The Glorious Cause, page 37
Howe’s plan called for a coordinated movement forward, with the main attack to be delivered from the British right by the light infantry on the beach and the grenadiers and supporting infantry above them against the rail fence. Pigot would move from the left, but his initial attack was apparently to be diversionary, occupying the attention and fire of the Americans in the redoubt. Once the light infantry and grenadiers broke through on the right, they would turn their attack inward away from the river. The breastwork and the redoubt lying isolated and exposed could then be taken by a flanking attack.
The plan ran into trouble because of its complexity and its need for timing and coordination. The troops moved forward together, but the fences, high grass, kilns, swamp, and clay pits which broke the ground on the British right disordered the lines almost immediately. The need to slow the march while the artillery fired, then hooked up to be rolled forward, caused more confusion and disorder. The artillery soon proved almost useless as most of its ammunition turned out to be of the wrong size. On the left Pigot also ran against fences and high grass and, in addition, fire from Americans hiding in the buildings of Charlestown, 200 yards from the redoubt. A carcass, a shell carrying hot iron or combustible material, soon landed in Charlestown and the place began to burn, driving out the defenders. Still, Pigot had trouble gaining momentum.25
The light infantry, led by those from the 23rd Regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, met no obstructions from grass or fences, since the beach, though narrow, was smooth and flat. The Fusiliers advanced rapidly, bayonets at the ready, for they were not to fire but simply to overrun the provincials by sheer drive and mass. Stark watched them come from behind the barrier of stones and kept his men silent. When the column of scarlet got to within fifty yards of his position, he ordered his troops to fire. At that range, fire into a dense column could not miss, and the front ranks of the Fusiliers disintegrated, pitched about by the heavy musket balls. They were brave men and bravely led; their officers urged them forward despite the massed fire from Stark’s soldiers. “Our Light Infantry were served up companies,” a British officer commented a few days later, and were devoured by musket fire until ninety-six died on the beach where, as another sadly noted, they “lay as thick as sheep in a fold.”26 Not even the highly disciplined Fusiliers could stand this slaughter for long, and in a minute or two they pulled back; some said they broke and ran.
Above them in the fields before the rail fence the grenadiers also fell in thick grotesque piles. They too were allowed to approach well within effective range before the Americans poured musket balls into them. The grenadiers had come forward with “laudable perseverance” in Howe’s understated phrase, “but not with the greatest share of discipline, for as soon as the Order with which they set forward to the attack with bayonets was checked by a difficulty they met with in getting over some very high fences of strong railing, under a heavy fire, well kept up by the rebels, they began firing, and by crowding fell into disorders, and in this state the 2d line mixt with them.” The sight of his troops entangled in fences, high grass, with one another, and chopped into a disordered crowd by the hot lead from the rail fence produced in Howe a “Moment that I never felt before,” a moment of horror and—though he did not admit to fright—surely of fear that his command was about to be defeated and perhaps destroyed.27
Howe wrote later of the gallantry of his officers, who in this extremity rallied the troops for a second assault which, joined to another attempt led by Pigot on the left—”a 2d onset”—carried the redoubt and breastwork.28 His memory may have led him to compress two attacks into one in this account, for the evidence we have suggests that a second charge was made against the rail fence and the breastwork by the grenadiers and that Pigot led his troops on the British left up against the redoubt at the same time. Both failed, encountering, as a British officer reported, “an incessant stream of fire.”29 Incessant but carefully concentrated, he might have added, because in the redoubt Prescott had hoarded his troops’ fire as mindfully as the fabled miser hoarded gold. The shortage of powder and lead had concerned him from the start; his men had not been trained to fire by volleys—many had not been trained to do anything—but they could be made to conserve their ammunition until the enemy came close. Prescott saw to that.
Despite Prescott’s efforts, repelling this second assault consumed most of the remaining powder and bullets. Howe’s troops had followed their officers up the hill, only to go down again after approaching in some cases to within a hundred feet of the Americans. The third assault, perhaps thirty minutes later, concentrated on the breastwork and the redoubt; no attempt was made against Stark on the beach or Knowlton along the rail fence. By this time, Howe had received reinforcements—400 fresh troops, the 2nd Battalion of Marines and the 63rd Regiment. As in the second attack, his initial advance was made by columns—he had remembered the doctrine of the textbooks—and then for the final rush by lines. This time his artillery gave him support, and the infantry led by the grenadiers ran up the hill, bayonets flashing, voices shouting “push on, push on.”30 Within the redoubt the Americans saved their bullets as long as they could and then opened up. Those on the right side of the redoubt aimed well and stopped Pigot’s marines, who led his assault, killing, among others, Major Pitcairn of Lexington fame. The grenadiers, however, could not be stopped. The Americans ran out of ammunition. Minutes later the grenadiers entered the redoubt, some over the parapet, others from the rear. Most of Prescott’s men escaped in a disorderly withdrawal from the redoubt, but at least thirty trapped within were bayoneted by British infantry eager to settle scores.31
The retreat that followed did not collapse into disorder. Knowlton from the rail fence and Stark moving up from the beach gave covering fire, moving backward to Bunker Hill as they did. The men at the breastwork had already pulled back under the raking from the artillery, and Prescott’s troops found a shield in Knowlton and Stark. Yet they took heavy losses as they ran back toward Bunker Hill. Joseph Warren was killed as he left the redoubt; he may have been among the last to leave.
