Part 7

So Lafayette passed the time until the campaign of 1781 opened. He wrote often to his wife, and sent her a long letter by his friend Colonel Laurens, when the latter went on a mission to the court of France. Another child had been born to the Marquis and Adrienne, a son, who was given the name of George Washington. “Embrace our children,” wrote Lafayette, “thousands of times for me. Although a vagabond, their father is none the less tender, less constantly thoughtful of them, less happy to hear from them. My heart perceives, as in a delicious perspective, the moment when my dear children will be presented to me by you, and when we can kiss and caress them together. Do you think that Anastasie will recognize me?” And, as he could never write without thinking of the brave army he commanded, he added, “Only _citizens_ could support the nakedness, the hunger, the labors, and the absolute lack of pay which constitute the conditions of our soldiers, the most enduring and the most patient, I believe, of any in the world.”

In January, 1781, word came to Washington’s headquarters that General Benedict Arnold had landed in Virginia with a good-sized army, was laying waste the country, and had already destroyed the valuable stores collected at Richmond. If Arnold’s campaign should succeed the result would be to place all the Southern States in the hands of the enemy. Let him defeat the few American troops in Virginia and he could march to join the English General Cornwallis, who was pressing General Greene very hard in the Carolinas.

Indeed Cornwallis already appeared to hold the south in his grasp. He had beaten the small contingents of American troops in that country, and at the battle of Camden, in South Carolina, Lafayette’s old companion, the Baron de Kalb, had fallen in battle. It was of the utmost importance, therefore, to defeat or capture Arnold, who had been rewarded for his treason by being made a general in the British army, and Washington at once planned to send a detachment from his main army against Arnold by land, and a naval force to Chesapeake Bay to cut off his escape by sea. The French admiral ordered a ship-of-the-line and two frigates to the Chesapeake, and Washington placed twelve hundred light infantry under Lafayette with instructions to aid the fleet. This command, of the greatest importance, showed the confidence and trust that the commander-in-chief felt in the military ability of the Frenchman.

Lafayette marched rapidly south and reached the Head of the Elk on March second, three days earlier than had been expected. Here he embarked his troops on small boats and descended to Annapolis. Seeing no signs of the French squadron, he concluded that they had been delayed by adverse winds, and, leaving his army at Annapolis, he went with a few officers to consult with Baron Steuben and seek his aid. He secured some companies of militia at Williamsburg, near the York River, and proceeded to the camp of General Muhlenberg, near Suffolk, to have a look at Benedict Arnold’s defenses at Portsmouth.

Meantime a large fleet appeared in Chesapeake Bay. Lafayette, and Arnold also, thought that this must be the French squadron, but the American commander soon received word that the ships were English. It turned out that the first French squadron had found there was too little water in the bay for them, and had sailed back to Newport, while a second squadron had been driven off by the English. The result was that General Arnold’s forces were relieved from danger, and the enemy reinforced by two new regiments under General Phillips, who now took command of all the English armies in Virginia.

Washington’s orders to Lafayette had been that he was to try to capture Arnold, and that if the French fleet should be defeated he should march his men back to headquarters without further risk. So he now sent his militia to Williamsburg and forwarded orders to Annapolis to have the troops prepared for immediate departure. When he reached Annapolis he found there were great difficulties in the way of transporting his men to Elk. There were very few horses or wagons or small boats for crossing the ferries, and the port was blocked by English ships. He had resort to a clever stratagem. He put two eighteen-pounders on a small sloop, which, with another ship under Commodore Nicholson, sailed out toward the enemy vessels, firing their guns as if about to attack. The two English ships on guard withdrew a considerable distance down the bay, and then Lafayette embarked his troops on his own boats and got them out of the harbor and up the bay to Elk. They reached there safely during the night, followed by Lafayette and Nicholson in the sloop.

When Washington heard of General Phillips’ arrival in Virginia his anxiety was great. The situation in the south was extremely perilous. General Greene was having all he could do to oppose Lord Cornwallis in North Carolina. Unless strong opposition could be brought against Phillips the latter could quickly overrun Virginia and unite with Cornwallis. In this predicament the commander-in-chief determined to put the defense of Virginia in the hands of Lafayette.

Lafayette heard of this new appointment as soon as he reached Elk. The task was a great one. His men lacked proper equipment and even necessary clothing, and they were much disheartened by the unsuccessful campaign in the south. He borrowed ten thousand dollars from the merchants of Baltimore on his personal security and bought his army food and supplies. Then he told his men that his business was to fight an enemy greatly superior in numbers, through difficulties of every sort, and that any soldier who was unwilling to accompany him might avoid the penalties of desertion by applying for a pass to the North. His men, placed on their mettle, stood by him cheerfully. Immediately Lafayette marched on Richmond, reaching that place a day ahead of General Phillips. And General Phillips was so much impressed by Lafayette’s show of strength that he gave up his intention of seizing Richmond and retreated down the James River.

