men, demolished the fortress, burned two armed vessels, with a large quantity of hay and stores, and returned to Fairfield with- out the loss of a man. Early in December log huts once more rose all through the mountains around New York City, except on the side towards the sea; the Pennsylvania troops were cantoned near Morris-
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town; the New Jersey line about Pompton; the New England. divisions at Tappan, in the Highlands, and near the Connecticut shore; and the New-Yorkers at the points of greatest danger, the exposed country near Albany, Saratoga, and on the Mohawk.
No sooner was shelter provided for the army than difficulties culmi- nated. Men shivering in the woods back of West Point were obliged to bring fuel on their backs from a place a mile distant, while on half-allow- ance of bread and entirely without rum ; and they had not been paid for twelve or fourteen months. Thatcher wrote, December 10: "For three days I have not been able to procure food enough to appease my appetite ; we are threatened with starvation." Lafayette said : “No European army would suffer the tenth part of what the American troops suffer. It takes citizens to support hunger, nakedness, toil, and the total want of pay." Glover appealed to Massachusetts, December 11: "It is now four days since your line of the army has eaten one mouthful of bread. We have no money, nor will anybody trust us." The same startling cry arose from all quarters. Congress had tried every expedient ; but Congress had no powers adequate to the purposes of war. Washing- ton knew this, and urged for a stronger system of government. Hamil- ton, uncontrolled by inherited attachments for any one State, drinking from the fountain of Washington's ideas, and possessing creative powers, the habit of severe reflection, and the quick impulses as well as the arro- gance of youth, took the field as the maker of a national constitution, and wrote to Duane of New York, in Congress, vigorously asserting the 1781. necessity of a confederation. On the first day of January the Jan. 1. complication of distresses resulted in open mutiny among the sol- diers at Morristown. A part of the Pennsylvania line, under the lead of non-commissioned officers, marched with six field-pieces to Princeton, threatening to proceed to Philadelphia and exact redress from Congress. Wayne endeavored to pacify them, and Reed, president of Pennsylvania, repaired to the spot, taking cognizance of their grievances. Sir Henry Clinton was quick to dispatch emissaries to the mutineers, with tempting offers, promising to pay all arrears due them from Congress in cash, with- out exacting military service in return, if they would come to him ; but, resenting the imputation of being Arnolds, they delivered up his messen- gers to be tried and hanged as spies. Other troops were inclined to mutiny, after the example of the Pennsylvanians, but Washington inter- posed ; a detachment of Massachusetts men marched over mountain roads through deep snows, and suppressed the incipient insurrection.
Doubts, fears, and divided opinions in Congress delayed every pro- posed change in the manner of transacting national business. Com-
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CORRESPONDENCE OF HARTLEY AND FRANKLIN.
mittees, however, were found to be irresponsible bodies, and a partial remedy for existing evils was supplied before spring by the creation of departments. The important office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs fell to the gifted Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of New York, who executed its novel duties with dignity and ability until the close of the war. Robert Morris was unanimously elected Superintendent of Finance; and one of his first acts was to appoint Gouverneur Morris, of New York, Assistant Financier, who served in that capacity three years and a half. Meanwhile John Laurens, the hero of many a deed of valor, was sent on a special mission to negotiate a loan from France. His father, Henry Laurens, was a prisoner in the Tower of London, the vessel on which he sailed the preceding August, for the purpose of maturing a commercial treaty with Holland, having been taken by the British ; his diplomatic and official papers were thrown overboard, but rescued from the water ; and as they revealed to Great Britain a private correspondence in progress between Holland and the United States, the result of their capture was a declaration of war against Holland, the ally of a century.
A correspondence was maintained between David Hartley and Dr. Franklin during the whole struggle. Both heartily desired peace. Not only their aims, but their motives, reasonings, and generous sentiments harmonized, and both fully realized that they were dealing with events around which clustered the profoundest emotions and intensest passions of human nature. Hartley acted as a mediator, and with such rare dis- cretion as to exert a marked influence upon the issue of the conflict. "I have been endeavoring to feel pulses for some months, but all is dumb show," he wrote to Franklin in April, 1779. And yet he was successful during the same month in obtaining consent from Lord North to make a mediatorial proposition, as a private person, which might serve as a basis for future negotiations. Lord North thought Franklin would not express his mind freely under such circumstances ; but Hartley said " it was possible for Dr. Franklin to consider him (Hartley) a dépôt of any communications which might tend from time to time to facilitate the terms of peace." He feared no misapprehension. His proposal was a truce. Franklin wrote that if the truce was practicable and the peace not, he should favor it, provided the French approved; but only on mo- tives of humanity -to obviate the evils men inflict on men in time of war -- being persuaded that America was disposed "to continue the war till England should be reduced to that perfect impotence of mischief which alone could prevail with her to let other nations enjoy " Peace, Lib- erty, and Safety." Hartley replied : "If the flames of war can be but once extinguished, does not the Atlantic Ocean contain cold water enough
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to prevent their bursting out again ?" He argued that confidence must exist somewhere before the nation could be extricated from the evils attendant upon its national disputes, and warmly assured Franklin that " no fallacious offers of insincerity, nor any pretext for covering secret designs or for obtaining unfair advantage, should ever pass through his hands."
