Читать книгу With Americans of Past and Present Days - J. J. Jusserand - Страница 4

Je mets ma confiance,

Vierge, en votre secours,

Et quand ma dernière heure

Viendra, guidez mon sort;

Obtenez que je meure

De la plus sainte mort."

Various incidents break the monotony of the journey. On the 18th of June the Surveillante captures an English corsair, which is a joy, but they learn from her the fall of Charleston and the surrender of Lincoln, which gives food for thought. Nothing better shows the difference between old-time and present-time navigation than the small fact that while on the way they indulge in fishing. On board the Comtesse de Noailles they capture flying-fishes, which are "very tender and delicious to eat, fried in fresh butter, like gudgeons."

An occasion offers to open fight, with the advantage of numerical superiority, on six English vessels; some shots are exchanged, but with great wisdom, and, in spite of the grumblings of all his people, Ternay refuses to really engage them, and continues his voyage. "He had his convoy too much at heart," says Closen, "and he knew too well the importance of our expedition, his positive orders being that he must make our army arrive as quickly as possible, for him not to set aside all the entreaties of the young naval officers who, I was told, were very outspoken on that score, as well as most of the land officers, who know nothing of naval matters."

The event fully justified Ternay, for Graves, whose mission it had been to intercept him and his slow and heavy convoy, missed his opportunity by twenty-four hours only, reaching New York, where he joined forces with Arbuthnot just as our own ships were safe at Newport. The slightest delay on Ternay's part might have been fatal.

The more so since, when nearing the coast our fleet had fallen into fogs. "Nothing so sad and dangerous at sea as fogs," Closen sententiously writes; "besides the difficulty of avoiding collisions in so numerous a fleet, each vessel, in order to shun them, tries to gain space; thus one may chance to get too far from the centre. The standing orders for our convoy were, in view of avoiding those inconveniences, to beat the drums every quarter of an hour or fire petards. The men-of-war fired their guns or sent rockets. The speed-limit was three knots during the fog, so that each vessel might, as far as possible, continue keeping company with its neighbor." In spite of all which the Ile de France was lost, and there was great anxiety; she was not seen again during the rest of the journey, but she appeared later, quite safe, at Boston.

The landing orders of Rochambeau, making known now to all concerned the intentions of the government, were clear and peremptory. Drawn up by him on board the Duc de Bourgogne, he had caused copies to be carried to the chiefs of the several corps on board the other ships:

"The troops which his Majesty is sending to America are auxiliary to those of the United States, his allies, and placed under the orders of General Washington, to whom the honors of a marshal of France will be rendered. The same with the President of Congress," which avoided the possibility of any trouble as to precedence, no one in the French army having such a rank. "In case of an equality of rank and duration of service, the American officer will take command. … The troops of the King will yield the right side to the allies; French troops will add black to their cockades, black being the color of the United States," and some such hats, with black and white cockades, are still preserved at Fraunces' Tavern,[18] New York. "The intention of his Majesty," the general continues, "is that there be perfect concert and harmony between the generals and officers of the two nations. The severest discipline will be observed. … It is forbidden to take a bit of wood, a sheaf of straw, any kind of vegetables, except amicably and in paying. … All faults of unruliness, disobedience, insubordination, ill-will, brutal and sonorous drunkenness … will be punished, according to ordinances with strokes of the flat of the sword." Even "light faults of lack of cleanliness or attention" will be punished. "To make the punishment the harder for the French soldier, he will be barred from military service during his detention."

The army, but not the fleet, had been placed under the orders of Washington. Ternay's instructions specified, however, that while his squadron had no other commander than himself, it was expected that he would "proffer all assistance that might facilitate the operations of the United States," and that he would allow the use of our ships "on every occasion when their help might be requested." Good-will was obviously the leading sentiment, and the desire of all was to give as little trouble and bring as much useful help as possible.

III

On the 11th day of July the fleet reached Newport, after seventy days at sea, which was longer than Columbus had taken on his first voyage, but which was nothing extraordinary. Abbé Robin, a chaplain of the army, arrived later, after a journey of eighty-five days, none the less filled with admiration for those "enormous machines with which men master the waves"[19]—a very minute enormity from our modern point of view. "There were among the land troops," says Closen, "endless shouts of joy" at the prospect of being on terra firma again. The troops, owing to their having been fed on salt meat and dry vegetables, with little water to drink (on board the Comtesse de Noailles water had become corrupt; it was now and then replaced by wine, "but that heats one very much"), had greatly suffered. Scurvy had caused its usual ravages; 600 or 700 soldiers and 1,000 sailors were suffering from it; some had died.

