The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (124 page)

men, however, doubtless would have echoed Duncan's judgment of Hamilton -- "One of the first officers in the American army" who in this instance "wantonly exposed the lives of his men." The French, though not so given to these wild flourishes, also relieved their infantry and working parties to the beating of drums, did at least until Rochambeau ordered the practice, which he characterized as "vain glory," to cease. A very solid and psychologically secure commander, Rochambeau noted that the drums attracted British fire. Honor evidently could survive silence and was most enjoyed by the living.
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Whatever else the confidence of the allies spawned, it generated a powerful zeal for work. And work the troops did in the opening days of October. The artillery had to be dragged up and emplaced and pressure had to be exerted on the British. Drawing the artillery from the James, where it had been landed, to Yorktown took time and the labor of many horses and men. While these men and animals sweated at their tasks, others began digging in, improving the redoubts captured in the Pigeon Quarter and throwing up works on both ends of the town. Once these were begun sappers started zig-zagging trenches forward toward the enemy. A few nights later in the darkness of October 6, the first parallel was opened, a trench 600 yards distant from the British and parallel to their works. This trench, some 4000 feet long initially, ran from the river on the southeast side of town to a large ravine. It was virtually completed a day later. During the next two days the French and Americans anchored it with redoubts, dug communications trenches and depots for stores and ammunition, and emplaced batteries slightly ahead of the parallel.
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The British did not ignore this threat. Their cannonade picked up the next few days and at times so impressed an acute American observer, St. George Tucker, that he characterized it "smart." Smart it may have been, but it was not heavy enough to stop the allied armies from emplacing their own artillery. By the afternoon of October 9 they had a sufficient number of guns and mortars in position to reply. From that time on they made life miserable for everyone in Yorktown -- British and German

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soldiers, the few civilians who had not fled, and the black slaves who had volunteered or been forced to remain.

Within a few days the allied artillery established its superiority. There soon was more of it and it proved surprisingly accurate. This fire would be described today as direct fire; the cannoneers could see their targets and did not have to depend upon forward observers to "call" it in.

The French gunners, more practiced than the Americans, claimed to be able to put six consecutive rounds in the embrasures of enemy batteries. The Americans lacked this fine touch but they too fired with an accuracy that distressed the enemy. The day after the allies opened bombardment all save two of the English embrasures had closed, not necessarily destroyed, but shut up during daylight to prevent their destruction. At night they opened and returned as much fire as possible.

Not only the British works suffered under the allied pounding. From October 9 on there was little sleep for those in town. Civilians ran to "hastily contrived shelters" along the river bank, soldiers burrowed into the ground in trenches and redoubts; Cornwallis himself lived in a kind of grotto, a rough underground cave. Still the dead and wounded piled up, and a German soldier remarked on the bodies in town "whose heads, arms, and legs had been shot off." Food supplies did not run out, but the army, which had eaten "putrid meat and wormy biscuits" at least since early September, did not fare well. Sickness brought on by bad food and water incapacitated hundreds of soldiers.
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Two days after the allies began shelling, October 11, they dug a second parallel, this one about 300 yards from the main enemy line. The same procedure was used with sappers clawing out trenches under the watchful care of infantry. In another day the trench was almost finished. This time the British exacted a price from the infantry the allies sent forward. At two or three hundred yards the light artillery found the range. Cornwallis, who had carefully hoarded powder and shells, removed restrictions on firing. Over the next week, however, the allied artillery gradually assumed control as more forward batteries were opened and the British works brought under even heavier fire.

On the night of October 14 the allies completed the second parallel by simultaneous assaults on two British redoubts, No. 9 and No. 10. These attacks were a compound of terror and romance. Made in darkness

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by troops carrying unloaded muskets, they succeeded only because of surprise -- and bravery. The French who took No. 9, the larger of the two redoubts, incurred heavier casualties than the Americans. The abatis they had to force their way through may have been thicker than the one the Americans encountered or they may have been less well prepared for it. Whatever the reason, the abatis held them up and British muskets cut them down. Finally, the artificers cleared the way and the French infantry rushed through into the ditch and up the parapet. Once inside the redoubt they found the going easier as some of the British retired. To their right the Americans under Alexander Hamilton broke down the abatis as soon as they found it and swarmed over the redoubt's defenders before they could organize a defense. By morning the redoubts had been connected to the second set of trenches, and the allies had a position suitable for a final storm.
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A final desperate assault did not prove necessary. Not much fight remained in the British, and they exhausted what there was over the next three days. Around midnight on October 15 a small raiding party of British broke into the second parallel and spiked six pieces in two batteries, one French and one American. These raiders acted for the sake of British pride, and soon after encountering resistance they retired to their main lines. The next night, in a desperate effort to escape, Cornwallis began ferrying troops across the river to Gloucester. His intention was to mass sufficient force to break out and then to lead his army to New York. He had put about a thousand men across the river when a squall blew up and made further transport impossible. By the time the wind and rain fell off, further effort was useless. The troops were crossed back to Yorktown, and Cornwallis began to prepare himself to surrender. That day his lines took a frightful battering.
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On October 17, Cornwallis sent an officer to Washington with a proposal for surrender. Terms were discussed that day and the next. A little before noon on October 19, Washington signed, and at two in the afternoon, the British army marched out to surrender.
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The surrender at Yorktown did not end the war. Britain still had an army in New York City, Charleston, South Carolina, parts of Georgia, Canada, Halifax, and the West Indies. But the yearning for peace seemed almost irresistible as the new year opened. North was more dispirited than ever, and there were no optimists in the ministry. The king hated talk of peace without an American surrender, but Parliament felt only disenchantment with the war.
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By late March 1782, North could hold out no longer and on the 20th resigned, his way hastened by an address by Commons that all those who would prosecute an offensive war in order to reduce the colonies to obedience were enemies of their country. A week later Lord Rockingham was back in office, heading a government the king could hardly bring himself to acknowledge. Nor did the king like Rockingham -- indeed he could barely tolerate being in the same room with him -- and insisted that Shelburne serve as an intermediary when the first minister had to be consulted. It was Rockingham's fate to rouse his monarch's disgust even as he saved him from disaster.

Shelburne began as Secretary for the Southern Department which now reassumed responsibility for the colonies, while Charles James Fox, his enemy, took over the Northern Department which had general responsibility for European affairs. These appointments raised awkward problems, for these two foes would both be involved in diplomacy. They did not like one another, and they did not agree on policy. Yet they would have to deal with closely related matters.

Whatever its internal condition, the new ministry had little choice. It had to make peace. An American peace commission already existed; the year before, on June 15, Congress had named it in the expectation that Austria and Russia might provide mediation. Franklin was named to this commission, as was John Adams, Henry Laurens, Thomas Jefferson, and John Jay. Laurens, who had sat in the Tower of London since 1780, when he had been captured by a British warship, was released on bail in 1782 but took little part in the negotiations. Jefferson, burdened with problems at this time, told Congress that he could not serve. Franklin, Adams, and Jay would make peace for the United States.
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The American commissioners began with their hands manacled. Congress instructed them to consult with the French and to take the advice they were given. It drafted these instructions at a time when the outcome of the war seemed doubtful to some, and when LaLuzerne, the French minister to the United States, had succeeded in bribing General John Sullivan, now a delegate from New Hampshire. The French bought a member of Congress because they could not corrupt John Adams, who had been named one of the American peace commissioners in 1779. Vergennes feared Adams's integrity and his devotion to the national interest of the United States. In June 1781 Congress named others to the peace commission, a measure diluting Adams's authority, and if that were not enough, Congress charged the commissioners to seek French advice and to follow it.