With Americans of Past and Present Days Part 2

IV

Nothing without my second division, Rochambeau thought. He had urged the government in his last letters before leaving France to send it not later than a fortnight after he himself had sailed: "The convoy will cross much more safely now under the guard of two warships," he had written to Montbarey, "than it will in a month with an escort of thirty, when the English are ready." And again, after having embarked on the _Duc de Bourgogne_: "For Heaven's sake, sir, hasten that second division.... We are just now weighing anchor." But weeks and months went by, and no news came of the second division. Washington with his ardent patriotism, Lafayette with his youthful enthusiasm, were pressing Rochambeau to risk all, in order to capture New York, the stronghold of the enemy and chief centre of their power. "I am confident," Rochambeau answered, "that our general (Washington) does not want us to give here a second edition of Savannah," and he felt the more anxious that, with the coming of recruits and going of veterans, and the short-term enlistments, "Washington would command now 15,000 men, now 5,000."

Rochambeau decided in October to send to France his son, then colonel of the regiment of Bourbonnais, to remonstrate. As capture was possible and the envoy might have to throw his despatches overboard, young Rochambeau, being blessed with youth and a good memory, had learned their contents by heart. One of the best sailors of the fleet had been selected to convey him, on the frigate _Amazone_. On account of superior forces mounting guard outside, the captain waited for the first night storm that should arise, when the watch was sure to be less strict, started in the midst of one, after having waited for eight days, was recognized, but too late, was chased, had his masts broken, repaired them, and reached Brest safely. The sailor who did so well on this occasion, and who was to meet a tragical death at Vanikoro, bore the name, famous since, of La Perouse.

Time wore on, a sad time for the American cause. One day the news was that one of the most trusted generals, famous for his services on land and water, Benedict Arnold, had turned traitor; another day that Gates had been routed at Camden and Kalb killed. In December Ternay died. In January, worse than all, the soldiers of the Pennsylvania line mutinied; unpaid, underfed, kept under the flag long after the time for which they had enlisted, "they went," Closen writes in his journal, "to extremities. In Europe they would not have waited so long."

There was no doubt, in fact, that the life they had to lead did not closely resemble that which, in accordance with the uses then prevailing in every country, the posters urging enlistment depicted to them. One such poster, preserved in Philadelphia, announces "to all brave, healthy, able-bodied, and well-disposed young men in this neighborhood who have any inclination to join the troops now raising, under General Washington, for the defense of the liberties and independence of the United States," a "truly liberal and generous [encouragement], namely, a bounty of twelve dollars, an annual and fully sufficient supply of good and handsome clothing, a daily allowance of a large and ample ration of provisions, together with sixty dollars a year in gold and silver money on account of pay." The appeal vaunted, by way of conclusion, "the great advantages which these brave men will have who shall embrace this opportunity of spending a few happy years in viewing the different parts of this beautiful continent, in the honorable and truly respectable character of a soldier, after which he may, if he pleases, return home to his friends with his pockets full of money and his head covered with laurels. G.o.d save the United States!" Pretty engravings showed handsome soldiers, elegantly dressed, practising an easy kind of military drill.

The danger was great, but brief; tempted by the enemy to change sides and receive full pay, the Pennsylvania line refused indignantly. "We are honest soldiers, asking justice from our compatriots," they answered, "we are not traitors." On the margin of a French account of those events, published in Paris in 1787, Clinton scribbled a number of observations. .h.i.therto unprinted.[29] They are in French, or something like it. Opposite this statement the British general wrote: "_Est bien dit et c'est dommage qu'il n'est pas vrai._" We cannot tell, but one thing is sure, namely, that in accordance with those words, spoken or not, the rebellious soldiers acted. Owing to Washington's influence, order soon reigned again, but the alarm had been very great, as shown by the instructions which he handed to Colonel Laurens, now sent by him to Versailles with a mission similar to that of young Rochambeau. The emotion caused by the last events is reflected in them: "The patience of the American army is almost exhausted.... The great majority of the inhabitants is still firmly attached to the cause of independence," but that cause may be wrecked if more money, more men, and more ships are not immediately supplied by the French ally.[30]

While the presence of the American and French troops in the North kept Clinton and his powerful New York garrison immobile where they were, the situation in the South was becoming worse and worse, with Cornwallis at the head of superior forces, Lord Rawdon holding Charleston, and the hated Arnold ravaging Virginia.