They were now confronted by the unknown. What would that unknown be? Rochambeau had only his first division with him; would he be attacked at once by the English, who disposed of superior naval and land forces about New York? And what would be the attitude of the Americans themselves? Everybody was for them in France, but few people had a real knowledge of them. Lafayette had, but he was young and enthusiastic. Would the inhabitants, would their leader, Washington, would their army answer his description? On the arrival of the fleet Newport had fired "thirteen grand rockets" and illuminated its windows, but that might be a mere matter of course: of these illuminations the then president of Yale, Ezra Stiles, has left a noteworthy record: "The bell rang at Newport till after midnight, and the evening of the 12th Newport illuminated; the Whigs put thirteen lights in the windows, the Tories or doubtfuls four or six. The Quakers did not choose their lights should shine before men, and their windows were broken."[20]

The game was, moreover, a difficult one, and had to be played on an immense chess-board, including North and South—Boston, New York, Charleston, and the Chesapeake—including even "the Isles," that is, the West Indies; and what took place there, which might have so much importance for continental operations, had constantly to be guessed or imagined, for lack of news. Worse than all, the reputation of the French was, up to then, in America such as hostile English books and caricatures, and inconsiderate French ones, had made it. We knew it, and so well, too, that the appropriateness of having our troops winter in our colonies of the West Indies was, at one time, considered. Our minister, Gérard, was of that opinion: "The Americans are little accustomed to live with French people, for whom they cannot have as yet a very marked inclination."[21] "The old-time prejudice kept up by the English," wrote Mathieu-Dumas in his Souvenirs, "about the French character was so strong that, at the beginning of the Revolution, the most ardent minds and several among those who most desired independence, rejected the idea of an alliance with France." "It is difficult to imagine," said Abbé Robin, "the idea Americans entertained about the French before the war. They considered them as groaning under the yoke of despotism, a prey to superstition and prejudices, almost idolatrous in their religion,[22] and as a kind of light, brittle, queer-shapen mechanisms, only busy frizzling their hair and painting their faces, without faith or morals." How would thousands of such mechanisms be received?

With his usual clear-headedness, Rochambeau did the necessary thing on each point. To begin with, in case of an English attack, which was at first expected every day, he lost no time in fortifying the position he occupied, "having," wrote Mathieu-Dumas, "personally selected the chief points to be defended, and having batteries of heavy artillery and mortars erected along the channel, with furnaces to heat the balls." During "the first six days," says Closen, "we were not quite at our ease, but, luckily, Messieurs les Anglais showed us great consideration, and we suffered from nothing worse than grave anxieties." After the second week, Rochambeau could write home that, if Clinton appeared, he would be well received. Shortly after, he feels sorry the visit is delayed; later, when his own second division, so ardently desired, did not appear, he writes to the war minister: "In two words, sir Henry Clinton and I are very punctilious, and the question is between us who will first call on the other. If we do not get up earlier in the morning than the English and the reinforcements they expect from Europe reach them before our second division arrives, they will pay us a visit here that I should prefer to pay them in New York."

Concerning the reputation of the French, Rochambeau and his officers were in perfect accord: it would change if exemplary discipline were maintained throughout the campaign. There is nothing the chief paid more attention to than this, nor with more complete success. Writing to Prince de Montbarey a month after the landing, Rochambeau says: "I can answer for the discipline of the army; not a man has left his camp, not a cabbage has been stolen, not a complaint has been heard."[23] To the President of Congress he had written a few days before: "I hope that account will have been rendered to your Excellency of the discipline observed by the French troops; there has not been one complaint; not a man has missed a roll-call. We are your brothers and we shall act as such with you; we shall fight your enemies by your side as if we were one and the same nation."[24] Mentioning in his memoirs the visit of those "savages" who had been formerly under French rule and persisted in remaining friendly to us, he adds: "The sight of guns, troops, and military exercises caused them no surprise; but they were greatly astonished to see apple-trees with their apples upon them overhanging the soldiers' tents." "This result," he concludes, "was due not only to the zeal of officers, but more than anything else to the good disposition of the soldiers, which never failed."