The British pursuit developed slowly, hampered by the confusion that ruled the redoubt. The troops on Breed’s had won a victory but lost their integrity as units. Getting them sorted out and into formations from which pursuit might be conducted took time. General Clinton, who had been unable to contain himself in Boston and who had come over to the peninsula in time to take part in the final assault on the left, took charge of the milling troops on Breed’s and reorganized them for a move against Bunker Hill. But by the time he recovered order from disorder, the Americans were pulling back off the peninsula—some simply running without direction or leadership, but most apparently in some rough order under the command of desperate officers. By nightfall it was all over: the British held the ground all the way to Charlestown Neck. This victory, if it can be called that, cost them 226 dead, and 828 wounded. American losses were 140 killed, and 271 wounded.32
V
George Washington arrived in Cambridge on July 2, just two weeks after the battle of Bunker Hill. He did not exude confidence in himself or in American prospects. Though the performance of the militia against Howe’s regulars heartened him, he did not feel certain that the Americans could win a war with Britain or even that they could force the British to an accommodation of American liberties. In fact, he had accepted his appointment with misgivings, registering his protests with Congress: “my Abilities and Military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important Trust.” Washington hated the prospect of failure and what it would do to his “reputation,” a word that appeared frequently in his letters at this time. To refuse the appointment, however, would tarnish his “honor,” another word he used often, and which expressed one of his basic values. By refusing to lead, he would not only dishonor himself, he would, as he explained to his wife, Martha—”My Dearest”—give “pain to my friends.” All these concerns—doubts about American prospects, honor and reputation, regard for friends, uncertainty about his abilities—set the ambivalence within him throbbing.33
For despite his apparent serenity, his massive dignity and gravity, and his obvious mastery of the problems of his life, Washington, a man now in middle age, still harbored many of the tensions and anxieties of his youth. Yet there was a difference. As a young man he had burned with desires after fame and fortune, the conventional goals of eighteenth-century youth of his class. Their attraction for him may have exceeded normal bounds, though, perhaps because he was not so securely of the gentry as many of the young men around him. Now, in 1775, though his honor still concerned him, it was no longer an obsession. He would risk his reputation for the great cause.
Washington was born in 1732 to a planting family in Virginia whose founder had emigrated to the colony in the seventeenth century. Augustine Washington, the father of George, was of the gentry but he was not a major planter. The family’s social credentials were good but not distinguished. Augustine Washington did not make his mark in politics, though he did serve as sheriff and as a justice of the peace, but he never sat in the House of Burgesses. At his death in 1743 he held around 10,000 acres of Virginia land.
After Augustine Washington’s death, George lived with his older brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon. His mother, Mary Ball Washington, did not make her sons’ lives easy; she may have felt cheated by her husband’s death. For whatever reasons, she brought more querulousness than comfort to her sons, with her complaints of her hard lot and of their neglect. George was not fond of her, but duty commanded that he listen to her and that he honor her. He heeded these commands and gave his mother respectful attention if not love.
As a youth, Washington was big and awkward. Everyone commented on the size of his hands, and his feet were also large and inevitably got in his way. Ease in company never came to him but he tried hard for it. Like other boys before and since, he turned to a book for help, Youth’s Behavior or Decencie in Conversation Amongst Men, 34 a manual of conduct which contained precepts designed to smooth the way for rough-hewn boys:
In the Presence of Others sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your fingers or feet. Shake not the head, feet or legs, rowl [roll] not the eyes, lift not one eyebrow higher than the other, wry not the mouth, and bedew no mans face with your spittle, by approaching too near him when you speak.35
Washington learned more than not to spit and scratch in company. Though his formal schooling was slight, he developed a good English prose style—occasionally he wrote with power and fluency—and he picked up more than an ordinary amount of mathematics. His ability in mathematics led him to surveying, and at sixteen he was a competent surveyor. This skill may have fed his passion for land, a passion he shared with most planters in Virginia. Surveying, he found, opened opportunities to speculate in land, especially in the West in 1748, where he worked as a surveyor and returned 1500 acres richer. By the time he was twenty-one, he owned several thousand acres; he had leased Mount Vernon (which would soon be his), he was a major in the militia, and he was the surveyor of his county.
At this time Washington craved fame almost as badly as he craved land. And he was soon to attain it. The opportunity came in the growing struggle between Britain and France for the American West, especially that part of it around the forks of the Ohio River. The Ohio Company, owned by speculators in land, decided in 1753 to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, the center of a vast area claimed by the company and by the French. The problem was how to get the French out. Washington, whose brother Lawrence owned stock in the Ohio Company, was sent by the governor of Virginia with a letter, demanding that the French leave the Ohio. Washington made the journey through the wilderness, received a polite rebuff, and returned to Virginia, where he wrote an account of his journey which so captivated the governor that he ordered it printed. This short narrative impressed men as far away as London, where it was reprinted. Things were looking up for Washington.