By no means less than these hidden workings of a peace-making spirit, potent influences of a contrary character tended to the same end. Elated with the conquering progress of Cornwallis in the Carolinas, the Ministry encouraged harsh punishments, and commended the transformation of military legions into housebreakers and assassins. The youth and man- hood of the South grew every day more defiant under the scourge. Bands of well-mounted horsemen confounded Cornwallis, springing up silently in the very districts he had thought subdued. January was marked by the famous victory of Morgan at the Cowpens. February brought Jan. 17. the disagreeable conviction to the mind of Cornwallis that he was being outgeneralled in some inexplicable manner. March was signalized by the desperate battle at Guilford Court House, which, without defeat- ing, weakened Cornwallis, and proved the singular capacity of Greene for the execution of great plans. April found Cornwallis moving into Virginia, and Greene carrying out the daring policy of marching to South Carolina and Georgia. May brought tidings to Cornwallis of the loss of several Southern forts through a series of vigorous operations under Henry Lee's invincible dragoons, in conjunction with Marion, Sumter, and Pickens; and, sick at heart, he could not fail to see that his high- handed work of the last year was being rapidly undone.
New York was in dismay. Numbers of her brave sons were serving the king at the South, fighting his battles, whether just or unjust. The garrison of Ninety-Six, composed of New-Yorkers and New-Jerseymen, was commanded by John Harris Cruger, whose beautiful wife, the daughter of Oliver De Lancey, lived in the fort and fared as the soldiers did. The army of Greene ominously increased ; the militia flocked in, eager to drive the hated foe from the land. But while New York was seriously affected by exciting events elsewhere, her chief fears were for her own fair island. Threatening storms hung in every part of the horizon. Rumors of a French fleet on the ocean under Count De May 22. Grasse, and an interview between Washington and Rochambeau at Wethersfield, Connecticut, intensified the general belief that the city was to be attacked. Clinton hastened to erect forts and batteries. He had forwarded detachments to co-operate with Cornwallis in Virginia, but, deceived by letters written to be intercepted, he recalled them for the
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WASHINGTON AT DOBB'S FERRY.
defense of New York. Cornwallis remonstrated against their departure, having already felt the stings of Steuben, Lafayette, and Wayne- sent by Washington to the State which had generously parted with her own gallant soldiery for the defense of other States beyond - and a significant letter from Lord Germain, applauding Cornwallis, and expressing the king's faith in the Virginia campaign, induced Clinton to direct the troops to remain after they had actually embarked. But he sent no more to Virginia. Early in July Washington suddenly encamped at
Dobb's Ferry. The next morning a portion of his armny appeared July 4 for a short season on the heights above Kingsbridge. On the 6th, the French army reached Dobb's Ferry from Newport.
For seven long summer weeks New York tossed in a tempest of perpetual apprehension. A series of feints kept the British on the alert. Five thousand American and French troops paraded, July 22, on the heights north of Harlem River, their arms flashing in the morning sunl- shine, the French in white broadcloth uniforms trimmed with green, and the flags of both nations unfolded to the breeze. Scouring-parties cleared the roads and menaced the outer posts of the enemy, while Washington and Rochambeau, attended by numerous officers, a corps of engineers, and an escort of dragoons, deliberately reconnoitered the works on the northern part of Manhattan Island, from the main, as far as the Sound, making notes and diagrams. The two commanders dined on the 23d at the Van Cortlandt Mansion,1 and returned in the night to Dobb's Ferry, withdrawing their forces from the region of Harlem River, having effected the object of the expedition. Clinton felt assured that Washington con- templated a blow at Staten Island, the possession of which in connection with a strong French naval force would greatly facilitate the operations of a siege ; he therefore employed nien night and day upon fortifications the whole length of Manhattan from the heights on the Jersey
for its defense. On the 15th of August, Washington inspected Aug. 15. shore of the Hudson, accompanied by Rochambeau, the Marquis de Chastellux, and a troop of generals and distinguished gentlemen. He rode one of the fine blood horses presented him by the State of Virginia, a beautiful animal which he had himself trained to leap the highest barriers ; and the skill with which he overcame the seemingly impassable physical peculiarities of the rough surface of the Palisades was the won- der and admiration of the French noblemen. "He usually," writes Chastellux, "rode very fast, without rising in his stirrup, bearing on the bridle; or suffering his horse to run as if wild."
