Thomas Nelson -- Closing the Trap
Let us leave temporarily Thomas Nelson’s efforts to support
George Washington’s attempt to trap British General Cornwallis and focus on the
French naval contributions and British naval and military blunders that led to
American and French victory.
The Battle of the Capes, so
vital to George Washington’s victory at Yorktown ,
commenced September 5. Luck played a
considerable part in the French naval victory.
Here are four useful maps.
http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/capes2-2.jpg
British Admiral George Rodney, responsible for neutralizing
the French fleet in American waters, prior to returning to London because of
ill health, had sent a dispatch to Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot in New York warning
him that a large French squadron was heading west across the Atlantic and that
“you may be upon your guard.” By the
time the dispatch reached New York ,
Arthunot had been replaced by Admiral Thomas Graves, a self-important, lackadaisical,
obdurate commander. Ignoring Rodney’s
warning, Graves sailed his fleet along the Atlantic coast north of New York in search of a possible French convoy of
merchantmen rumored to be transporting to America money, clothing, and military
stores, the convoy “escorted by one ship of the line, another armed en flute,
and two frigates. … The admiralty [had] advised
Graves that the British Government felt a most serious blow would be struck if
the colonies were deprived of these essential succours, and gave orders to the
commander of the North American fleet to keep a sharp lookout for the convoy
and to determine upon the most likely places to station cruisers for the
purpose of intercepting it” (Capes 1). Graves,
therefore, was absent when a second dispatch sent by Rodney, declaring that
French Admiral Francois de Grasse was in the West Indies and Graves should take
his fleet to Virginia, arrived. The
captain of the sloop of war that had carried the dispatch to New
York had thereupon sailed eastward in search for Graves . Attacked by three Yankee privateers, he was
forced to throw the message overboard.
Admiral Samuel Hood, in the West Indies ,
had thereafter replaced Rodney. The
“energetic Hood—who knew that de Grasse was somewhere in the vicinity, but who
was unsure whether he had sailed for the mainland or was still in the
Caribbean—headed at once for New York with fourteen warships, determined to
join Admiral Graves and seek out de Grasse or [Admiral Comte de] Barras [at Newport,
Rhode Island] before they [de Grasse and Barras] could combine forces” (Ketchum
188). En route he looked in at the Chesapeake Bay and saw only several picket vessels on
patrol for General Cornwallis. De Grasse
had left the West Indies almost a week ahead of Hood but had sailed up the
American coast past Charleston ,
where he captured three British ships.
Hood, some distance out in the Atlantic ,
had sailed past de Grasse without seeing him.
As Hood sped for New York , de Grasse,
hugging the coastline, entered Chesapeake Bay
with his transports carrying 3,000 soldiers and supplies and thirty warships.
Arriving in New York , Hood
discovered that Graves believed that de Grasse had probably gone to Havana to join the Spaniards and Washington and Rochambeau
were in motion in the Jerseys to threaten Staten Island . Hood declared “that no time was to be lost,
that they should sail immediately” for Virginia . That evening Graves received a message that
Barras had left Rhode Island
and was sailing south. However, Graves,
feeling the need to repair five of his ten warships, delayed leaving for the Chesapeake . When his fleet departed, he had nineteen
ships, carrying nineteen hundred guns.
It never caught sight of Barras’s much slower force, which succeeded to
elude him.
The squadron arriving off the Chesapeake on the morning of September 5, the
lookout of the lead British ship “called out that he saw a forest of masts in
the harbor, about ten miles distant. The
captain didn’t believe him; they must be trees, he said. It was soon apparent, however, that they were
not trees but French ships, and they were putting to sea with decks cleared for
action. De Grasse had twenty-four ships
of the line, carrying seventeen hundred guns” (Ketchum 190).
It was the hurricane season along the Virginia capes. The outcome of the impending battle would be
determined substantially by the quirky winds and currents. Around three o’clock “the French ships were
ordered to run full so the entire fleet could produce the heaviest possible
fire when they came alongside the British; about an hour later the action
began” (Ketchum 190) at a distance of a musket shot.
At five o’clock the wind shifted and de Grasse signaled his
captains to lay on canvas and head after the enemy as best they could. Graves ’s
squadron, severely punished, took advantage of the wind and kept its distance
until sunset when the engagement ended.
On September 6, the wind being feeble, both fleets made repairs. The following day was also calm. Repairs continued. On September 8 the wind shifted and Graves attacked.
De Grasse reacted immediately. Recognized
his peril, Graves ordered his fleet to turn
and run before the wind. By the night of
September 8, the two fleets had drifted about a hundred miles to the south to
the latitude of Cape Hatteras ,
North Carolina . No longer seeing the British fleet, de
Grasse, fearing “a change in the wind might permit the British fleet to get
ahead of him and attack Barras, who was carrying the vitally important siege
artillery, signaled his captains to return to the Chesapeake ” (Ketchum 191).
“Luck—or Providence —had
been with the Americans in every instance that counted. First of all, Graves
never received Rodney’s warning. Then,
inexplicably, the British under Graves failed to attack de Grasse’s ships one
by one as they emerged from Chesapeake Bay . Another stroke of luck was that the lethargic
Graves —not the aggressive Rodney-- … was
commanding the British squadron. Yet
another was that Barras and his ships made it safely from Rhode
Island to Virginia without
detection by either Hood or Graves . In the naval engagement that decided the Yorktown campaign, only one ship was lost, and that was
scuttled by the British” (Ketchum 191-192).
