Victory at Yorktown: A Novel (42 page)

If all had been reversed, he would have fought until bled out to hold the outer line, then withdrawn to the inner line, and if need be, his men reduced to eating the boiled marrow of their horses and belt leather rather than submit to this. When freedom was pitted against tyranny, he prayed, that henceforth and forever, those fighting for freedom, for the rights of man, would, if need be, hold to the last man, and if fated to fall, before doing so, they would train their sons to remember them and to continue that fight. He thought of the bitter atrocity of the pregnant woman. Cornwallis had yet to reply to that, but he would press to investigate, and at that moment he offered a prayer to her fallen soul that her spirit was here, with that of her unborn child, to know that their suffering had insured that others would never suffer the same fate, for good and honest men, aroused to protect innocence, had come to the side of their cause for this fight. She, poor suffering woman, had contributed to this victory, and he prayed history would not forget her, and that those who did such a cruel deed would stand before God and her to beg forgiveness.

The drum major, the fifers, pipers, and drummers passed, and now came their officers. To his shock and, yes as well, his disdain, Cornwallis did not lead the march, it was their second in command, General O’Hara, a decent opponent, most definitely not Tarleton or Grey. Yet it was not Cornwallis, and what respect he still had for the man was shattered at that moment, never to return.

O’Hara caught his glance, but then, and this was yet another shock, averted his gaze. He had heard O’Hara, whom he had never faced in battle, was an honorable man, who had been severely wounded at Guilford Court House and had lost his son in that action. O’Hara angled across the road and reined in directly in front of Rochambeau.

“Sir, I regret to say that General Cornwallis is indisposed due to the ague,” O’Hara cried so that all could hear. “I therefore bear his sword that I now present to you as token of our surrender to your forces.”

There were gasps of protest from those around Washington. Lafayette, Knox, von Steuben, and the son of President Laurens, Colonel John Laurens, returned from France, who had served as the direct agent negotiating the surrender. Dan Morgan and his lifelong companion Old Mose, and a host of others, including the young silent Peter Wellsley, threatened to ride forward at this effrontery, but a gesture from their general held them.

He smiled, knowing what his trusted friend and ally would do.

Rochambeau, with a wave of his hand so beautifully French, made a gesture of disdain, and then stood in his stirrups and pointed directly at Washington.

“There, sir, there, is my commander and the architect of our victory!” he cried, first in English and then in French, so that all understood his words, and a gasp of delight went up from the men of the Continental line who were close enough to see and witness this grand gesture. Many of their French comrades on the other side of the road silently raised their hats in salute, and with flourishes, then bowed to the American line on the other side of the road.

Washington, so rarely prone to open emotion, struggled for control. It was the single most gallant gesture he had ever witnessed, and one he swore he would never forget.

Taken aback, abashed, O’Hara, red-faced, turned away from Rochambeau’s haughty rebuff, turned his gray mount about, and now faced Washington, his emotions composed and within him now, a building anger. Either Cornwallis should be here or should have honorably died in battle, as he knew he had chosen to do more than once in desperate actions, to either win or die. But to hide behind this poor man, burdened with his sword?

“Sir,” and for a moment O’Hara’s voice choked with obvious shame, “I present to you the sword of…”

Washington raised his hand swiftly, a sharp command for silence.

“Sir,” he announced slowly, carefully enunciating each word. “Since the general, of equal rank to my own, has decided to suddenly be,” he hesitated then realized never to let his anger hold sway, “indisposed, then I refer you to my gallant comrade, General Benjamin Lincoln, who shall accept the sword of surrender.”

Lincoln looked over at him with astonishment. He had been in command of the garrison that had attempted to hold back the surprise arrival of Cornwallis, backed by a British fleet in Charleston Harbor, the opening move of the bitter campaign for the Carolinas. Forced to concede the city, Cornwallis had ordered the most humiliating of terms to allow Lincoln to surrender and withdraw, completely outside the rules of their version of traditional warfare that an honorable foe, who had put up an honorable fight, was to be acknowledged as such. Lincoln had fought in the backwaters for more than two years, haunted by that humiliation, his staff fearing at times he would take his own life as some sort of Roman-like atonement for that day.

