The glorious cause, p.54
The Glorious Cause, page 54
The Howes had believed that they would find swarms of loyalists, and the march to Trenton in 1776 only partially disabused them. Sir William Howe may even then have believed the most popular form of the myth of the loyal Americans—that those in the southern colonies were especially numerous and more warmly loyal than those in the North. Sir Henry Clinton had sailed to Charleston in June 1776 in the expectation that he would provide a center to which loyal Carolinians would flock. The Carolinians flocked—not to Clinton but to Charles Lee, who headed the city’s defense. Though Clinton was joined by an expedition brought from Britain by Admiral Peter Parker, he failed both in taking Charleston and in rallying loyalists.
William Howe retained his faith that the loyalists in the southern colonies only awaited a chance to come out and put down the rebels. In the autumn of 1776 he proposed to attack South Carolina and Georgia during the following winter. But George Washington managed to take his mind off the South, and Howe also began to develop suspicions of Americans wherever he found them. His chief, Lord George Germain, removed from the disappointments of experience by 3000 miles, continued to believe that most Americans were loyal. And by summer 1777, loyalists from the Carolinas had arrived in England and had gained Germain’s ear. Reassured by what he heard from them, Germain urged Howe to proceed to the South. By that time Howe had learned to beware of professions of loyalty delivered at a distance—or close up in Pennsylvania—and since he was short of troops he refused to consider undertaking another expedition.1
Germain now had an idea of how the war might be won—tap the loyalist support in the South and further its spread northward. From the beginning of Clinton’s assumption of command, Germain had tried to push him into a new expedition. The entrance of France into the war diverted even Germain, but the order to dispatch troops from Philadelphia to Florida in March 1778 helped keep alive the possibility of a campaign in the southern colonies. By November, Clinton was prepared for a first effort. On the 27th he dispatched Lt. Colonel Archibald Campbell with the 71st Regiment, two regiments of Hessians, four Tory battalions, and a small contingent of artillery—altogether about 3500 rank-and-file on an invasion of Georgia. Two days before Christmas, Campbell arrived off Tybee Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, some fifteen miles below the town of Savannah.2
The American commander in Georgia, Robert Howe, rushed to the town’s defense from Sunbury, a distance of thirty miles. He was badly outnumbered, however, and his force—700 Continentals, 150 militia—was soon outflanked when Campbell was guided by a slave through a swamp to a vulnerable point in the not very formidable American defenses. The battle that ensued on December 29 resembled many in the war: the Americans collapsed and fled, leaving almost 100 dead and 453 prisoners. The British lost three dead and ten wounded. In the next month, Campbell with the support of Prevost, who came up from Florida, took control of Georgia.3
The great prize in the South lay north of Georgia, the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Almost all of 1779 passed before Clinton made a move to take it. That year saw few great events in America, or in Britain for that matter, but it was nevertheless a momentous year in the Revolution. In America, with Clinton feeling himself increasingly thwarted, some new way out, some feasible way of ending the war, seemed now to lie in the South. And the year-long pause in the war, the delay in turning to the southern colonies, saw a crisis slowly build in Britain that reinforced the ministry’s old fantasy that a war might be won there.
II
The crisis of 1779 within Britain had its origins in political maneuvering, as did almost every ministerial crisis of the eighteenth century. The old question of what are you going to do with Noodle was very much on Noodle’s mind, and on North’s. There were always several Noodles, and at this time the chief among them was possessed not merely of ordinary ambitions but also of a feeling that he had been betrayed. This Noodle was Alexander Wedderburn, the solicitor general who in 1774 had abused Benjamin Franklin in the cockpit. Wedderburn had lost none of his odious qualities, among them a greed for high office which he indulged to the point of political blackmail. He now claimed that he had been promised the chief justiceship, a post that was not vacant, but which he wanted nonetheless. Wedderburn did not much care how North delivered it, but deliver it he must.4
Suffolk, the Secretary of State for the Northern Department, died in March and the opportunity of replacing him inflamed the hopes of many. The composition of the ministry had been an issue ever since news arrived of the disaster at Saratoga, and now, in view of the events of 1778, in particular the evacuation of Philadelphia, the ministry’s prospects had taken on a bleak look. North, Germain, and Sandwich all shared responsibility for the conduct of the war in America, and all received lashings in the newspapers. When Lord Carlisle and William Eden arrived home and their failure became known, the attackers of the ministry had further cause. Eden threw in with Wedderburn in pushing North, who soon was made to realize that appointing Hillsborough to Suffolk’s vacant post would not be popular.