Against them the American forces under Greene, Lafayette, and Morgan (who had partly destroyed Tarleton's cavalry at Cowpens, January 17) were doing their utmost, facing fearful odds. With a handful of men, knowing that the slightest error might be his destruction, young Lafayette, aged twenty-four, far from help and advice, was conducting a campaign in which his pluck, wisdom, and tenacity won him the admiration of veterans. Irritated ever to find him on his path, Cornwallis was writing a little later to Clinton: "If I can get an opportunity to strike a blow at him without loss of time, I will certainly try it." But Lafayette would not let his adversary thus employ his leisure.

To arrest the progress of Arnold two French expeditions were sent, taking advantage of moments when access to the sea was not blocked by the English fleet before Newport, one in February, under Tilly, who pursued Arnold's convoy up the Elizabeth River as high as the draft of his ships permitted, but had to stop and come home, having only captured the _Romulus_, of 44 guns, some smaller ships, a quant.i.ty of supplies destined for Arnold, and made 550 prisoners; another of more importance under the Chevalier Destouches, in March, with part of Rochambeau's army on board, in case a landing were possible. In spite of all precautions, Destouches's intentions were discovered; the English fleet engaged ours; the fight, in which 72 French lost their lives and 112 were wounded, was a creditable one and might easily have ended in disaster, for the enemy had more guns, and several of our ships, on account of their not being copper-lined, were slow; but clever manuvring, however, compensated those defects. Congress voted thanks, but the situation remained the same. "And now," Closen noted down in his journal, "we have Arnold free to act as he pleases, Virginia desolated by his incursions, and M. de Lafayette too weak to do anything but keep on the defensive."

V

One day, however, something would have to be done, and, in order to be ready, Rochambeau kept his army busy with manuvres, military exercises, sham warfare ("le simulacre de la pet.i.te guerre"), and the building of fortifications. As for his officers, he encouraged them to travel, for a large part of the land was free of enemies, and to become better acquainted with these "American brothers," whom they had come to fight for. French officers were thus seen at Boston, Albany, West Point, Philadelphia. It was at this period that Chastellux went about the country with some of his companions, and gathered the material for his well-known _Voyages dans l'Amerique du Nord_, the first edition of which, in a much abbreviated form, was issued by that printing-press of the fleet which Rochambeau had recommended to himself not to forget: "De l'Imprimerie Royale de l'Escadre," one reads on the t.i.tle-page. Only twenty-three copies were struck off; the "Imprimerie Royale" of the fleet had obviously no superabundance of type nor of paper.

Closen, who, to his joy and surprise, had been made a member of Rochambeau's "family," that is, had been appointed one of his aides, as soon as his new duties left him some leisure, began, with his methodical mind, to study, he tells us, "the Const.i.tution of the thirteen States and of the Congress of America," meaning, of course, at that date, their several const.i.tutions, which organization, "as time has shown, is well adapted to the national character and has made the happiness of that people so respectable from every point of view." He began after this to examine the products of the soil of Rhode Island, "perhaps one of the prettiest islands on the globe."

The stay being prolonged, the officers began to make acquaintances, to learn English, to gain access to American society. It was at first very difficult; neither French nor American understood each other's language; so recourse was bravely had to Latin, better known then than to-day.

"_Quid de meo, mi carissime Drowne, cogitas silentio?_" A long letter follows, in affectionate terms addressed to Doctor Drowne, a Newport physician, and signed: "Silly, officier au regiment de Bourbonnois,"

September 9, 1780. Sublieutenant de Silly announced, however, his intention to learn English during the winter season: "_Inglicam linguam noscere conabor._" His letters of an afterdate are, in fact, written in English, but a beginner's English.[31]

For the use of Latin the commander-in-chief of the French army was able to set the example, and Ezra Stiles could talk at a dinner in that language with Rochambeau, still reminiscent of what he had learned when studying for priesthood. The president of Yale notes in his journal:

"5 [October, 1780]. Introduced to the commander-in-chief of the French allied army, the Count de Rochambeau....