Now the man just stared at Washington, who by surprise had selected him for this honor and this atonement before friend and foe.

O’Hara formally held the sword in its scabbard, hilt pointed to Lincoln, who reached out, took the weapon, and with a brief flourish held it up so that all could see, but something in his gaze and that of Washington stilled any spontaneous cheering. He then leaned forward, and there were gasps of surprise when after all this man had endured, Lincoln handed the sword back to O’Hara.

“You have fulfilled your duty, sir,” Lincoln said. “The surrender of all the king’s forces and those who serve him is now accepted and the terms of surrender honored by us. Keep the sword.”

He hesitated.

“Keep the sword for yourself,” he finished, his voice now edged with bitterness, “you presented it to me as your duty demanded. I have returned it to you personally, in token of friendship to you an honorable soldier, and it is now yours to keep.”

The double meaning of his words was obvious and there were mutters of approval from the staff behind Washington. O’Hara took the scabbarded blade back and cradled it under his left arm. He raised his hat in token of salute, first to Lincoln, then to Rochambeau who returned the salute, and then, at last, to Washington, bowing low as he did so.

Washington, remembering all that this war had done to his land, his people, his comrades, neighbors, and now fellow citizens, touched the brim of his hat in reply.

O’Hara turned his mount and with gaze fixed straight ahead, trotted forward, the pipers, drummers, and fifers falling in behind him, and again they played the tune all would comment on later as so ironic, “The World Turned Upside Down.”

Emerging from the fortifications came rank after rank of onceproud British infantry, who for nearly a century, ever since the campaigns of Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession, held themselves to be the elite of the world.

Their colors were cased and would be confiscated, a term Washington insisted upon in spite of the counterthreat of a few British officers that they would fight to the death rather to accede to such a dishonor, but his demand had held firm.

After the humiliation of Lincoln and his men, who, as they finally abandoned their works in what they had thought was honorable surrender and withdrawal, had, instead, their colors snatched from them and passed through a gauntlet of jeering men. The same men were now surrendering, but would not face such a gauntlet. He remembered as well, the Dante-like hell reported, regarding the prison hulks that still rotted in the East River. The enlisted men this day would go into captivity until this war was ended, but would do so out on the Pennsylvania frontier, with the agreement that British agents would be allowed to attend to them and to supplement their rations transported through the lines, a request he had made more than once to Howe and Clinton for his men held in captivity, and always had been rebuked.

There was a political side to his decision regarding the flags as well. He would later present them as trophies of war to de Grasse, Barre, and Rochambeau to return to France and display before their king. Such things carried great weight and honor in the courts of Europe, and the gesture would be long remembered

Rank after rank of them marched by, some staring straight ahead, some obviously drunk and shamed, helped along by their comrades. The Hessian contingents marched out, their riflemen without weapons, for nearly all had smashed them rather than surrender their precious arms, and they did look about nervously, fearing retribution, for rumor had spread with them that they would be held to account, blamed for atrocities not of their fault. Washington had already detailed some of his men from Pennsylvania of German descent to fall in with them, once clear of the surrender ground, to reassure them, and to offer them pardon if they would remove their Hessian uniforms, offer parole, and settle in as laborers on the farms of their German cousins around Lancaster, Reading, and York. Many would take that offer, and then try to find means to bring their families here. Their petty princelings had sold them into this war, and with this final defeat, in their bitterness, many were now asking, why return to Europe, when such an offer was being made of forgiveness and to stay here in this new land?

Of light infantry not a man was to be seen. Hours before the surrender, Laurens had reported back that all men of those ranks, and grenadiers as well, along with Loyalists, who had not decided to just try and take their chances with escaping and instead hid within the ranks, were being issued fresh uniforms of infantry of the line and merged into the ranks. Washington had decided not to press the issue, yet again, fearing that even now, a formal ceremony of peaceful surrender could still go awry in a panic. They might have been to the bottom of the barrel with ammunition and rations, but some paper pusher in England, months before, had made sure an entire shipload of five thousand new uniforms had braved the Atlantic and the threat of French capture, to run the new uniforms in just before de Grasse had closed the gate.