While this plotting was getting under way, Sir William Howe demanded a Parliamentary inquiry into his conduct in America. Howe stated to Parliament “that imputations had been thrown on himself, and his brother, for not terminating the American war last campaign” and asked for an inquiry into “whether the fault lay in the commanders of his Majesty’s fleets and armies, or in the ministries of state.”5 He then paraded witnesses before the Commons, including Lord Cornwallis and Major General Charles Grey, to substantiate his contention that fault lay with the ministry and not with himself or his brother.
Cornwallis, who said that he would confine himself to the facts and keep his opinions to himself, gave a version of the “facts” that rather subtly tarnished Howe’s self-portrait as the aggressive commander in America. Grey turned out to be a much better witness, describing difficulties that would have thwarted any military chief this side of Julius Caesar. The American countryside was so rugged, Grey testified, as to make reconnoitering it almost impossible. Against an enemy determined to fight a defensive war, reconnaissance was essential, but in a country made for the defensive and inhabited by a distinctly unfriendly people, attack was difficult to prosecute.
Germain now proved his inner toughness. The implications of Grey’s report were clear and easily drawn, but Germain was not about to concede that Howe required further support from home to win the war. Rather he trotted out Major General James Robertson, who proceeded to give a version of things that made Howe’s failure inexplicable except in terms of his own incapacity and disinclination to fight. In Robertson’s account the Americans appeared as overwhelmingly loyal to the king—in his solemn statement two-thirds of them favored the king’s government—and the Declaration of Independence, far from representing popular opinion, emanated from “a few artful folks” who not surprisingly rejoiced in it by themselves. As for the countryside, it abounded in food supplies and a people eager to give information about the traitorous forces under George Washington. Moreover these people would fight for their king; they wanted nothing so much as a good chance, and capable leaders, to help them escape “Congress’s tyranny.”6
This testimony seemed damning, but the Howes struck back. Their blows were returned, and the inquiry dragged on until the end of June. And when it ended in Parliament, it was resumed in the press—to no one’s satisfaction.
Meanwhile, the ministry and General Clinton, in America, agreed on a strike against Charleston, South Carolina. What could not be settled in Parliament might be played out in America. The place for a new beginning lay in the southern colonies.
III
The expedition left New York’s harbor with difficulty on December 26, 1779. Loading the transports had called on all the skill of the sailors manning the small boats ferrying the troops and supplies. Temperatures had been low for several weeks, ice clogged the harbor, and winds made handling the boats a treacherous business. The 33rd Regiment, which was Cornwallis’s, set out one day only to be forced back to the wharf.7
Clinton, always a poor sailor, who hated the sea even when it was untroubled, must have been relieved when the ships—some ninety transports and fourteen warships—departed the harbor in relatively good weather. During the night of December 28–29, whatever he was feeling was doubtless replaced by seasickness as a heavy storm heaved the ships about. Although over the next four weeks the winds occasionally abated and the seas flattened, a series of storms blew the fleet apart.