Another fact which proved to our advantage was that the French could then be seen in numbers and at close quarters. The difference between the portrait and the original was too glaring to escape notice. William Channing, father of the philanthropist, confides to the same Ezra Stiles, in a letter of August 6, 1780, his delighted surprise: "The French are a fine body of men, and appear to be well officered. Neither the officers nor men are the effeminate beings we were heretofore taught to believe them. They are as large and likely men as can be produced by any nation."[25] So much for the brittle, queer-shaped mechanisms.

With the French officers in the West Indies, most of them former companions in arms and personal friends, Rochambeau, as soon as he had landed, began to correspond. The letters thus exchanged, generally unpublished, give a vivid picture of the life then led in the Isles. Cut off from the world most of the time, not knowing what was taking place in France, in America, on the sea, or even sometimes on the neighboring island, unaware of the whereabouts of Rodney, having to guess which place he might try to storm and which they should therefore garrison, these men, suffering from fevers, having now and then their ships scattered by cyclones, played to their credit and with perfect good humor their difficult game of hide and seek.[26] They send their letters in duplicate and triplicate, by chance boats, give news of the French court when they have any, and learn after a year's delay that their letters of October, 1780, have been duly received by Rochambeau in June, 1781. The Marquis de Bouillé, who was to cover himself with glory at Brimstone Hill, and is now chiefly remembered for the part he played in Louis XVI's flight to Varennes, writes most affectionately, and does not forget to convey the compliments of his brave wife, who had accompanied him to Martinique. The Marquis de Saint-Simon[27] writes from Santo Domingo to say how much he would like to go and fight under Rochambeau on the continent: "I would be delighted to be under your orders, and to give up for that the command in chief I enjoy here." And he supplies him, in the same unpublished letter, with a most interesting account of Cuba, just visited by him: "This colony has an air of importance far superior to any of ours, inhabited as it is by all the owners of the land, so that the city (Havana) looks rather a European than a colonial one; society is numerous and seems opulent. If Spain would extend and facilitate the trade of Cuba the island would become exceedingly rich in little time. But prohibitory laws are so harsh and penalties so rigorous that they cramp industry everywhere."

A postscript in the same letter shows better than anything else what was the common feeling among officers toward Rochambeau: "Montbrun," writes Saint-Simon, "who has been suffering from the fever for a long time, asks me to assure you of his respectful attachment, and says that he has written you twice, that your silence afflicts him very much, and that a token of friendship and remembrance from you would be for him the best of febrifuges. All your former subordinates of Auvergne think the same, and have the same attachment for you, in which respect I yield to none."[28]

The stanch devotion of Rochambeau to his duties as a soldier, his personal disinterestedness, his cool-headedness and energy as a leader, his good humor in the midst of troubles had secured for him the devotion of many, while his brusquery, his peremptoriness, the severity which veiled his real warmth of heart whenever the service was at stake, won him a goodly number of enemies, the latter very generally of less worth as men than the former. In the affectionate letter by which he made up early differences with "his son Lafayette," shortly after his arrival, he observes, concerning his own military career: "If I have been lucky enough to preserve, up to now, the confidence of the French soldiers … the reason is that out of 15,000 men or thereabout, who have been killed or wounded under my orders, of different rank and in the most deadly actions, I have not to reproach myself with having caused a single one to be killed for the sake of my own fame." He seemed, Ségur said in his memoirs, "to have been purposely created to understand Washington, and be understood by him, and to serve with republicans. A friend of order, of laws, and of liberty, his example more even than his authority obliged us scrupulously to respect the rights, properties, and customs of our allies."

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 Pérouse.

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. God 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 hitherto 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 quantity 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 manœuvring, 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 manœuvres, military exercises, sham warfare ("le simulacre de la petite 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'Amérique 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 title-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 Constitution of the thirteen States and of the Congress of America," meaning, of course, at that date, their several constitutions, 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 régiment 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 quantities 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 quantity 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 glass of wine with him, a compliment which cannot be politely ignored."