Viewing the half-ruined city of New York in the distance, Washington
1 For sketch of Van Cortlandt Mansion at Kingsbridge (built in 1748), see Vol. I. 697.
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decided as well and wisely the course which would best contribute to her future greatness, as he could have done had he fully foreseen the glories of the coming century. He would conquer her captors, but in quite another latitude. He ordered extensive encampments marked out, ovens erected for baking bread, forage and boats collected in the recesses along the wall of rocks, and fictitious communications circulated to deceive and bewilder his own army as well as Sir Henry Clinton. "Our situation," writes Thatcher, "reminds me of some theatrical exhibition, where the interest and expectations of the spectators are continually increasing, and where curiosity is wrought to the highest pitch."
The signal ability with which Washington afforded effectual relief to both New York and Virginia might well excite the applause of mankind. Cornwallis had during the first week in August transferred his whole force to Yorktown, a small village upon an elevation some ninety feet above tide-water, with a level plain of several hundred acres on one side and a bay upon the other where the ships of the line might ride in safety. Lafayette, eight miles dis- tant, with a meager force, wrote to Vergennes : "In pursuance of the immense plan of his court, Lord Corn- wallis left the two Carolinas exposed, and General Greene has largely profited by it. He now is at York, a very advantageous place for one who has the maritime su- periority. If by any chance that superiority should be- come ours, our little army will participate in successes which will compensate it for a long and fatiguing campaign." At the instance of Washington, De Grasse with twenty-eight ships of Lafayette. the line, and nearly four thousand land troops from the West Indies, entered the Chesapeake and blocked up the York River. The situation of Cornwallis became at once perilous, and Clinton, with a force variously estimated - not less than eighteen thousand - could send him no aid, because of the confidently
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" Viewing tre halfmined city of New York in we datause. Wasungen dendet as well as welt the course which would best contribute to ver future greatest as he could have
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WASHINGTON'S MASTERLY MANŒUVRE.
anticipated siege of New York. While De Grasse was casting anchor Washington broke up his encampment at Dobb's Ferry, and, dexter- ously throwing out detachments to worry New York and Staten Island, crossed the Hudson with the allied armies, and marched Aug. 19. by two routes rapidly through New Jersey.
It was a masterly manœuvre. The delight of the French was un- bounded. The officers under Rochambeau were chiefly young men of rank to whom the service in America was romance. To overcome the reluctance which Northerners might feel as to marching under the burn- ing skies of Virginia in the hottest season of the year, Washington had promised each man a half-month's pay in hard money, having borrowed of Rochambeau twenty thousand dollars in coin, which Robert Morris was to repay by the 1st of October. The 30th was a high day in Philadelphia. About noon Washington and his retinue, including Aug. 30. the French generals, entered the city and rode to the residence of Robert Morris, amid the wildest cheers of an enthusiastic multitude upon the streets. In the evening Philadelphia was illuminated. The next day John Laurens came by way of Boston from his mission to France. He brought two and a half millions of livres in cash, being part of a subsidy of six millions of livres granted by the French king. On the 2d of September the American troops passed through Philadelphia, the Sept. 2. column extending two miles. On the 3d the French troops, dressed with scrupulous elegance as if for a holiday parade, followed in their footsteps, marching "in single file before the Congress, and Chevalier de la Luzerne, Minister from the Court of France." News of the presence of De Grasse in the Chesapeake, and that three thousand men had landed and joined the forces of Lafayette, reaclied Philadelphia the same day, creat- ing a whirlwind of joyous excitement.