Early on, General Cornwallis had had the opportunity to
escape the planned allied entrapment. “At
the moment the French fleet appeared on August 31, Cornwallis’s avenue of
escape was wide open. De Grasse had not
disembarked any troops, and the army under Washington and Rochambeau was
several weeks’ march away….” Cornwallis,
however, stayed put. ”His best chance of
keeping his army intact would have been to attack Lafayette’s weak force …, but
at this moment he received Clinton’s promise of relief and opted for inaction,
while his soldiers continued working day and night on the outworks …” (Ketchum
204).
“As late as September 8, Cornwallis had no reason to think
he would not be relieved and rescued.
French troops [de Grasse]—3,800 of them—had landed. Lafayette was
at Williamsburg ,
and reportedly the allied armies would arrive soon. Nevertheless, the British were ready for them
and had taken a very strong position just outside town …” (Ketchum 206).
The following day Admiral Graves sent a shocking message to
Commanding General Henry Clinton. He
“was sorry to inform the general that ‘the enemy have so great a naval force in
the Chesapeake
that they are absolute masters of its navigation.’ … The
French appeared to have suffered, he continued, but his fleet had taken much
heavier damage” (Ketchum 206). On
September 14, having received Graves’s message, Clinton held a council of war. The key questions to be debated and answered
were that since Cornwallis’s “garrison could evidently defend the post for at
least three weeks, was it advisable to commit a reinforcement of five or six
thousand men ‘to the hazards of the sea during our present inferiority and
endeavor to relieve Lord Cornwallis at all costs” or “should they await further
accounts from Admiral Graves and see how Admiral Robert Digby’s squadron
[reportedly to have left England] might affect their chances of success”
(Ketchum 207). After much discussion
their decision was to wait for more favorable accounts from Graves
or for Digby’s arrival. “How these
senior military officers could possibly imagine that Graves would give them a
more favorable account is difficult to imagine, but since Digby had not been
sighted and no one knew how many vessels he had with him, surely it would be
safe to delay decision until he arrived” (Ketchum 207). (Digby arrived September 24 with three ships
of the line) On September 17 Clinton held another
council of war. Having been informed by
Cornwallis that he had provisions for six weeks, “once again they stalled for
time, deciding that any attempt to ‘throw in supplies and reinforcements ought
to be deferred until it could be undertaken with less danger than at
present.’ … Since an army could not act
there alone without the cooperation of the fleet, it would be ‘highly improper
to add considerably to the numbers already in Virginia ’ until such time as the presence of
the fleet became practicable” (Ketchum 208. 209).
On September 16, Cornwallis wrote to Clinton : “‘I am of opinion that you can do me
no effectual service but by coming directly to this place’” (Ketchum 208). “Given the situation in which the possibility
of rescue was virtually nil, he [Cornwallis] had only one option, which was to
escape at any cost before the arrival of Washington’s [and Rochambeau’s] troops
shut the trap. … Major Alexander Ross,
Cornwallis’s aide, persuaded the earl that Clinton ’s promise of relief left him no
choice but to hold his post. This was
absurd, and Cornwallis had to know it …” (Ketchum 205).
Having arrived in Virginia
September 13 ahead of their armies, Washington and Rochambeau met almost
immediately with de Grasse on the admiral’s flag ship. De Grasse told them that he had been
instructed to leave on October 15, “but he would, on his own, stretch that
until the end of the month. That gave Washington almost six
weeks in which to force Cornwallis to surrender” (Ketchum 210). Several days later, having learned that
Admiral Digby had arrived in New York, de Grasse informed Washington by
messenger “that since the enemy was now nearly equal to him in strength [not
so] and it would be imprudent to remain in a position where he could not
readily attack them, he would leave several frigates to block the James and two
ships at the mouth of the York while he put to sea with the fleet. ‘I will sail with my forces towards New
York,’ he said, ‘and I may possibly do more for the common cause than by
remaining here as an idle spectator. … I
shall set sail as soon as the wind permits’” (Ketchum 211-212). Washington
sent Lafayette
immediately to meet with de Grasse to attempt to change his mind. Rochambeau sent a letter to de Grasse via Lafayette . Before the Frenchman arrived, probably
because his officers had expressed their disapproval of his plan, de Grasse
recanted his decision.
On September 28, Washington, Rochambeau, and the two allied
armies began their march from Williamsburg to
the environs of Yorktown . The French had about 7,800 troops. The Americans (counting 3,000 Virginia militia
commanded by Thomas Nelson) had 8,845.
“Astonishingly, … the roads that the British should have defended foot
by foot were uncontested” (Ketchum 214).
The army “formed camp in a great curve extending from York
River . … The French held
the left flank while the Americans held the right. Nelson and his troops, stationed at the extreme
right, made up a reserve for Lafayette ’s
regulars” (Evans 118). Countering the
French and American forces were about 7,200 British soldiers. The trap was set.
Works cited:
Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown :
Revolutionary Virginian. (Charlottesville,
Virginia: The University Press of Virginia, 1975). Print.
Ketchum, Richard M. Victory at Yorktown :
The Campaign That Won the Revolution.
(New York :
Henry Holt and Company, 2004). Print.
“Second Naval Battle of the Virginia Capes (1781).” http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/capes_2.htm. Net.
No comments:
Post a Comment