By January 6, 1780, Johann Hinrichs of the Jaeger Corps, who kept a careful diary of the voyage, was writing: “Always the same weather!” The “same” was “Storm, rain, hail, snow, and the waves breaking over the cabin, such was today’s observation.” During the worst of it, the ships would furl their sails and drift during the night, with the wheel lashed down and the ship buttoned up as tightly as possible. In the mornings, when they could see, each ship would discover that it was alone, or in the company of only a few others. During the day that followed the ships would attempt to collect themselves if the weather permitted. Usually the weather permitted little, as masts crashed down under the pounding, sails were ripped to shreds, and hulls sprang leaks. Captain Hinrichs watched the sinking of the George, a transport with the infantry aboard “throwing their belongings and themselves head over heels into the boats.” The soldiers fared better than the horses, most of which were injured and had to be destroyed. Stores of all sorts were also damaged, and much was lost as ships went down.8
At the end of January the transports and their escorts began to drift into the mouth of the Savannah River, to Tybee Island, where the crews dried out and repaired their vessels. They were of course far south of their destination, which originally was the North Edisto Inlet about thirty miles from Charleston.
Within ten days Clinton declared the army ready to proceed, and on February 11 the troops began putting ashore on Simmons Island (now Seabrook) on the Edisto inlet. This move occasioned a different sort of heavy weather between Clinton and Vice Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot, the naval commander who had followed Sir George Collier and who was Clinton’s equal in rank. Clinton had liked Commodore Collier, and the two had worked well together. Marriot Arbuthnot proved to be much more difficult to work with. He was sixty-eight and did not exude energy. He was not without experience, but he had not commanded either a major station such as the North American waters; nor had he taken part in a large venture with the army. He was unpredictable, sometimes determined, sometimes indecisive. He was given to bursts of both confidence and fears, and the bursts proved impossible to anticipate, let alone explain. He did not relish the responsibilities of his new command—nor should he have, for he lacked a strategic sense and the skills of a great sailor. He was, in short, just the sort of companion Clinton did not need.9
The two men disagreed on where the troops should go ashore, a disagreement that would be followed by others more serious. Clinton urged that the landing should be at the North Edisto Inlet, apparently because the voyage there would be a day or two shorter than to the Stono Inlet, the place Arbuthnot proposed. In the argument that followed, Clinton invoked the authority of one of Arbuthnot’s skippers, Captain Elphinstone, who knew the waters around Charleston better than anyone else on the expedition. Arbuthnot gave way, but apparently with little grace. And in the exchange between the two the outlines of a feud were etched.
All the troops and much of their baggage cleared the ship three days after the landing began. Over the next ten days the army slogged its way across the marshes on Johns and James islands. Clinton then sat them down in a rough camp and, aside from establishing a beachhead at Stono Ferry on the mainland, stopped his advance. There were reasons for delay: the army needed to establish supply depots and magazines, and Clinton believed that it needed reinforcements. He promptly sent for the detachments in Georgia and ordered that troops be sent from New York. Meanwhile the quartermasters, lacking horses to draw heavy wagons over the soggy ground, proceeded slowly in building up the magazines. Clinton also had to wait on the navy to make its way into the upper harbor, where its heavy guns could be put ashore for the siege he had decided upon and where its small boats could be used to ferry troops across the Ashley River to the peninsula on which Charleston was located.10
Charleston, the only city of any size in the southern states, ordinarily numbered 12,000 citizens, mostly of English stock but with sizable numbers of black slaves, French Protestants, and a sprinkling of Spaniards and Germans. It lay on a peninsula cut by the Ashley River on the west and the Cooper on the east. Visitors found it beautiful and, though hot in summer, cooler than the inland areas. Wealthy rice planters aspired to houses in the city, and many built them in order to escape the worst of the summer heat. Altogether there were some eight hundred, or perhaps a thousand, houses sitting along broad streets which intersected one another at right angles. Most of the houses were of wood and rather small—at least by European standards. Along the two rivers, though, handsome and large brick houses had been built, and many owners had put in gardens behind them.11