"7. Dined at the General de Rochambeau's, in a splendid manner. There were, perhaps, thirty at table. I conversed with the general in Latin.

He speaks it tolerably."

Beginning to know something of the language, our officers risk paying visits and go to teas and dinners. Closen notes with curiosity all he sees: "It is good behavior each time people meet to accost each other, mutually offering the hand and shaking it, English fashion. Arriving in a company of men, one thus goes around, but must remember that it belongs to the one of higher rank to extend his hand first."

Unspeakable quant.i.ties of tea are drunk. "To crave mercy, when one has taken half a dozen cups, one must put the spoon across the cup; for so long as you do not place it so, your cup is always taken, rinsed, filled again, and placed before you. After the first, the custom is for the pretty pourer (_verseuse_)--most of them are so--to ask you: _Is the tea suitable?_"[32]--"An insipid drink," grumbles Chaplain Robin, over whom the prettiness of the pourers was powerless.

The toasts are also a very surprising custom, sometimes an uncomfortable one. "One is terribly fatigued by the quant.i.ty of healths which are being drunk (_toasts_). From one end of the table to the other a gentleman pledges you, sometimes with only a glance, which means that you should drink a gla.s.s of wine with him, a compliment which cannot be politely ignored."

In the course of an excursion to Boston the young captain visits an a.s.sembly of Quakers, "where, unluckily, no one was inspired, and ennui seemed consequently to reign."

But what strikes him more than anything else is the beauty of those young ladies who made him drink so much tea: "Nature has endowed the ladies of Rhode Island with the handsomest, finest features one can imagine; their complexion is clear and white; their hands and feet usually small." But let not the ladies of other States be tempted to resent this preference. One sees later that in each city he visits young Closen is similarly struck, and that, more considerate than the shepherd Paris, he somehow manages to refuse the apple to none. On the Boston ladies he is quite enthusiastic, on the Philadelphia ones not less; he finds, however, the latter a little too serious, which he attributes to the presence of Congress in that city.

But, above all, the object of my compatriots' curiosity was the great man, the one of whom they had heard so much on the other side, the personification of the new-born ideas of liberty and popular government, George Washington. All wanted to see him, and as soon as permission to travel was granted several managed to reach his camp. For all of them, different as they might be in rank and character, the impression was the same and fulfilled expectation, beginning with Rochambeau, who saw him for the first time at the Hartford conferences, in September, 1780, when they tried to draw a first plan for a combined action. A friendship then commenced between the two that was long to survive those eventful years.

"From the moment we began to correspond with one another," Rochambeau wrote in his memoirs, "I never ceased to enjoy the soundness of his judgment and the amenity of his style in a very long correspondence, which is likely not to end before the death of one of us."

Chastellux, who saw him at his camp, where the band of the American army played for him the "March of the Huron," could draw from life his well-known description of him, ending: "Northern America, from Boston to Charleston, is a great book every page of which tells his praise."[33]

Count de Segur says that he apprehended his expectations could not be equalled by reality, but they were. "His exterior almost told his story.

Simplicity, grandeur, dignity, calm, kindness, firmness shone in his physiognomy as well as in his character. He was of a n.o.ble and high stature, his expression was gentle and kindly, his smile pleasing, his manners simple without familiarity.... All in him announced the hero of a republic." "I have seen Washington," says Abbe Robin, "the soul and support of one of the greatest revolutions that ever happened.... In a country where every individual has a part in supreme authority ... he has been able to maintain his troops in absolute subordination, render them jealous of his praise, make them fear his very silence." Closen was one day sent with despatches to the great man and, like all the others, began to worship him.