In the course of an excursion to Boston the young captain visits an assembly 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 Ségur 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 noble 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 Abbé 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 Godspeed; and after a six days' stay, enlivened by "illuminations, dinners, and balls," 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 Grasse 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 assured, 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 Astrée, 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 circumstances, 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 embarrassing, 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 assigned 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 Grasse 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 Grasse, 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 passing at this moment is of the severest. The coming of Count de Grasse 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, François Joseph Paul Comte de Grasse, 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 circumstances, 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 Abbé 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 passionately 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 Abbé 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 acumen 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, assuredly 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 passed to them newspapers. "We learned that news" (Necker's resignation), writes Blanchard, "through the English, who often sent trumpeters and passed 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. What would de Grasse do? What would Clinton do? The wounded officer of Johannisberg, the winner of Charleston, Sir Henry Clinton, a lieutenant-general and former member of Parliament, enjoying great repute, was holding New York, not yet the second city of the world nor even the first of the United States, covering only with its modest houses, churches, and gardens the lower part of Manhattan, and reduced, owing to the war, to 10,000 inhabitants. But, posted there, the English commander threatened the road on which the combined armies had to move. He had at his disposal immense stores, strong fortifications, a powerful fleet to second his movements, and troops equal in number and training to ours.

There are periods in the history of nations when, after a continuous series of misfortunes, when despair would have seemed excusable, suddenly the sky clears and everything turns their way. In the War of American Independence, such a period had begun. The armies of Washington and Rochambeau, encumbered with their carts, wagons, and artillery, had to pass rivers, to cross hilly regions, to follow muddy tracks; any serious attempt against them might have proved fatal, but nothing was tried. It was of the greatest importance that Clinton should, as long as possible, have no intimation of the real plans of the Franco-Americans; everything helped to mislead him: his natural dispositions as well as circumstances. He had an unshakable conviction that the key to the whole situation was New York, and that the royal power in America, and he, too, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton, would stand or fall with that city. Hence his disinclination to leave it and to attempt anything outside. His instructions ordered him to help Cornwallis to his utmost, the plan of the British court being to conquer the Southern States first and then continue the conquest northward. But he, on the contrary, was day after day asking Cornwallis to send back some of his troops. And while, as he never ceased to point out afterward, he was careful to add, "if you could spare them," he also remarked in the same letter: "I confess I could not conceive you would require above 4,000 in a station where General Arnold has represented to me, upon report of Colonel Simcoe, that 2,000 men would be amply sufficient."[38]

A great source of light, and, as it turned out, of darkness also, was the intercepting of letters. This constantly happened in those days, to the benefit or bewilderment of both parties, on land or at sea. But luck had decidedly turned, and the stars shone propitious for the allies. We captured valuable letters, and Clinton misleading ones. It was something of a retribution after he had so often used or tried to use such captures to his advantage, as when, having seized an intimate letter of Washington, a passage of which might have given umbrage to Rochambeau, he had it printed in the newspapers. But the two commanders were not to be ruffled so easily, and all that took place was a frank explanation. Spontaneously acting in the same spirit, La Luzerne had written to Rochambeau concerning Washington and this incident: "I have told all those that have spoken to me of it that I saw nothing in it but the zeal of a good patriot, and a citizen must be very virtuous for his enemies not to find other crimes to reproach him with."[39]

More treasures had now fallen into the hands of Clinton: a letter of Chastellux to La Luzerne, speaking very superciliously of his unmanageable chief, Rochambeau, and of his "bourrasques." In it he congratulated himself, as Rochambeau narrates, on having "cleverly managed to cause me to agree with General Washington," the result being that "a siege of the island of New York had at last been determined upon. … He added complaints about the small chance a man of parts had to influence the imperiousness of a general always wanting to command." Clinton caused that letter to be sent to Rochambeau, "obviously with no view," writes the latter, "to the preservation of peace in my military family." Rochambeau showed it to Chastellux, who blushingly acknowledged its authorship; the general thereupon threw it into the fire and left the unfortunate Academician "a prey to his remorse,"—and to his ignorance, for he was careful not to undeceive him as to the real plans of the combined army.

A text of the conclusions reached at the Weathersfield conferences was no less happily captured by Clinton, and we have seen how clearly Washington had there expressed his reluctance to attempt striking the chief blow in the South. A letter of Barras to La Luzerne, of May 27, was also intercepted, and as luck would have it, the sailor declared in it his intention to take the fleet, of all places, to Boston (a real project, but abandoned as soon as formed and replaced by another which took him to the Chesapeake). A most important letter of Rochambeau to La Luzerne, explaining the real plan, was thereupon intercepted; it was in cipher and the English managed to decipher it. But, as the stars shone propitious to the allies, it was only the English in London, and not those in New York, who could do it, and when the translation reached Clinton at last, he had no longer, for good causes, any doubt as to the real aims of Washington and Rochambeau.