It took several hours for the column of over seven thousand men, the largest prisoner haul of this war, to pass down by the marsh where they stacked muskets, cartridge boxes, and flags, and were stripped of all regimental insignias from belts and caps. This followed at the end by the pitiful sight of half a hundred wagons drawn by horses provided by the Americans, since they had slaughtered their own, containing within the suffering wounded and dying of this broken army.

The road into Yorktown was empty, except for the refuse of an army marching to surrender; some broken muskets of men too proud to surrender the weapon, the symbol of their pride as a soldier for years; thousands upon thousands of pieces of paper of cast-off letters, some of it, perhaps incriminating, if taken in a search of a man’s pockets; even the glint of the king’s shilling, pay they would rather toss aside than have looted from them later by some Rebel.

The road into Yorktown, the goal of so many months, what he once thought little more than a dream, now lay open to Washington and his men. All around him were silent, some openly weeping with joy at the sight of it.

“I want sufficient rations for whatever civilians still are within the town to be brought up immediately,” he announced.

He crossed the road, extending his hand to Rochambeau.

“Come, my friend, let us take our city back.”

“Your city, mon Général,” Rochambeau replied, “your city, your dream, your country.”

“But not without you,” and he pointed the way. “Sir, I demand the honor that you shall ride in first after all that you have done for America this day.”

Eighteen

PHILADELPHIA

NOVEMBER 11, 1781

It had been a day of tumultuous celebration unlike any witnessed since perhaps the day when the Declaration had first been read aloud to cheering crowds on the Glorious Fourth, now five years past. Read, even as the British invasion fleet, with thirty thousand sent to suppress that Declaration, had sailed into the outer approaches to New York harbor.

The entire city had prepared for days for this moment. Patriotic displays of fresh-cut garlands of pine arched over Market Street Banners stretched across the road up from Wilmington proclaimed, “All Glory to Our Gallant Heroes of Yorktown,” “Philadelphia Welcomes Our General Washington and His Men,” and even a few in French, honoring the men of Rochambeau.

Word had, amazingly, arrived in Philadelphia only three days after the surrender, carried by post riders an exhausting three hundred miles, and the city had erupted with joy after weeks of anxious worry. There had been a startling rumor that Clinton had bestirred and as a countermove was marching upon the capital of the rebellion with the threat to raze it to the ground in retribution, and yet again, the more skittish of Congress had prepared to flee the city. The rumor, of course, had proven false. Clinton had, in fact, bestirred himself at last, loading more than five thousand of his garrison of New York into transports and, accompanied by the refitted ships of Graves, at last sallied to the relief of Cornwallis. While still off the coast of Virginia, a Loyalist, who had escaped the trap and somehow dodged all the patrols and reached the coast, actually managed to steal a small fishing boat and sailed out to the grand fleet, slowly riding down the coast facing contrary breezes, bearing the news that the entire army had surrendered the week before. Then, Admiral Graves, spotting the combined fleets of de Grasse and Barre, had declined battle since, after all, they did have nine more ships of the line than he did.

With that, the entire flotilla had turned back to New York, and as all of America was now taunting, did so with their tails between their legs.

Clinton’s report, it was said, was already winging to England aboard a packet ship, bearing news of the disaster and soundly denouncing Cornwallis for not holding out as any English officer should have until relief, as he had promised, arrived, rather than so basely and abjectly go into captivity.

For a city that had endured three quarters of a year of haughty occupation by these same men, it was yet further cause of merriment and delight to welcome the triumphant hosts of Washington and Rochambeau, their victory at Yorktown complete, and finally now marching back north at an easy pace to resume their watchful surrounding of the last bastion of England in North America, the city of New York.