By an Associate.
Continuing the narrative that began here.
“To retake New-York,” I pointed out, “would be a great boost to American spirits.”
“But the army in Virginia,” Susanna said, “may do us more damage than the loss of New-York ever did, or even the loss of Philadelphia, which after all was only temporary. I think—begging your pardon, Chr— Mr. Gist—that we ought to strike boldly against Cornwallis; we may at least prevent him from cutting off the Carolinas and Georgia, and if we are bold enough, and fortunate enough, we might defeat Cornwallis altogether. Such a victory would, in effect, win the war, as without Cornwallis’ army the British could have no hope of success.”
“It sounds very well,” said Washington, “but how are we to be sure of victory against so great an army? Cornwallis has greater numbers on his side.”
“The French fleet, sir, will be essential,” replied Susanna. “Cornwallis, we hear, has taken a position on the peninsula. If the French can prevent his escape by water, and prevent his being reinforced or resupplied, then we need only block the land routes, and we have him.”
This seemed like good advice to Washington, and so Admiral de Grasse was summoned to a meeting with the General, at which La Fayette was also present, along with Susanna and me. We unrolled a large map of the peninsula between the York and James rivers, and the three great leaders studied it in intense silence for a while. At last Washington spoke.
“If we dispose our soldiers here, on the north and east, with Fayette’s French army on the south, then you, Admiral, should be able to cut off Cornwallis completely by water to the west.”
“Yes,” de Grasse agreed, “the plan, it is excellent. He shall not escape us, by blue.”
Susanna looked down at the map. “I believe, sirs, that you have mistaken the water for the land, and the land for the water. These wavy lines here, you see, indicate the water; the land is this area behind them, here.”
“Ah!” said Washington. “Thank you, Phillips. Well spotted. That is important information, and complicates the strategy considerably. We cannot expect the men to stand very long in water that is possibly up to their necks, or even over their heads. We shall need to make some adaptations; perhaps some sort of bridge or pier assembly, or better yet a series of floating wooden platforms with which we can surround the peninsula on three sides, and on which the men can stand dryshod for an indefinite period of time. It will require a good bit of wood, which will require a good bit of labor; although the labor will be hastened considerably if we can find any large stands of wild cherry. That will do for the army; but, unless I am very much mistaken, the disposition of the fleet will require at least as much thought and labor, if not more.”
“Very assuredly,” the Admiral agreed. “I believe that a construction of the rollers, made perhaps of the trunks of the trees, will be necessary for the placing of the ships in position, if indeed suitable trees find themselves nearby.”
“Well, there fortune favors us,” said Washington. “Tidewater Virginia has many stands of pine that grow straight and tall, with few branches until very near the top; such trees would, it seems to me, make admirable rollers for our purposes.”
Susanna was sitting with her head down, her eyes closed, and her fingers on her temples; but now she spoke again. “If I may be so bold, sirs, it might be better to reverse the positions of the army and the fleet.”
The General and the Admiral both looked at her blankly for a moment; then Washington spoke slowly and cautiously. “Do you mean, the army on the land, and the navy in the water?”
“Yes, sir,” Susanna said with care and patience. “Each force deployed in its native element, so to speak.”
“My word, Phillips! How much simpler that makes everything! You see, Admiral, why I insist on having Captain Phillips present whenever we discuss strategy. Captain Phillips? No, sir—Phillips, you are promoted to colonel as of this instant. We’ll skip lieutenant colonel—no point in lingering there, eh, Phillips? Well done.”
Later, as the meeting adjourned, I heard Admiral de Grasse ask Washington in a lowered voice, “That so brilliant young officer, the Colonel Phillips—is it that he perhaps appears pale to you?”
“I have often worried about that myself,” Washington replied, “but it seems to be his natural complexion. If he were not so valuable to me, I should insist that he take a few weeks’ rest; but, between us, Admiral, there are days when I do verily believe that our success in this war depends upon young Phillips.”
“It can be that you there have reason, General,” said the Admiral. “The army on the land and the navy in the water! Sacred blue! It is brilliant in its simplicity.”
As soon as it was practical, therefore, the French fleet set off for the Chesapeake; meanwhile the combined American and French armies marched southward. Everything went according to plan. Admiral de Grasse was in position with his fleet; the combined armies blocked the land route on the peninsula. Cornwallis was surrounded, and unless he fought his way up the peninsula, or unless a large British fleet defeated the French, he was helpless.