The colonial secretary was, in the meantime, kept in a state of jubilation by so much treasure-trove and the news forwarded by Clinton, to whom he wrote: "The copies of the very important correspondence which so fortunately fell into your hands, inclosed in your despatch, show the rebel affairs to be almost desperate, and that nothing but the success of some extraordinary enterprise can give vigor and activity to their cause, and I confess I am well pleased that they have fixed upon New York as the object to be attempted."[40] Clinton acknowledged a little later to Lord Germain the receipt of a "reinforcement of about 2,400 German troops and recruits," which he was careful to hold tight in New York till the end.

The combined armies had, in the meantime, done their best to confirm the English commander in such happy dispositions. They had built in the vicinity of New York brick ovens for baking bread for an army, as in view of a long siege. There had been reconnaissances, marches, and countermarches, a sending of ships toward Long Island without entering, however, "dans la baie d'Oyster," skirmishes which looked like preliminaries to more important operations, and in one of which, together with the two Berthiers and Count de Vauban, Closen nearly lost his life in order to save his hat. A camp proverb about hats had been the cause of his taking the risk. When he returned, "kind Washington," he writes in his journal, "tapped me on the shoulder, saying: 'Dear Baron, this French proverb is not yet known among our army, but your cold behavior during danger will be it'" (in English in the original as being the very words of the great man to the young one, though cold does probably duty for cool, and the final it is certainly not Washington's).

Then on the sudden, on the 18th of August, the two armies raised their camps, disappeared, and, following unusual roads, moving northward at first for three marches, reached in the midst of great difficulties, under a torrid heat, greatly encumbered with heavy baggage, the Hudson River and crossed it at King's Ferry, without being more interfered with than before. How can such an inaction on the part of Clinton be explained? "It is for me," writes Count Guillaume de Deux-Ponts in his journal, the manuscript of which was found on the quays in Paris,[41] and printed in America, "an undecipherable enigma, and I hope I shall never be reproached for having puzzled people with any similar ones."

The river once crossed, the double army moved southward by forced marches. Rochambeau, in order to hasten the move, prescribed the leaving behind of a quantity of effects, and this, says Closen, "caused considerable grumbling among the line," which grumbled but marched. The news, to be sure, of so important a movement came to Clinton, but, since the stars had ceased to smile on him, he chose to conclude, as he wrote to Lord Germain on the 7th of September, "this to be a feint." When he discovered that it was not "a feint," the Franco-American army was beyond reach. "What can be said as to this?" Closen writes merrily. "Try to see better another time," and he draws a pair of spectacles on the margin of his journal.

The march southward thus continued unhampered. They crossed first the Jerseys, "a land of Cockayne, for game, fish, vegetables, poultry." Closen had the happiness to "hear from the lips of General Washington, and on the ground itself, a description of the dispositions taken, the movements and all the incidents of the famous battles of Trenton and Princeton." The young man, who had made great progress in English, was now used by the two generals as their interpreter; so nothing escaped him. The reception at Philadelphia was triumphal; Congress was most courteous; toasts were innumerable. The city is an immense one, "with seventy-two streets in a straight line. … Shops abound in all kinds of merchandise, and some of them do not yield to the Petit Dunkerque in Paris." Where is now the Petit Dunkerque? "Mais où sont les Neiges d'antan?"[42] Women are very pretty, "of charming manners, and very well dressed, even in French fashion." Benezet, the French Quaker, one of the celebrities of the city, is found to be full of wisdom, and La Luzerne, "who keeps a state worthy of his sovereign," gives a dinner to one hundred and eighty guests.

From Philadelphia to Chester, on the 5th of September, Rochambeau and his aides took a boat. As they were nearing the latter city, "we saw in the distance," says Closen, "General Washington shaking his hat and a white handkerchief, and showing signs of great joy." Rochambeau had scarcely landed when Washington, usually so cool and composed, fell into his arms; the great news had arrived; de Grasse had come, and while Cornwallis was on the defensive at Yorktown the French fleet was barring the Chesapeake.[43]