As a consequence of this mission Washington came, on the 6th of March, 1781, to visit the French camp and fleet. He was received with the honors due to a marshal of France, the ships were dressed, the troops, in their best uniforms, "dans la plus grande tenue," lined the streets from Rochambeau's house (the fine Vernon house, still in existence[34]) to the harbor; the roar and smoke of the guns rose in honor of the "hero of liberty." Washington saw Destouches's fleet sail for its Southern expedition and wished it G.o.dspeed; and after a six days' stay, enlivened by "illuminations, dinners, and b.a.l.l.s," he left on the 13th. "I can say," we read in Closen's journal, "that he carried away with him the regrets, the attachment, the respect, and the veneration of all our army." Summing up his impression, he adds: "All in him betokens a great man with an excellent heart. Enough good will never be said of him."

VI

On the 8th of May, 1781, the _Concorde_ arrived at Boston, having on board Count de Barras, "a commodore with the red ribbon," of the same family as the future member of the "Directoire," and who was to replace Ternay. With him was Viscount Rochambeau, bringing to his father the unwelcome news that no second division was to be expected. "My son has returned very solitary," was the only remonstrance the general sent to the minister. But the young colonel was able to give, at the same time, news of great importance. A new fleet under Count de Gra.s.se had been got together, and at the time of the _Concorde's_ departure had just sailed for the West Indies, so that a temporary domination of the sea might become a possibility. "Nothing without naval supremacy," Rochambeau had written, as we know, in his note-book before starting.

In spite, moreover, of "hard times," wrote Vergennes to La Luzerne, and of the already disquieting state of our finances, a new "gratuitous subsidy of six million livres tournois" was granted to the Americans.

Some funds had already been sent to Rochambeau, one million and a half in February, with a letter of Necker saying: "Be a.s.sured, sir, that all that will be asked from the Finance Department for your army will be made ready on the instant." Seven millions arrived a little later, brought by the _Astree_, which had crossed the ocean in sixty-seven days, without mishap. As for troops, only 600 recruits arrived at Boston, in June, with the _Sagittaire_.

Since nothing more was to be expected, the hour had come for definitive decisions. A great effort must now be made, _the_ great effort in view of which all the rest had been done, the one which might bring about peace and American liberty or end in lasting failure. All felt the importance and solemnity of the hour. The great question was what should be attempted--the storming of New York or the relief of the South?

The terms of the problem had been amply discussed in letters and conferences between the chiefs, and the discussion still continued. The one who first made up his mind and ceased to hesitate between the respective advantages or disadvantages of the two projects, and who plainly declared that there was but one good plan, which was to reconquer the South, that one, strange to say, was neither Washington nor Rochambeau, and was not in the United States either as a sailor or a soldier, but as a diplomat, and in drawing attention to the fact I am only performing the most agreeable duty toward a justly admired predecessor. This wise adviser was La Luzerne. In an unpublished memoir, drawn up by him on the 20th of April and sent to Rochambeau on May 19 with an explanatory letter in which he asked that his statement (a copy of which he also sent to Barras) be placed under the eyes of Washington, he insisted on the necessity of immediate action, and action in the Chesapeake: "It is in the Chesapeake Bay that it seems urgent to convey all the naval forces of the King, with such land forces as the generals will consider appropriate. This change cannot fail to have the most advantageous consequences for the continuation of the campaign," which consequences he points out with singular clear-sightedness, adding: "If the English follow us and can reach the bay only after us, their situation will prove very different from ours; all the coasts and the inland parts of the country are full of their enemies. They have neither the means nor the time to raise, as at New York, the necessary works to protect themselves against the inroads of the American troops and to save themselves from the danger to which the arrival of superior forces would expose them." If the plan submitted by him offers difficulties, others should be formed, but he maintains that "all those which have for their object the relief of the Southern States must be preferred, and that no time should be lost to put them in execution."

At the Weathersfield conference, near Hartford, Conn., between the Americans and French, on the 23d of May (in the Webb house, still in existence), Washington still evinced, and not without some weighty reasons, his preference for an attack on New York. He spoke of the advanced season, of "the great waste of men which we have found from experience in long marches in the Southern States," of the "difficulty of transports by land"; all those reasons and some others, "too well known to Count de Rochambeau to need repeating, show that an operation against New York should be preferred, in the present circ.u.mstances, to the effort of a sending of troops to the South." On the same day he was writing to La Luzerne: "I should be wanting in respect and confidence were I not to add that our object is New York."