Cornwallis heard of this, and, vowing that he would defeat “that boy Lafayette,” as he called the Marquis, stopped his campaign against Greene in North Carolina and determined that he would himself take command in Virginia. Cornwallis, a major-general and an officer of great experience, expected an easy task when he sent word to Phillips to await his arrival at the town of Petersburg.

When he heard that Cornwallis was moving north and that Phillips was on the march Lafayette guessed that they intended to join forces, and hurried toward Petersburg to prevent it. Phillips, however, was nearer to that town and reached it before Lafayette, who was obliged to fall back on Richmond, but who sent out Colonel Gimat, with artillery, to keep the enemy busy.

On May thirteenth General Phillips died at Petersburg. It was before this general’s guns that Lafayette’s father had fallen at the battle of Hastenbeck. Benedict Arnold was second in command, and on taking Phillips’ place he sent a letter to Lafayette under a flag of truce. When the latter learned the name of the writer he at once informed the men who brought Arnold’s communication that while he would be glad to treat with any other English officer he could not read a message from this one. This placed General Arnold in a difficult position and was resented by a threat to send all American prisoners to the West Indies. But when the people heard of it they were delighted, and Washington wrote to the Marquis, “Your conduct upon every occasion meets my approbation, but in none more than in your refusing to hold a correspondence with Arnold.”

On May 24, 1781, Cornwallis, having joined his army to that of Arnold at Petersburg and having rested his men, marched out with his whole force to attack Lafayette at Richmond. At Byrd’s Plantation, where the British commander had his quarters, he wrote of his opponent, “The boy cannot escape me.”

Lafayette, on his part, knew that his enemy had a fine fighting force, and that he must be wary to avoid him. The Marquis said, “Lord Cornwallis marches with amazing celerity. But I have done everything I could, without arms or men, at least to impede him by local embarrassments.”

And he did embarrass the Earl. He led him a dance through the country about Richmond, he retreated across the Chickahominy River to Fredericksburg, time and again he just escaped the swiftly pursuing British. He knew he could not venture on fighting without the aid of more troops, and he kept up his retreat until he was joined by General Wayne with Pennsylvania soldiers on June tenth. Then he planned to take the offensive, and rapidly crossed the Rapidan River in the direction of Cornwallis.

Cornwallis would have liked a direct battle with the Americans, but again Lafayette proved wary. While the British army blocked the road to Albemarle, Lafayette discovered an old unused road and under cover of night marched his men along it and took up a strong position before the town. There militia joined him from the neighboring mountains, and he was able to show so strong a front that the British commander did not dare to attack him. In his turn Cornwallis retreated, first to Richmond and then to Williamsburg, near the coast, and left the greater part of Virginia in the control of the Americans.

Lafayette now became the pursuer instead of the pursued, and harried Cornwallis on the rear and flanks. The famous cavalry officer, Colonel Tarleton, serving under Cornwallis, described the pursuit: “The Marquis de Lafayette, who had previously practised defensive manœuvres with skill and security, being now reinforced by General Wayne and about eight hundred Continentals and some detachments of militia, followed the British as they proceeded down the James River. This design, being judiciously arranged and executed with extreme caution, allowed opportunity for the junction of Baron Steuben, confined the small detachments of the King’s troops, and both saved the property and animated the drooping spirits of the Virginians.”

Lafayette was proving that Washington’s confidence in him was well placed and showing himself an extraordinarily able commander in the field.

At Williamsburg Cornwallis received word from General Clinton in New York that a part of the British troops in Virginia were to be sent north. In order to embark these troops he set out for Portsmouth on July fourth. Knowing that the enemy would be obliged to cross the James River at James Island, Lafayette decided to attack their rear as soon as a considerable number should have passed the ford. Cornwallis foresaw this, and sending his baggage-wagons across arranged his men to surprise the Americans.

Toward sunset on July sixth Lafayette crossed the causeways that led to the British position and opened an attack. General Wayne, whose popular nickname was “Mad Anthony,” led the advance with a thousand riflemen, dragoons, and two pieces of artillery. Lafayette, with twelve hundred infantry, was ready to support him. But at Wayne’s first advance he found that the whole British army was before him; he attacked with the greatest vigor; Lafayette, however, realizing that Cornwallis had prepared a surprise, ordered a retreat to General Muhlenberg’s station a half mile in the rear. Had Cornwallis pursued he must have defeated the American forces, which had to cross long log bridges over marshy land, but in his turn he feared an ambush, and was content to bring his men safely across the James and proceed to Portsmouth.