On the receipt of letters from Washington, Rochambeau, and La Luzerne telling him to what extent the fate of the United States was in his hands, the sailor, having "learned, with much sorrow," he wrote to the latter, "what was the distress of the continent, and the need there was of immediate help," had decided that he would leave nothing undone to usefully take part in the supreme effort which, without his help, might be attempted in vain. Having left, on the 5th of August, Cap Français (to-day Cap Haïtien), he had added to his fleet all the available ships he could find in our isles, including some which, having been years away, had received orders to go back to France for repairs. He had had great difficulty in obtaining the money asked for, although he had offered to mortgage for it his castle of Tilly, and the Chevalier de Charitte, in command of the Bourgogne, had made a like offer. But at last, thanks to the Spanish governor at Havana, he had secured the desired amount of twelve hundred thousand francs. He was bringing, moreover, the Marquis de Saint-Simon, with the 3,000 regular troops under his command. De Grasse's only request was that operations be pushed on with the utmost rapidity, as he was bound to be back at the Isles at a fixed date. It can truly be said that no single man risked nor did more for the United States than de Grasse, the single one of the leaders to whom no memorial has been dedicated.

The news spread like wild-fire; the camp was merry with songs and shouts; in Philadelphia the joy was indescribable; crowds pressed before the house of La Luzerne, cheering him and his country, while in the streets impromptu orators, standing on chairs, delivered mock funeral orations on the Earl of Cornwallis. "You have," Rochambeau wrote to the admiral, "spread universal joy throughout America, with which she is wild."[44]

Anxiety was renewed, however, when it was learned shortly after that the French men-of-war had left the Chesapeake, the entrance to which now remained free. The English fleet, of twenty ships and seven frigates, under Hood and Graves, the same Graves who had failed to intercept Rochambeau's convoy, had been signalled on the 5th of September, and de Grasse, leaving behind him, in order to go faster, some of his ships and a number of sailors who were busy on land, had weighed anchor, three-quarters of an hour after sighting the signals, to risk the fight upon which the issue of the campaign and, as it turned out, of the war, was to depend. "This behavior of Count de Grasse," wrote the famous Tarleton, is "worthy of admiration." Six days later the French admiral was back; he had had 21 officers and 200 sailors killed or wounded, but he had lost no ship, and the enemy's fleet, very much damaged, with 336 men killed or disabled, and having lost the Terrible, of 74 guns, and the frigates Iris and Richmond of 40,[45] had been compelled to retreat to New York. Admiral Robert Digby thereupon arrived with naval reinforcements; "yet I do not think," La Luzerne wrote to Rochambeau, "that battle will be offered again. If it is, I am not anxious about the result." Nothing was attempted. This "superiority at sea," Tarleton wrote in his History of the Campaigns, "proved the strength of the enemies of Great Britain, deranged the plans of her generals, disheartened the courage of her friends, and finally confirmed the independency of America."[46] "Nothing," Rochambeau had written in his note-book at starting, "without naval supremacy."

On re-entering the bay de Grasse had the pleasure to find there another French fleet, that of his friend Barras. As a lieutenant-general de Grasse outranked him, but as a "chef d'escadre" Barras was his senior officer, which might have caused difficulties; the latter could be tempted, and he was, to conduct a campaign apart, so as to personally reap the glory of possible successes. "I leave it to thee, my dear Barras," de Grasse had written him on the 28th of July, "to come and join me or to act on thy own account for the good of the common cause. Do only let me know, so that we do not hamper each other unawares." Barras preferred the service of the cause to his own interest; leaving Newport, going far out on the high seas, then dashing south at a great distance from the coast, he escaped the English and reached the Chesapeake, bringing the heavy siege artillery now indispensable for the last operations. The stars had continued incredibly propitious.

The well-known double siege now began, that of Yorktown[47] by Washington and Rochambeau, and that of Gloucester, on the opposite side of the river, which might have afforded a place of retreat to Cornwallis. De Grasse had consented to land, in view of the latter, 800 men under Choisy, whom Lauzun joined with his legion, and both acted in conjunction with the American militia under Weedon.[48] The two chiefs on the Yorktown side were careful to conduct the operations according to rules, "on account," says Closen, "of the reputation of Cornwallis, and the strength of the garrison." Such rules were certainly familiar to Rochambeau, whose fifteenth siege this one was.

From day to day Cornwallis was more narrowly pressed. As late as the 29th of September he was still full of hope. "I have ventured these two days," he wrote to Clinton, "to look General Washington's whole force in the face in the position on the outside of my works; and I have the pleasure to assure your Excellency that there was but one wish throughout the whole army, which was that the enemy would advance." A dozen days later the tone was very different. "I have only to repeat that nothing but a direct move to York River, which includes a successful naval action, can save me … many of our works are considerably damaged."

