Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader (33 page)

British strength at sea had declined somewhat, and the French, who had undertaken a naval rebuilding program, were stronger than they had been twenty years earlier. Looking at their enemy’s force on the water, the British—with Sandwich sounding a warning concerning its potency—doubted that the strategy of the previous war could be resurrected. Germain and Sandwich, along with most others in the government,
also believed that British holdings in the West Indies were more important to the empire than the thirteen continental colonies.

Shifting forces to the West Indies cramped efforts on the mainland in fundamental ways. If the French entered the war, there could not be a major campaign to crush Washington’s army. The British navy was not only stretched thin off the American continent, but it now had to retain a considerable fleet in home waters to counter a possible invasion by the French. The next year, 1779, this problem grew enormously when Spain joined the war against Britain.
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Henry Clinton possessed a quicker intelligence than William Howe, and he had been impatient with him, though he followed orders loyally right up to the time of taking over. Not without protest, however—Clinton had questioned virtually every major aspect of Howe’s strategy. Howe’s penchant for inactivity depressed Clinton; his own energy sought an outlet in battle: in striking the Americans where they were weak, in conducting operations up the North River and in the southern states, in short doing something, someplace; and as second-in-command before Howe was relieved, he sometimes let his superior know that he had plans for action. It was Clinton’s plan that Howe had used in 1776 in Brooklyn—reluctantly, for he found Henry Clinton irritating in his demands that he carry the war to the rebels. He simply ignored Clinton’s opposition, in July of the following year, to his taking the army to Philadelphia by way of the Atlantic while Burgoyne struggled in the northern wilderness, only to collapse at Saratoga.

Not surprisingly, Clinton approached his assignment in spring 1778 with apprehension. His first responsibility, after all, was to evacuate Philadelphia and take his army out of any action that seemed promising. To be sure, Germain and his colleagues gave him some flexibility. When he abandoned Philadelphia, he might lead his army to Halifax or Rhode Island, but only after he had shipped much of it off to the West Indies and Florida. He could remain in New York, a depressing possibility, given his depleted force, but at least he would be in the fight that, had he not been directed to send his troops to another’s command, he thought he might win.

Washington’s mood during the spring brightened as Clinton’s darkened. The change in how he felt about the war began when he heard
that on March 13, 1778, the French had announced that they had allied themselves with the Americans, an action taken in secret early in February. The British government had learned of the new alliance almost as soon as it was made, and expected war to commence soon.

The news trickled into Washington’s headquarters with a note of uncertainty, until Henry Laurens early in May sent word that confirmed his hopes. Though Washington was uncertain of what it portended for the war, he allowed himself to hope that it might mean the war’s end, at least in America—an end that included American independence. “Hope salted with uncertainty” describes best his feelings during the summer months. He wanted to believe that the British would pull out all their troops concentrated in New York and Rhode Island. His hopes increased when he heard of the arrival of a French fleet under Admiral Charles Hector d’Estaing. The admiral himself had informed Washington of his coming, in a letter brimming with the extravagance so common in the vocabulary French officers used addressing one another. What Washington thought as he read d’Estaing’s compliments is not known, though he must have felt wonder and embarrassment as he read the following: “The talents and great actions of General Washington have insured him in the eyes of all Europe, the title, truly sublime, of deliverer of America.”
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This was only a sample of the French inflation he was to experience over the next few months, but there was substance too, as d’Estaing promised to establish communication with Washington; and of course—most important—he brought naval power to what both the Americans and the French intended to be a force to smash the British.

Washington answered with the suggestion that the French on the sea and the Americans on land together strike their enemy in New York City. D’Estaing carried four thousand soldiers, who would of course add to the Americans’ strength on land. Such matters engaged the two commanders’ attention in July, but before serious planning could begin, d’Estaing discovered that his ships drew too much water to cross the bar at the mouth of the harbor. New York obviously was out of reach for the French, and the Americans were not strong enough to make a move on their own.

American generals, including their commander in chief, had wished to push their enemy out of New York but had concluded that without a navy they lacked the strength to make such an effort. As was his practice,
Washington had consulted almost all his generals after Monmouth about a course of action. Almost all favored staying in place outside New York or sending an expedition to Rhode Island, where the British seemed vulnerable. General Clinton and Admiral Sir Peter Parker had established a naval post at Newport—an ice-free port—in December 1776. D’Estaing’s ships made an attack possible, and American discussions with him in July confirmed Washington’s judgment that a joint effort—the Americans by land, the French by sea—might lead to the destruction of British forces in Newport and the islands around it. Major General John Sullivan commanded American forces near Newport, and, following orders from Washington, soon had gathered about nine thousand men. D’Estaing had an impressive number of regulars on his ships and, more important, their big guns.

All seemed well, even though Admiral Lord Richard Howe followed d’Estaing to Rhode Island waters soon after he learned that d’Estaing was on the move from New York. Early in August, the two fleets maneuvered cautiously, each attempting to gain a favorable position against the other. They had not yet begun the heavy action that the number of ships and guns promised when nature intervened. Winds had been ominously strong for several days while the enemies confronted one another and then on August 11 the high winds turned into a gale. Neither side could hold its position, and soon they were scattered all along the coast, with sails and rigging giving way and masts and spars crashing down.