La Luzerne, however, kept on insisting. To Rochambeau he wrote on the 1st of June: "The situation of the Southern States becomes every moment more critical; it has even become very dangerous, and every measure that could be taken for their relief would be of infinite advantage.... The situation of the Marquis de Lafayette and that of General Greene is most embarra.s.sing, since Lord Cornwallis has joined the English division of the Chesapeake. If Virginia is not helped in time, the English will have reached the goal which they have a.s.signed to themselves in the bold movements attempted by them in the South: they will soon have really conquered the Southern States.... I am going to write to M. de Gra.s.se as you want me to do; on your side, seize every occasion to write to him, and multiply the copies of the letters you send him," that is, in duplicate and triplicate, for fear of loss or capture. "His coming to the rescue of the oppressed States is not simply desirable; the thing seems to be now of the most pressing necessity." He must not only come, but bring with him all he can find of French troops in our isles: thus would be compensated, to a certain extent, the absence of the second division.

Rochambeau soon agreed, and, with his usual wisdom, Washington was not long in doing the same. On the 28th of May the French general had already written to de Gra.s.se, beseeching him to come with every means at his disposal, to bring his whole fleet, and not only his fleet, but a supply of money, to be borrowed in our colonies, and also all the French land forces from our garrisons which he could muster. The desire of Saint-Simon to come and help had, of course, not been forgotten by Rochambeau, and he counted on his good-will. After having described the extreme importance of the effort to be attempted, he concluded: "The crisis through which America is pa.s.sing at this moment is of the severest. The coming of Count de Gra.s.se may be salvation."

Events had so shaped themselves that the fate of the United States and the destinies of more than one nation would be, for a few weeks, in the hands of one man, and one greatly hampered by imperative instructions obliging him, at a time when there was no steam to command the wind and waves, to be at a fixed date in the West Indies, owing to certain arrangements with Spain. Would he take the risk, and what would be the answer of that temporary arbiter of future events, Francois Joseph Paul Comte de Gra.s.se, a sailor from the age of twelve, now a lieutenant-general and "chef d'escadre," who had seen already much service on every sea, in the East and West Indies, with d'Orvilliers at Ushant, with Guichen against Rodney in the Caribbean Sea, a haughty man, it was said, with some friends and many enemies, the one quality of his acknowledged by friend and foe being valor? "Our admiral," his sailors were wont to say, "is six foot tall on ordinary days, and six foot six on battle days."

What would he do and say? People in those times had to take their chance and act in accordance with probabilities. This Washington and Rochambeau did. By the beginning of June all was astir in the northern camp.

Soldiers did not know what was contemplated, but obviously it was something great. Young officers exulted. What joy to have at last the prospect of an "active campaign," wrote Closen in his journal, "and to have an occasion to visit other provinces and see the differences in manners, customs, products, and trade of our good Americans!"

The camp is raised and the armies are on the move toward New York and the South; they are in the best dispositions, ready, according to circ.u.mstances, to fight or admire all that turns up. "The country between Providence and Bristol," says Closen, "is charming. We thought we had been transported into Paradise, all the roads being lined with acacias in full bloom, filling the air with a delicious, almost too strong fragrance." Steeples are climbed, and "the sight is one of the finest possible." Snakes are somewhat troublesome, but such things will happen, even in Paradise. The heat becomes very great, and night marches are arranged, beginning at two o'clock in the morning; roads at times become muddy paths, where wagons, artillery, carts conveying boats for the crossing of rivers cause great trouble and delay. Poor Abbe Robin, ill-prepared for martyrdom, becomes pathetic, talking of his own fate, fearful of being captured by the English and of becoming "the victim of those anti-republicans." He sleeps on the ground, under a torrential rain, "in front of a great fire, roasted on one side, drenched on the other." He finds, however, that "French gayety remains ever present in these hard marches. The Americans whom curiosity brings by the thousand to our camps are received," he writes, "with lively joy; we cause our military instruments to play for them, of which they are pa.s.sionately fond. Officers and soldiers, then, American men and women mix and dance together; it is the Feast of Equality, the first-fruits of the alliance which must prevail between those nations.... These people are still in the happy period when distinctions of rank and birth are ignored; they treat alike the soldier and the officer, and often ask the latter what is his profession in his country, unable as they are to imagine that that of a warrior may be a fixed and permanent one."