The British were now at Portsmouth and the rest of Virginia in the Americans’ hands. Lafayette wrote a description of the situation to Washington, and added, “Should a French fleet now come into Hampton Roads, the British army would, I think, be ours.” Hardly had his letter reached Washington when a French ship arrived at Newport with word that the fleet of the French Count de Grasse had left the West Indies bound for Chesapeake Bay. Instantly Washington saw that he ought not now to direct his attack against Clinton in New York, but against Cornwallis in Virginia.

Cornwallis, wanting to take up a strong position with easy access to the sea, began to move his army to Yorktown on August first. At the same time Lafayette arranged his forces so as to cut off any retreat of the enemy. And while this was going on, and the fleet of the Count de Grasse was nearing the coast, Washington and Rochambeau met in the old Livingston manor-house at Dobb’s Ferry on the Hudson on August fourteenth and planned their joint campaign against Yorktown.

Then the two armies marched south. The Continental troops, many ragged and poorly armed, but with green sprigs in their caps, passed through Philadelphia on September second, and the French, more sprucely and gaily uniformed, followed them the next day. On September twelfth Washington reached Mount Vernon, which he had not seen for six years, and there entertained Rochambeau and other French officers. Two days later he took command of the allied forces at Williamsburg, and on the seventeenth visited De Grasse on his flag-ship, and completed plans for the siege. The army held the mainland, the French fleet blocked the path to the sea, and Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown.

The end of the drama came swiftly. The American and French entrenchments drew closer and closer to the British lines until they were only three hundred yards apart. Then, on October fourteenth, Lafayette’s men, led by Colonel Alexander Hamilton, charged the British works on the left, while the French grenadiers stormed a redoubt on the right. The outer works were won in this attack, which proved to be the last battle of the Revolution.

The next night Cornwallis tried to cut his way out from Yorktown and escape across the York River to Gloucester. Watchful outposts drove him back. On October seventeenth a British drummer appeared on Yorktown’s ramparts and beat a parley. An American and a French officer met two British officers at a farmhouse, and articles of surrender were drawn up and accepted. Two days later, on October 19, 1781, the army of Cornwallis marched out of Yorktown and passed between the American and French troops, commanded respectively by Washington and Rochambeau.

The French officer who had prepared the articles of surrender at the farmhouse was Lafayette’s brother-in-law, the Vicomte de Noailles, one of the two young men to whom Lafayette had taken the word that he meant to go “to America to fight for liberty!” Now the Vicomte saw that the ardent hopes of the young enthusiast had borne such glorious fruit!

There stands a monument on the heights above the York River, in Virginia, and on one side of it are these words: “At York, on October 19, 1781, after a siege of nineteen days, by 5,500 American and 7,000 French Troops of the Line, 3,500 Virginia Militia under command of General Thomas Nelson and 36 French ships of war, Earl Cornwallis, Commander of the British Forces at York and Gloucester, surrendered his army, 7,251 officers and men, 840 seamen, 244 cannons and 24 standards to His Excellency George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Combined Forces of America and France, to His Excellency the Comte de Rochambeau, commanding the auxiliary Troops of His Most Christian Majesty in America, and to His Excellency the Comte de Grasse, commanding in chief the Naval Army of France in Chesapeake.”

It was largely due to Lafayette that the French fleet and the army of Rochambeau had crossed the ocean and that the Americans in Virginia had succeeded in bottling up Cornwallis at Yorktown and so bringing an end to the Revolution. Close to Washington he must forever stand as one of the great men who won liberty for the United States!

VIII

THE MARQUIS AIDS THE UNITED STATES IN FRANCE

Word of the surrender at Yorktown was received all through the thirteen States with the greatest joy. Watchmen calling the hours of the night in the cities cried, “Twelve o’clock! All’s well, and Cornwallis has surrendered!” Everywhere the people hailed this event as heralding the close of the long and distressing war. When one thinks of what they had endured since 1775 there is no wonder at the hymns of thanksgiving. And a ship at once sailed across the Atlantic to France with the glad tidings.

The surrender at Yorktown did mark the beginning of the end of the Revolution, though the conflict went on in a desultory fashion for two years more, and it was not until November 25, 1783, that the British evacuated New York City. But after Yorktown many of the French officers went home, and among them Lafayette. He wrote to the French minister, “The play is over, Monsieur le comte; the fifth act has just come to an end. I was somewhat disturbed during the former acts, but my heart rejoices exceedingly at this last, and I have no less pleasure in congratulating you upon the happy ending of our campaign.”