When the American militia in Rhode Island recognized that d’Estaing no longer could provide support, its men began deserting. When it became clear that he would not return—his ships were making their way to Boston, where repairs could be made—the trickling away of men became a heavy tide, and Sullivan discovered his army numbered after this rush only around four thousand. Full of bitterness over the French action, Sullivan evacuated his position on Rhode Island after fighting a successful rearguard action on August 29. In this action the American Continentals distinguished themselves, holding steady and then retiring under control. Nathanael Greene, who commanded the “right wing” of the army, praised his troops and their officers for their “great spirit.” Washington was delighted to read that Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens stood out—“its not in my power,” Greene reported, “to do justice to Col. Laurens who acted both the
General and the Partizan.” The Americans had behaved well, but they were forced to leave the island in British hands, with Sullivan in a fury at the abandonment by d’Estaing.
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Washington’s disappointment at the French departure approached Sullivan’s, but he could not allow it to be known. The Americans needed the French almost desperately, and Washington saw immediately that he must not allow local anger, such as Sullivan’s, to turn away d’Estaing and his force. Sullivan was always a blunt instrument, and on learning of d’Estaing’s action, he and other officers permitted their anger to run free. These officers used language not commonly found in communications to French admirals. Among the most cutting expressions was their opinion that the withdrawal in fact had been “derogatory to the Honor of France, contrary to the Intentions of his Most Christian Majesty & the Interest of his Nation & destructive in the highest Degree to the welfare of the United States of America & highly injurious to the Alliance formed between the two Nations.”
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The loss of French naval strength in American waters upended Washington’s strategy, and he feared that the criticisms of American officers in Sullivan’s command might inhibit plans for a Franco-American campaign in the future. He therefore concealed his own disappointment and sought to soothe irritation d’Estaing felt at the criticisms from Americans. The irritation was clear, though muffled, in d’Estaing’s letter of September 5, in which he says that it is “too common” for those in “Naval War to be judged with a degree of prejudice—especially when such prejudice is supported by the interested opinion of some individuals, who tho good pilots and worthy men in other respects have no idea of what a squadron is—however successfully they may have acquitted themselves in conducting small barks.” The muffling appears in the remainder of this sentence, in which Washington of course was exempted from the group accustomed to sailing small barks. Nor was he likely “to give way” to “passion.”
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Washington did not stagger under this load of praise, and he recognized that a response that included understanding and praise of d’Estaing and his fleet was called for. Incandescent prose was beyond his powers; for that he relied on John Laurens, of his staff. What emerged in the letter that Laurens wrote for him reassured d’Estaing that his American colleague saw in him “the virtues of a great mind … displayed in their brightest luster,” and that the disappointment
in Rhode Island waters “can never deprive you of the glory due you.”
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Besides this inflated admiration, Washington carefully explained to d’Estaing the disposition of the American army, which was in the process of moving itself so as to be able to maintain communications along the North River and protect the French fleet in Boston, should the British attempt to land troops there. His letter, in fact, takes the French into his confidence with an account of the sources of his food supply and a review of the strategic situation in New York and New England. His own judgment is clear in these comments and reveals a thorough assessment of the possibilities open to the British enemy and its American foes.
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For all its invocation of glory and its attention to French pride, there was another purpose behind Washington’s reassurance of d’Estaing. He wanted d’Estaing to understand that the Franco-American effort did not simply consist of joint warfare against the British. What they were fighting for was glorious, and glory was not simply confined to the men engaged in the struggle, a point he usually made in his letters only obliquely. In his effort to assuage American anger at the withdrawal of the French and the injury the French felt was done to them by the Americans, he knew he had to act quickly and to use a vocabulary comforting to them. Hence the reference—really an echo—of the grandness of the war, and the glory it returned to the men who fought it well.

The dismay of the French at the crassness of the protests against their leaving Rhode Island by Sullivan and his officers could be dismissed more easily than these officers’ objections. Washington recognized that in d’Estaing’s affronted sensibilities there was an eagerness to belittle his American critics. These officers, d’Estaing sniffed, were small men used to sailing small craft, and as such were uncomprehending in what it took to lead a squadron. Washington recognized the bruised spirit that underlay French sneers, and he wished to soothe it in all possible ways. One such way—pointed out to Greene—was to appeal to Lafayette, whom he asked to intercede with d’Estaing and the French naval officers. If Lafayette could be “pacified,” Washington believed, the other “French Gentlemen will of course be satisfied as they look up to him as their Head.”
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However offended Lafayette was by the protests from General Sullivan and his officers, he could not resist the reassurances of Washington, one of the idols in his life. Washington’s summation of the
brouhaha in Rhode Island subtly appealed to Lafayette’s prejudices. While seemingly declaring that he shared Lafayette’s reactions (“I feel everything that hurts the sensibility of a Gentleman; and, consequently, upon the present occasion, feel for you & for our good & great Allys the French—I feel myself but also at every illiberal, and unthinking reflection which may have been cast upon Count d’Estaing, or the conduct of the Fleet under his command”) he added, “I feel for my Country.” This last sentence was not meant to suggest that Washington regarded the American people as exemplars of perfection. The reality was far from perfection, as he told Lafayette: “in a free, and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude—every Man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking—consequently will judge of Effects without attending to the Causes.”
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Washington’s letters to General Sullivan, a subordinate in a way Lafayette was not, sounded a different tone. Always polite, Washington gently reminded Sullivan of the sensitive nature of the Franco-American relationship but also made it clear that he did not wish to have the uproar in Rhode Island continue. American interest required a “cordiality” with the French, “a people old in war, very strict in military etiquette, and apt to take fire when others scarcely seem warmed.”
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It was necessary to cultivate “harmony” and good agreement with them, and along this line it was also necessary to keep knowledge of the protest from American soldiers in the ranks. Though Washington knew that his wishes would be difficult for Sullivan to accept, he also knew that Sullivan would follow orders—and he urged Sullivan to do “all in your power to forward the repairs of the French fleet.”