Since 1776, Charleston’s defenses had decayed. From the seaward side, the side that had thwarted Parker and Clinton in 1776, Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island on the east and Fort Johnson on the west had fallen into disrepair. They were occupied, however, and seemed to stand in the way of an enemy coming through the outer (or lower) harbor. In reality, nature offered a more formidable obstacle in the shape of a heavy sand bar. The bar could be crossed at five places, but at all these points the water was so shallow as to prevent the passage of heavy ships. Frigates and smaller vessels could make it, but not without lightening themselves. A series of terraced works of palmetto logs protected the tip of the Neck, as the peninsula was called, and along the side of each river there were redoubts, trenches, and small fortifications. The redoubt at the tip held sixteen heavy guns, and the forts along the river had from three to nine guns each. There was a small flotilla of ships in the upper harbor under Commodore Whipple when the siege began, but they were scuttled at the mouth of the Cooper when Arbuthnot crossed the bar on March 20. Their guns and crews were sent ashore to strengthen the defenses already in place. The ships themselves formed a barrier to entrance into the Cooper.12
Charleston’s defenses on the north were in worse shape than those facing the harbor. Benjamin Lincoln, the commander of the city’s garrison, expected invasion from the sea and consequently neglected completing the land-works that stretched across the Neck. The heart of these defenses was the citadel, or “hornwork” or “old royal work,” a heavy fort made of “tapia” or “tappy,” a material consisting of oystershells, lime, sand, and water. It had eighteen guns. There were redoubts on either side of it, but they were not complete; nor had their engineers located them well, had not at least in the judgment of the enemy that eventually captured them. One flaw might have been corrected had the Americans used their time more efficiently: the lonely isolation of these works. They sat apart from one another, and the main one on the left never enjoyed safe communications with the others. Communication trenches dug between the citadel and those on the right strengthened that side of the line, but the rear of even these works remained vulnerable because their defenders neglected to close them. Duportail, the French engineer who arrived late in April, urged the closing of the rear of the works, an extremely difficult process under fire.13
The people of Charleston did not rush into these fortifications; nor did the people from the state, and probably no more than one-third of the defenders were Carolinians. When Clinton landed, Lincoln had 800 South Carolina Continentals, 400 Virginia Continentals, around 380 of Pulaski’s Legion (named after their commander, the Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski), 2000 militia from the Carolinas, and a small number of dragoons. In April, just before Clinton closed off the city, reinforcements, North Carolina and Virginia Continentals, arrived.14
Lincoln must have been grateful for the Continentals in this force. He had little else to be grateful for; he had stepped into waters over his head and he did not know how to swim. But no American commander could have stayed afloat easily in the depths of siegecraft: physical defenses in decay, or uncompleted, inadequate military forces, a civilian population eager to be defended but unwilling to expose itself, these were deep waters indeed. And of course Lincoln had no experience in defending a city under siege, nor did anyone else in his command.
Not that Lincoln lacked ability. Before the Revolution he had got his living as a farmer in Hingham, Massachusetts, where he was born in 1733. He came up the way many able men in New England did—through hard work and service to the community as town clerk, justice of the peace, and a militia officer in a Suffolk County regiment. In the years just preceding the war he sat on Hingham’s committee of correspondence and in the Provincial Congress. A lieutenant colonel of militia when the war began, Lincoln rose to major general in a short time; and Congress, following a suggestion from Washington, brought him to the same rank in the Continental line early in 1777. His service thereafter, until Congress appointed him commander of the southern department in September 1778 in place of Robert Howe, was not undistinguished but it was not brilliant. He performed well at Saratoga, where he was seriously wounded in the leg. The command in the South followed a long period of recuperation.15
Lincoln did not know why the enemy did not attack and may not have given the delay much thought in his haste to complete his defenses. Expecting the British to force their way across the bar and up into the harbor, he at first concentrated on the lower tip of the Neck and the mouths of the rivers. Work also proceeded up the peninsula in case the British decided to approach the city from the rear.
