Popular history lavishes praise on George Washington for cornering the British at Yorktown and having the French navy arrive to bottle them up. While the French allowed this myth to prevail, probably due to Washington’s ego (anyone who has really researched GW knows how fragile his ego was), the truth needs to emerge.
This does not take away the accomplishments of George Washington, as he tactically delayed a British victory in the northern colonies for years, but appreciation for French involvement is necessary to understand the true context of this conflict, which was only a minor part of the global conflict going on in 1781 between the British Empire, and the French with their allies, the Spanish.
It needs to be noted that it is at this time in this republic’s history that Americans were the most free. As noted by Albert Nock in the 1930s in his epic book called “Our Enemy, the State” he says:
When political independence was secured, the stark doctrine of the Declaration went into abeyance, with only a distorted simulacrum of its principles surviving.
This is the sad reality. The abandonment of the Articles of Confederation towards the adoption of the US Constitution only accelerated the move AWAY from liberty and freedom. Albert Nock continues:
As well as one can put a date to such an event, the surrender at Yorktown marks the sudden and complete disappearance of the Declaration’s doctrine from the political consciousness of America. Mr. Jefferson resided in Paris as minister to France from 1784 to 1789. As the time for his return to America drew near, he wrote Colonel Humphreys that he hoped soon “to possess myself anew, by conversation with my countrymen, of their spirit and ideas. I know only the Americans of the year 1784. They tell me this is to be much a stranger to those of 1789.” So indeed he found it. On arriving in New York and resuming his place in the social life of the country, he was greatly depressed by the discovery that the principles of the Declaration had gone wholly by the board. No one spoke of natural rights and popular sovereignty; it would seem actually that no one had ever heard of them. On the contrary, everyone was talking about the pressing need of a strong central coercive authority, able to check the incursions which “the democratic spirit” was likely to incite upon “the men of principle and property.”
The American Revolution was effectively hijacked by other interests. We have seen that in recent times as well with that of the Tea Party and other freedom movements that are infiltrated by those who are not friends of liberty and freedom but place their hope in the state.
But I digress.
On this anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Yorktown toward being a French-American victory started 238 years ago today, I should probably share some truths about the events leading up to this battle.
Gen. George Washington’s personnel and persistent dreams was to knock out the British forces in New York City with the French navy’s assistance. A pretty good article from the Daily Beast (please pardon all the advertisements) outlines the behind the scenes military and political maneuvering that preceded this strategic decision.
The Franco-American alliance was more than two years old, in July 1780, when the Rochambeau-led Expédition Particulière arrived in Rhode Island with 5,500 troops, some long-range cannon, and a relatively small fleet. The alliance had already had two large military disasters, at Newport in 1778 and at Savannah in 1779. Rochambeau wasn’t sure what he could accomplish either, having been forced to leave behind a good chunk of his army and ships, and being burdened with a set of instructions from Louis XVI, dictated by Lafayette, that in unequivocal language put him under the command of General Washington and made the French troops and ships no more than auxiliaries of the Americans.
There was not much hope at this point in the arrangement. As will be seen, George Washington ended up being one of the most challenging roadblocks toward a decisive victory over the British:
Washington had dreamed of this moment, and of having naval superiority over Great Britain. He had long believed that the only way to end the war was to capture a significant British stronghold and army, and for several years he had been fixated on New York as the most likely target for such an attack. Now, with the French fleet, it could be achieved! But to Rochambeau, an attack on New York seemed difficult and dangerous, as likely to end in the capture of his and Washington’s armies as in the capture of British commander Henry Clinton’s. In Rochambeau’s view, he didn’t have enough ships and men to assure himself and Washington of victory.
When one researches Washington’s life, one will see the many times he wished things to be true that only ended up in disaster. In fact, as a young British officer, his decisions led directly to the start of the French-Indian War. His surprise breakfast massacre of French troops, whom he was to “meet up with and negotiate with” in the Appalachian mountains, led to a war that ended up raising taxes in the colonies that started a revolution.
Again, I digress. Back to the decision on Yorktown vs. NYC.
Washington and Rochambeau first met in Hartford on Sept. 20, 1780, at the home of Washington’s former commissary general and longtime supporter, Jeremiah Wadsworth. To this conference, Washington brought an eight-page plan for the attack on New York. Rochambeau came with a neatly written series of 10 questions, with space on the sheets to record Washington’s answers.
The French queries were an elegant, Socratic trap. By answering the first one honestly, Washington would be led, inexorably and through his own logic, to the only possible conclusion, the one chosen ahead of time by Rochambeau.
So Washington was asked whether naval superiority was essential to a big victory over a target defended by the British Navy. When he responded truthfully, “There can be no decisive enterprise against the maritime establishments of the English in this country, without a constant naval superiority,” his fate was sealed because the French fleet was not yet strong enough.
Washington was being played, but for his and the 13 colony’s own good. The French knew the big picture, the global paradigm and GW was myopic in focusing on only brute force to displace the British from NYC.