“And now what shall we do?” Washington asked at the council of war he had called.
“Nothing,” Susanna suggested.
“Nothing? But it seems to me that the ‘nothing’ strategy was ineffective at New-York, and I thought we had given it up.”
“There are times when nothing is effective, and times when it is not effective,” Susanna explained with all the patience in her power. “When something has to be done, then nothing will not do. But there are times when circumstances favor patience, and at such times waiting is preferable to action, which may risk an undesirable result. I believe this is one of those times. Provoking a battle risks defeat; keeping Cornwallis bottled up in the peninsula must deplete his resources and eventually induce him to surrender.”
“My word!” said Washington, “who would have thought that nothing would be so much more complicated than something?”
Hamilton spoke up. “It’s all very well to do nothing when nothing can be done, Su— uh, Colonel Phillips. But at any moment a British fleet may arrive in the bay, and then everything depends on the French ships, which may not be able to hold off a sufficiently powerful attack. Cornwallis knows this, and therefore Cornwallis will never surrender. It seems to me, therefore, that an immediate attack—”
“Excuse me, General,” said a young lieutenant who had appeared behind Washington.
“Just a moment, Hamilton,” said Washington, and he turned to the lieutenant. “What have you to report?”
“Lord Cornwallis is here, sir. He says he would like to surrender, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Tell him it’s really no trouble at all,” said Washington. “I’ll be with him directly, as soon as I’ve heard what Hamilton has to say.” The lieutenant went off to deliver Washington’s reply, and Washington turned back to face Hamilton. “Now, Hamilton,” Washington said, “please continue what you were saying, and forgive the interruption.”
“As I say,” Hamilton resumed, “I believe Cornwallis, in his present circumstances, will never surrender; and it behooves us, therefore—”
“But, Hamilton,” Parson Weems interrupted him, “Cornwallis is surrendering right now.”
“But that is a mere fact,” Hamilton replied. “My argument is founded upon reason.”
“Then, since the facts demand our attention now,” said Susanna, “let us attend to them, and we may reserve reason for our leisure.”
“Well said, Phillips,” Washington concurred. “For there is a wise old saying—” He produced the copybook, and we waited for him to find the page, which had become more and more difficult for him to do as his fingers increased in size. “Here it is: ‘Do not jog the desk on which another is writing.’ I find it useful to have a fund of these proverbs ready to hand, so to speak, for they distill the wisdom of our elders to its essence. Let us now receive Lord Cornwallis as gentlemen.”
The men had helpfully found Cornwallis a barrel to stand on, so that he and Washington could see eye to eye. He was waiting there, and Washington immediately engulfed Cornwallis’ hand in his own.
“General,” said Washington, “welcome to our camp.”
“General Washington, sir,” replied Cornwallis, “it is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance at last.”
“Oh, I know what you mean. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for ages. One never really gets to know a man when one is only firing cannonballs at him. I hope you don’t take it too personally, by the way—the cannonballs, I mean, and the defeat and such.”
“Certainly not. I have long since learned to expect that I shall often suffer such reverses, which I attribute entirely to the machinations of Willoughby.”
“Willoughby?” asked Washington.
“My mortal enemy—the most fiendishly devious and diabolically wicked stoat ever born. Of course he is not—
“—not visible in the strict sense! Ah, Cornwallis, I know exactly what you mean!”
“Of course you do, sir! I know that a man of your talents must have the same experience. It is the very mark of a commander’s greatness that he is pursued throughout his career—”
“—by the forces of envy and malice—”
“—personified in a malevolent invisible animal!” they both finished together.
“Mine is a mule named Irving,” Washington said.
“General Washington, it is a positive honor to surrender to a soldier of your caliber. I hope we can settle on gentlemanly terms.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I think it will be sufficient if you give me your word not to have anything more to do with fighting against the United States, and then you can be on your way.”
“My word as a gentleman,” said Cornwallis, extending his hand.
“I accept your word,” said Washington, taking the offered hand.
“But—” Hamilton sputtered, but Susanna and I both gestured to him to keep quiet.
“But how,” he continued quietly to us, “I mean—what guarantee do we have that he’ll keep his word?”
“He’ll keep his word,” Susanna insisted.
“But how do you know that?” Hamilton demanded in a hoarse whisper.
“I know it because he’s just as much of an imbecile as Washington is,” she replied. “And I sometimes wish the world were filled with such imbeciles.”