Lord Germain was, in the meantime, writing to Clinton in his happiest mood, on the 12th of October: "It is a great satisfaction to me to find … that the plan you had concerted for conducting the military operations in that quarter (the Chesapeake) corresponds with what I had suggested." The court, which had no more misgivings than Lord Germain himself, had caused to sail with Digby no less a personage than Prince William, one of the fifteen children of George III, and eventually one of his successors as William IV; but his presence could only prove one more encumbrance.

After the familiar incidents of the siege in which the American and French armies displayed similar valor and met with about the same losses, the decisive move of the night attack on the enemy's advanced redoubts had to be made, one of the redoubts to be stormed by the Americans with Lafayette, and the other by the French under Viomesnil. Rochambeau addressed himself especially to the grenadiers of the regiment of Gatinais, which had been formed with a portion of his old regiment of Auvergne, and said: "My boys, if I need you to-night, I hope you will not have forgotten that we have served together in that brave regiment of Auvergne sans tache (spotless Auvergne), an honorable surname deserved by it since its formation." They answered that if he would promise to have their former name restored to them he would find they were ready to die to the last. They kept their word, losing many of their number, and one of the first requests of Rochambeau when he reached Paris was that their old name be given back to them, which was done. Gatinais thus became Royal Auvergne, and is now the 18th Infantry.

On the 19th of October, after a loss of less than 300 men in each of the besieging armies, an act was signed as great in its consequences as any that ever followed the bloodiest battles, the capitulation of Yorktown. It was in a way the ratification of that other act which had been proposed for signature five years before at Philadelphia by men whose fate had more than once, in the interval, seemed desperate, the Declaration of Independence.

On the same day Closen writes: "The York garrison marched past at two o'clock, before the combined army, which was formed in two lines, the French facing the Americans and in full dress uniform. … Passing between the two armies, the English showed much disdain for the Americans, who so far as dress and appearances went represented the seamy side, many of those poor boys being garbed in linen habits-vestes, torn, soiled, a number among them almost shoeless. The English had given them the nickname of Yanckey-Dudle. What does it matter? the man of sense will think; they are the more to be praised and show the greater valor, fighting, as they do, so badly equipped." As a "man of sense," Rochambeau writes in his memoirs: "This justice must be rendered to the Americans that they behaved with a zeal, a courage, an emulation which left them in no case behind, in all that part of the siege intrusted to them, in spite of their being unaccustomed to sieges."

The city offered a pitiful sight. "I shall never forget," says Closen, "how horrible and painful to behold was the aspect of the town of York. … One could not walk three steps without finding big holes made by bombs, cannon-balls, splinters, barely covered graves, arms and legs of blacks and whites scattered here and there, most of the houses riddled with shot and devoid of window panes. … We found Lord Cornwallis in his house. His attitude evinced the nobility of his soul, his magnanimity and firmness of character. He seemed to say: I have nothing to reproach myself with, I have done my duty and defended myself to the utmost." This impression of Lord Cornwallis was general.

As to Closen's description of the town, now so quiet and almost asleep, by the blue water, amid her sand-dunes, once more torn and blood-stained during the Civil War, resting at the foot of the great marble memorial raised a hundred years later by Congress,[49] it is confirmed by Abbé Robin, who notices, too, "the quantity of human limbs which infected the air," but also, being an abbé, the number of books scattered among the ruins, many being works of piety and theological controversy, and with them "the works of the famous Pope, and translations of Montaigne's Essays, of Gil Blas, and of the Essay on Women by Monsieur Thomas," that stern essay, so popular then in America, in which society ladies were invited to fill their soul with those "sentiments of nature which are born in retreat and grow in silence."

Nothing better puts in its true light the dominant characteristic of the French sentiment throughout the war than what happened on this solemn occasion, and more shows how, with their new-born enthusiasm for philanthropy and liberty, the French were pro-Americans much more than anti-English. No trace of a triumphant attitude toward a vanquished enemy appeared in anything they did or said. Even in the surrendering, the fact remained apparent that this was not a war of hatred. "The English," writes Abbé Robin, "laid down their arms at the place selected. Care was taken not to admit sightseers, so as to diminish their humiliation." Henry Lee (Light-horse Harry), who was present, describes in the same spirit the march past: "Universal silence was observed amidst the vast concourse, and the utmost decency prevailed, exhibiting in demeanor an awful sense of the vicissitudes of human life, mingled with commiseration for the unhappy."[50]