After the 10 questions had been answered, Rochambeau insisted that there would be no attack on New York in 1780, and none until Louis XVI dispatched more troops and a larger fleet to America. And he was able to induce Washington to co-sign a letter to the king to that effect. It was the only real product of the conference.
That the French were content with this meant that their focus was on the global situation. They were well aware of their own resourcing issues, and rightly so, they had to protect their own interests first. Nations and empires that want to survive need to know how to hold them, know how to fold them, know when to walk away and know when to run (from the military strategist Kenny Rogers).
Eight months later, on May 21, 1781, came the Washington-Rochambeau conference at Wethersfield. In American lore, this is where and when the leaders jointly decided to attack Yorktown. But that’s a myth.
This myth is the key point in all the state approved history books that have been printed in the last couple centuries in the United States. There is nothing you can trust in these books until you have done your own research. The state is convinced that that effort is so labor intensive, the most people will just adopt the history book’s contents as true, because it is easier and it fits the narrative. Happy slave, happy life.
Rochambeau asked: If and when the new and larger French fleet arrived from the Caribbean, “What are the operations that we might have to view at that Epocha?”
Washington’s response: “Should the West India Fleet arrive upon this Coast—the force thus Combined may either proceed in operation against New York, or may be directed against the enemy in some other quarter, as circumstance may dictate.”
Still NYC-centric .. even the next day after a night’s reflections:
The next day, Washington rote in his diary that he had “Fixed with Count Rochambeau” to proceed with a campaign against New York, to begin once the French had transferred to the Hudson River to join his Continentals. He added, almost as an afterthought, that he had agreed to “extend our views Southward as circumstances and a naval superiority might render more necessary & eligible.”
Washington was not budging. This was his fight, it was his terms, and Rochambeau was technically reporting to Gen. George Washington!
Maybe we should shift toward looking into the real strategist’s mind, that of Rochambeau:
In late July, when Rochambeau did move to the Hudson River, just below Peekskill, where his forces encamped next to Washington’s, the French left behind in Rhode Island the resident fleet and the largest of the cannon, which they believed would be wrecked if dragged over Connecticut’s roads. The cannon would have to be brought by ship to whatever target. To my mind—although no documents say so—the abandoning of the cannon argues that Rochambeau had already decided they would soon be transferred by ship to the Yorktown peninsula.
Actions speak louder than words. The excuse Rochambeau had would have convinced Gen. Washington who at this point was just giddy that maybe this was the year that the French navy would arrive.
Indeed, by mid-July Rochambeau had made a significant end-run around Washington’s cherished objective. He, and his new Newport fleet commander, de Barras, and the French plenipotentiary at Philadelphia, La Luzerne, had all sent word to Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse, then in the Caribbean, that the best target in America was the large British force on the relatively exposed Yorktown peninsula, where it could not long survive without naval reinforcement.
Inside the French chain of command, this strategic sharing of information sets the tone for what is about to come. From July to November is peak hurricane season in the Caribbean. This might be good timing to get the French assets (ships, guns and men) out of the Caribbean for an alternative mission.
Around that time, aboard the majestic Ville de Paris at Cap-Français, Haiti, de Grasse was meeting with Captain Francisco de Saavedra, a former theology student who had become Spain’s New World forces strategist. They laid out a two-punch plan for ridding the hemisphere of the British. The first blow would be against Yorktown, the second, once de Grasse had returned to the Caribbean and in conjunction with the Spanish fleet there, would be against Jamaica. To enable de Grasse to depart for northern waters, Saavedra committed the Spanish fleet to act as guardian for the French-controlled islands in the Caribbean. As Saavedra put it in his diary, they “could not waste the most decisive opportunity of the war,” to take the Cornwallis army while it was at its most vulnerable.
Who knew that the decision about Yorktown was actually made in Haiti, with French and Spanish strategists? You don’t read any of that in most US History books now do you?
As de Grasse set out for the Yorktown peninsula, he sent ahead a letter to Rochambeau. Forwarded to the Hudson by de Barras, it reached Rochambeau and Washington on Aug. 14. It said that de Grasse was en route to the Yorktown peninsula, “the spot which seemed to be indicated by you, M. le comte, and by MM Washington de la Luzerne and de Barras as the surest to effect the good which you propose.”
Some sources say that Washington was disappointed but then committed his forces to join in the march to Yorktown. Other sources say that Washington lashed out at this news and then went and pouted for an hour before recomposing himself and getting on with the PLAN, the French Plan. In either case, eventually he came around and supported this plan.
Before Rochambeau and Washington’s armies arrived at Yorktown, the battle was essentially won by de Grasse, whose fleet outmaneuvered the British and then, along with de Barras’s, occupied Chesapeake Bay. That forced the British fleet to return to New York, leaving Cornwallis and his army utterly exposed.
At this point it was just a matter of time in defeating the British forces under Cornwallis at Yorktown since there was no re-supply line afforded them. This was NOT the end of this conflict as both Charleston and NYC would not be evacuated by the British until over a year after the Yorktown victory was secured on 17OCT1781. Peace itself was not secured until the Treaty of Paris was signed on 03SEP1783, almost TWO years after Yorktown!
Now you know.
-SF1
Replica of French frigate