Washington writes to recommend precautions against spies, who will be sent to the French camp, dressed as peasants, bringing fruit and other provisions, and who "will be attentive to every word which they may hear drop."[35]

Several officers, for the sake of example, discard their horses and walk, indifferent to mud and heat; some of them, like the Viscount de Noailles, performing on foot the whole distance of seven hundred and fifty-six miles between Newport and Yorktown. Cases of sickness were rare. "The attention of the superior officers," says Abbe Robin, "very much contributed to this, by the care they took in obliging the soldiers to drink no water without rum in it to remove its noisome qualities." It is not reported that superior officers had to use violence to be obeyed.

This precaution, up to a recent date, was still considered a wise one; in the long journeys on foot that we used to take in my youth across the Alps, our tutor was convinced that no water microbe could resist the addition of a little kirsch. Anyway, we resisted the microbes.

On the 6th of July the junction of the two armies took place at Phillipsburg, "three leagues," Rochambeau writes, "from Kingsbridge, the first post of the enemy in the island of New York,"[36] the American army having followed the left bank of the Hudson in order to reach the place of meeting. On the receipt of the news, Lord Germain, the British colonial secretary, wrote to Clinton, who commanded in chief at New York: "The junction of the French troops with the Americans will, I am persuaded, soon produce disagreements and discontents, and Mr.

Washington will find it necessary to separate them very speedily, either by detaching the Americans to the southward or suffering the French to return to Rhode Island.... But I trust, before that can happen, Lord Cornwallis will have given the loyal inhabitants on both sides of the Chesapeake the opportunity they have so long ago earnestly desired of avowing their principles and standing forth in support of the King's measures." Similar proofs of my lord's ac.u.men abound in his partly unpublished correspondence. He goes on rejoicing and deducting all the happy consequences which were sure to result from the meeting of the French and American troops, so blandly elated at the prospect as to remind any one familiar with La Fontaine's fables, of Perrette and her milk-pot.

Washington, in the meantime, was reviewing the French troops (July 9), and Rochambeau the American ones, and--a fact which would have greatly surprised Lord Germain--the worse equipped the latter were, the greater the sympathy and admiration among the French for their endurance. "Those brave people," wrote Closen, "it really pained us to see, almost naked, with mere linen vests and trousers, most of them without stockings; but, would you believe it? looking very healthy and in the best of spirits."

And further on: "I am full of admiration for the American troops. It is unbelievable that troops composed of men of all ages, even of children of fifteen, of blacks and whites, all nearly naked, without money, poorly fed, should walk so well and stand the enemy's fire with such firmness. The calmness of mind and the clever combinations of General Washington, in whom I discover every day new eminent qualities, are already enough known, and the whole universe respects and admires him.

Certain it is that he is admirable at the head of his army, every member of which considers him as his friend and father." These sentiments, which were unanimous in the French army, a.s.suredly did not betoken the clash counted upon by the English colonial secretary, and more than one of our officers who had, a few years later, to take part in another Revolution must have been reminded of the Continental soldiers of '81 as they led to battle, fighting for a similar cause, our volunteers of '92.

No real hatred, any more than before, appeared among the French troops for those enemies whom they were now nearing, and with whom they had already had some sanguinary skirmishes. During the intervals between military operations relations were courteous, and at times amicable. The English gave to the French news of Europe, even when the news was good for the latter, and pa.s.sed to them newspapers. "We learned that news"

(Necker's resignation), writes Blanchard, "through the English, who often sent trumpeters and pa.s.sed gazettes to us. We learned from the same papers that Mr. de La Motte-Picquet had captured a rich convoy.[37]

These exchanges between the English and us did not please the Americans, nor even General Washington, who were unaccustomed to this kind of warfare." The fight was really for an idea, but, what might have dispelled any misgivings, with no possibility of a change of idea.

VII

Two unknown factors now were for the generals the cause of deep concern.