Both Lafayette and Congress felt that the Marquis could now help the country greatly by his presence in France in case more men and money should be needed for further campaigns. So, with Washington’s approval, Congress agreed that “Major-General the Marquis de Lafayette have permission to go to France and that he return at such time as shall be most convenient to him.” And Congress also voted that Lafayette “be informed that, on a review of his conduct throughout the past campaign and particularly during the period in which he had the chief command in Virginia, the many new proofs which present themselves of his zealous attachment to the cause he has espoused, and of his judgment, vigilance, gallantry, and address in its defense, have greatly added to the high opinion entertained by Congress of his merits and military talents.”

He took his leave of Washington, the man he admired more than any other in the world, and the commander-in-chief, who looked on the young Frenchman as if the latter was his own son, said in his dignified fashion, “I owe it to your friendship and to my affectionate regard for you, my dear marquis, not to let you leave this country without carrying with you fresh marks of my attachment to you and new expressions of the high sense I entertain of your military conduct and other important services in the course of the last campaign, although the latter are too well known to need the testimony of my approbation, and the former, I persuade myself, you believe is too well riveted to undergo diminution or change.”

The Frenchman was not so reserved as the American. His ardent spirit shows in the letter he wrote his commander. “Adieu, my dear general,” he said. “I know your heart so well that I am sure that no distance can alter your attachment to me. With the same candor I assure you that my love, my respect, my gratitude for you are above expression; that, at the moment of leaving you, I feel more than ever the struggle of those friendly ties that forever bind me to you, and that I anticipate the pleasure, the most wished-for pleasure, to be again with you, and, by my zeal and services, to gratify the feelings of my respect and affection.”

On December 23, 1781, Lafayette sailed from Boston on the same frigate _Alliance_ that had carried him back to France the first time. He was to be received in his native land like a conquering hero. Already Vergennes, the Secretary of State of France, had written to him. “Our joy is very great here and throughout the nation,” said Vergennes, “and you may be assured that your name is held in veneration.... I have been following you, M. le Marquis, step by step, throughout your campaign in Virginia; and I should frequently have been anxious for your welfare if I had not been confident of your wisdom. It required a great deal of skill to maintain yourself, as you did, for so long a time, in spite of the disparity of your forces, before Lord Cornwallis, whose military talents are well known. It was you who brought him to the fatal ending, where, instead of his making you a prisoner of war, as he probably expected to do, you forced him to surrender.”

He landed in France on January 17, 1782. If his former arrival had been a succession of triumphs, this one was doubly so. When he reached the house of the Duke de Noailles in Paris his wife was attending a fête at the Hôtel de Ville in honor of the birth of the Dauphin. As soon as his arrival became known the Queen took Madame de Lafayette in her own carriage and went with her to welcome the Marquis. Louis XVI. announced that he had promoted Lafayette to the high rank of “Maréchal de camp,” and wrote to him, through his minister of war, “The King, having been informed, sir, of the military skill of which you have given repeated proof in the command of the various army corps entrusted to you in America, of the wisdom and prudence which have marked the services that you have performed in the interest of the United States, and of the confidence which you have won from General Washington, his Majesty has charged me to announce to you that the commendations which you most fully deserve have attracted his notice, and that your conduct and your success have given him, sir, the most favorable opinion of you, such as you might wish him to have, and upon which you may rely for his future good-will.”

Every one delighted to entertain and praise him; the Marshal de Richelieu invited him to dine with all the marshals of France, and at the dinner the health of Washington was drunk with every honor. And if the King and the nobles were loud in their acclaim, the people were no less so; they called Lafayette by such extravagant titles as the “Conqueror of Cornwallis” and “the Saviour of America with Washington.” Had it not been that Lafayette had a remarkably level head the things that people said and wrote about him might almost have made him believe that he had won the Revolution in America single-handed.

Naturally he enjoyed being with his dear wife and children again, but he was not a man who could contentedly lead the idle life of a nobleman in Paris. Soon he was busy doing what he could to help the cause of the young American republic in France. He saw a great deal of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, the commissioners of the United States to the French court, and Franklin wrote home concerning him, “The Marquis de Lafayette was, at his return hither, received by all ranks with all possible distinction. He daily gains in the general esteem and affection, and promises to be a great man here. He is extremely attached to our cause; we are on the most friendly and confidential footing with each other, and he is really very serviceable to me in my applications for additional assistance.”

He planned to return to America to rejoin the army. “In spite of all my happiness here,” he wrote to Washington, “I cannot help wishing, ten times a day, to be on the other side of the Atlantic.” But the Continental army was merely marking time, no active campaign was in progress, and neither Lafayette nor French troops were again needed to fight across the ocean.