The chagrin of Sir Henry Clinton was beyond expression. Washing- ton's army had crossed the Delaware before the truth broke on his mind. He was accused of stupidity, ignorance, irresolution, indecision, and cowardice, in thus having allowed an enemy to walk away without molestation. No one ventured to criticise his conduct with greater free- dom than Arnold, the traitor, who, when sent upon an expedition to Virginia in January, had been attended by two officers, authorized jointly to supersede him and put him in arrest "if they suspected him of any sinister intent." He was pacified with the command of an idle and dis- graceful expedition to New London which had little bearing upon the grave question at issue. Its object was to plunder and destroy. Arnold was the man above all others capable of insulting his native State by the wan- ton desolation of a thriving town only fourteen miles from the place of his
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birth. With a considerable fleet, and a force of two thousand infantry and three hundred dragoons, chiefly Tories and Hessians, he sailed fron
New York, and entered New London harbor on the 6th. Forts Sept 6. Griswold and Trumbull were stormed, taken, and dismantled. Colo- nel Ledyard, who gallantly defended the former for some forty minutes, was thrust through with his own sword after he had surrendered it to the British officer in command. The garrison received no quarter ; seventy- three men were slain in cold blood, and thirty or more severely wounded. The town was pillaged and burnt, and its inhabitants ruined. Arnold returned to New York from this inglorious achievement enriched with the spoils. It was his final appearance on the stage of American affairs.
The very day that New London was in flames, Washington, from the Head of Elk, was writing to De Grasse relative to the prospective capture of Cornwallis. Two days later, while Baltimore was celebrating
Sept. 8.
the arrival of Washington in that city, Greene was fighting the bloody battle of Eutaw Springs, which prostrated the British power in South Carolina. On the 9th, Washington rode from Baltimore to Mount Vernon, his beautiful home on the Potomac, which he had not seen in six years. He remained there two days dispensing hospitalities to the illustrious generals of two nations with courtly grace. On the Sept. 14. 14th he arrived at Williamsburg, twelve miles from Yorktown, where he was welcomed by Lafayette. Energetic preparations were made without delay, and the combined armies marched on the 28th from Williamsburg, encamping in the evening within two miles of Yorktown. By the first of October the line of besiegers formed a semicircle, each end resting on the river; thus the investment of Yorktown by land was complete. On the dark and tempestuous night of the 5th Oct. 5. trenches were opened with great secrecy six hundred yards from the works of Cornwallis - the Americans working on the right, the French on the left - the whole force commanded by General Lincoln, whose most efficient aide-de-camp was Matthew Clarkson of New York. Within three days the parallel nearly two miles long was completed, under a perpetual and heavy fire of shot and shells from the enemy ; not until the 9th, in the evening, were the American batteries in readiness to reply, after which the cannonading upon both sides was incessant. On the 11th the second parallel was commenced, three hundred yards only from the British works. Two advanced redoubts in the way of its prog- ress were stormed on the 14th; Hamilton, who had retired from Oct. 14. the private service of Washington and was now in command of a New York battalion, conducted the assault upon one of these, and Lafay- ette that upon the other. Both were successful. Nicholas Fish, major
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SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS.
of a regiment under Hamilton, led the advancing party with marvelous celerity. He excelled as a disciplinarian, and every movement was exe- cuted with fidelity and precision. Olney, of Providence, guided the first platoon of Gimat's battalion over the abatis. Hamilton placed one foot upon the shoulder of a soldier, who knelt for the purpose, and leaped upon the parapet. John Laurens, leading one of the columns, was among the foremost to enter the redoubt, making prisoner of its commanding officer. The killed and wounded of the British did not exceed eight, as the victors recoiled from imitating the barbarous precedents of the enemy. Not a man was killed or injured after he ceased to resist. Hamilton won conspicuous honor for his talents, gallantry, and humanity. The French carried the other redoubt at the same moment ; but, moving by rule and less swiftly, lost more men than did the Americans in their headlong attack.
The next day Cornwallis wrote to Clinton, " My situation now becomes very critical." By the 16th he was in despair, and made a bold and desperate effort to escape with his army, which was frustrated by a storm of wind and rain. At ten o'clock on the morning of the 17th, just four years after the memorable surrender of Burgoyne at Oct. 17. Saratoga, Cornwallis sent a flag to Washington proposing to capitulate. The terms settled by the commissioners appointed for the purpose were the same as those which had been imposed upon Lincoln at Charleston, and in accordance with arrangements in the allied camp, Lincoln received the submission of the army of Cornwallis precisely in the manner in which his own had been received on the surrender of Charleston. The final ceremonies of the famous event occurred October 19.
The effect was dazzling. The joyful tidings traveled with the speed of a typhoon. The suddenness of the transaction bewildered human imagination. The public mind hesitated about accepting as truth a story bearing such singular resemblance to fiction. Cornwallis was known as one of the most determined enemies of America, as well as a general of surpassing abilities, and it seemed incredible that he should have been captured, with an entire army numbering over seven thousand trained soldiers. The successive steps, beginning with the military manœuvres about New York City to prevent Clinton from sending aid to Cornwallis, and extending to the complete investment of Yorktown, were taken with such rapidity and sound judgment, and all the combinations were so skillfully arranged, that Washington was enveloped in a blaze of glory.
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