As Susanna had expected, the victory over Cornwallis virtually ended the war. It was true that no treaty of peace had been signed, and Sir Henry Clinton in New-York refused to recognize the de-facto victory of the American side, continuing to occupy the city with such forces as he had; but the United States could get along very well without the city of New-York, and did so for the next two years. Nor did Clinton ever admit defeat: he is still there, in a small house on Wall-street, with two aged captains for company, and occasionally issues orders to occupy Hartford or Albany or whatnot, which his captains receive with deference and alacrity, without, however, setting foot out the front door.
The army now had nothing to do, and idle men began to consider more carefully the question of their payment. Once again the Congress attempted to pay them in paper money, which the men rejected as not worth so much as the same paper without any printing on it. So discontented were the men that they began to speak openly of marching to Annapolis (where the Congress was meeting at the time) to have Washington made king: for they imagined that, once granted royal power, Washington would not be long in finding the means to pay them in specie. This plot came to the ears of Washington himself, who mentioned it over the Madeira one evening after supper in the old brick church he had made his headquarters, it being the only nearby building where his ten-foot figure could be comfortably accommodated. We had made a special table for him, with a chair his own height and a set of benches with stepladders so that we could all sit at the same table with him.
“Of course we do have the Articles of Confederation,” Washington said, “but I believe those must be regarded as a temporary measure. If we are to have a single nation rather than a rabble of thirteen unrelated States, we must adopt a form of government conducive to unity. A monarchy would, obviously, serve that purpose, and a careful choice of monarch is vital to the viability of our union. It ought to be—”
“Yes, we have been over this ground before,” said Susanna, “and we know that it ends at the conclusion that our ideal monarch would look very much like you, General Washington. But of course one doesn’t put oneself forward as seeking the kingship.”
“One doesn’t?”
“Modesty and diffidence are considered greatly desirable qualities in monarchs. Indeed, a monarch’s impassivity is precisely what makes him look like a monarch. It is essential to show that you do not desire the position of king, and that you would accept it only with extreme reluctance.”
“Do you think so? Yes, I can see how that might be true.”
“If you would like, I could draft you a few remarks, which you might use when the occasion presents itself.”
“Oh, would you, Phillips? That would be very kind of you.”
Later, as Susanna sat at the desk in our chamber writing some remarks for Washington to deliver extemporaneously, I asked her, “What exactly are you up to?”
“Kiss my neck and don’t ask questions,” she replied.
It was not long before the expected occasion did present itself. A gathering of junior officers and enlisted men formed in front of Washington’s church headquarters, and when Washington appeared at the door, they presented him with a set of resolutions calling upon him to lead the army to Annapolis and declare himself king.
Fortunately, Washington had laboriously memorized Susanna’s response. “Gentlemen,” said he, “I am sensible of the honor you do me in making this request, but at the same time I find it impossible to acquiesce. Are you not aware that we have spent seven years fighting a war not only against George III, but against the very institution of monarchy? Why, every man I see before me is a king on a throne of gold; for in our republic, gentlemen, the power rests with the people themselves, and not with some class of arbitrarily distinguished men who have no more natural parts than you have, and perhaps a great deal less good sense. Would you have me elevate myself above you, when we have fought so long and so hard for the principle that all men are created equal? No, gentlemen, so reluctant am I to abandon our shared republican principles that I could never desire the position of king, and only the direst circumstances would induce me to accept such an honor.”
At the conclusion of this speech, the men gave a mighty cheer, which pleased Washington very much; but what did not please him nearly so much was that they took him at his word, and did not make him king.
“Well,” said Susanna, “we tried our best.”
“We did,” Washington agreed; “the principle was inarguably sound, and our lack of success can only be attributed to the malice of Irving, who would not wish to see me crowned king if he could prevent it. Irving will yet be the death of me, you may be certain of that. But though he may prevent my elevation to the throne, I hope he will not be able to prevent my enjoying the fruits of our hard-won victory. The time has come for me to retire from public life, and to give my full attention to the development of my estate at Mount Vernon.”
With this surprising announcement, Washington abandoned all hope of becoming King of the United States. Shortly afterward, a formal peace was concluded, and Washington traveled to Annapolis to resign his commission before the Congress. He was able to witness personally the evacuation of New-York by the British, with the exception of Clinton and the two captains aforesaid; and then he retired to Mount Vernon, fully intending to remain there for the rest of his life.
To be continued in Chapter XI.