Having done one job well, Washington was given another the next year: command of an expedition which would hold the Ohio country for Virginia. This expedition ended in disaster. Washington and his men were captured by the French after a bloody fight, but Washington had performed well and emerged with his reputation unscathed. Of the battle Washington wrote to his brother, “I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me there is something charming in the sound”—a remark which made its way into the newspapers and which added to his fame.36
The next five years offered few charms. Washington was given command of the Virginia militia and ordered to defend the frontier. Unfortunately, to his mind, the main arena of the war had shifted elsewhere. Leading the militia was almost impossible, for the civilians who filled its ranks were impatient of authority and unreliable in almost every way. Washington dealt with them as well as he knew how and smoldered over what he considered neglect by Virginia and his majesty’s army in America. Feeling neglected and facing great problems along the frontier, he responded, immature man that he was, by complaining frequently about his burdens and of slights by regular British officers, and by seeking preferment for himself in the form of a regular commission in the British army. The Washington of these years is not an attractive figure. He lusted after glory and reward and achieved neither, and he also failed to achieve serenity or perspective, both of which he needed more than reputation.
Late in 1758 Washington resigned his commission and returned to Mount Vernon. He soon married and turned to tobacco planting. His marriage to Martha Custis, a wealthy widow, was not one of great passion, but neither was it one of convenience. They seem to have been genuinely fond of one another, and their marriage was a happy one.
The fifteen years from 1759 until 1774 were quiet, but important nonetheless. When they began, Washington was a disappointed officer, an ambitious man, jealous of his honor and reputation, inclined to self-pity, sensitive to slights, selfish and self-seeking—in short, still immature. He grew in these fifteen years: his military ambition cooled, he became less concerned with himself and more concerned with others—family, friends, and neighbors. Serenity largely replaced the sensitivity to slights, and generosity, the selfishness. We can only speculate about the process by which these changes were accomplished. We do know that Washington’s responsibilities increased and, perhaps more important, that they were of a new sort, unrelated to military ambition and dreams of glory. The problems of plantation management had to be faced daily; friends came for advice, money, and comfort. And there were problems of governing. Washington’s public activities extended from the courtroom, where he was a justice of the peace, to the vestry, and finally to the House of Burgesses.
All these obligations he fulfilled thoroughly and, as far as is known, generously. He was not a brilliant leader in the Burgesses—not really a leader at all, although his opinion on important questions came to be valued. In these years he met the requirements of patrician leadership: concern for the community informed by balance and judgment in making decisions. Those qualities had been identified by the second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
And now in 1775 standing with the army outside Boston, Washington’s hard-won mastery of himself faced a cruel test. He was called upon to lead forces of doubtful quality, supported by colonies of still unknown resolve, against the greatest power in Europe. Those strong inner resources of mind and character which had developed so slowly in Washington sustained him in the eight years of war that followed. So also did at least two profound convictions. The first was that he was the instrument of Providence in the struggle. He characteristically put this belief more modestly than this bald statement allows: “But as it had been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose.”37 The other belief approached passion—a love of what Washington called the “glorious cause,” the defense of the liberties of Americans.
VI
When Washington arrived in Cambridge on July 2 to take command, the British army locked up in Boston still bled from Bunker Hill. Yet it was a dangerous enemy, well trained and on the whole well officered and equipped. In July it numbered 5000; when Howe, who replaced Gage in October, evacuated Boston the following March it had increased to 10,000.38
In most respects the British army was a conventional eighteenth-century European force trained to fight in the accepted style of the century. In the eighteenth century, before the French Revolution brought its immense changes, war was the preserve of the dynastic state, fought on a small scale for limited purposes. Ordinarily, two groups in society did the fighting—the aristocracy who provided the officers, and an under class, peasants, vagrants, the dregs who filled the ranks. Frederick the Great of Prussia once said that a war was not a success if most people knew that it was going on, and he, like rulers all over Europe, took pains to shield the middle classes, the solid producers and the artisans, from the bloodshed and destruction of battle.39
Armies composed of dregs were difficult to recruit, difficult to train, and expensive to maintain. They were also necessarily small—”necessarily” because of their expense and because of the character of the dynastic state, chronically limited in its revenues and limited too by its inability to call upon an indifferent people to support its wars. Hence wars had to be fought only for dynastic purposes—not national ones as became the rule in the nineteenth century. The eighteenth-century dynasts feared an armed people, with good reason—as the French Revolution was to show.
The composition of the army required that it be highly trained and harshly disciplined. Vagrants, ignorant peasants, and in many cases foreigners who were dragooned or hired felt neither moral commitment to their rulers nor loyalty to their nation which, in a modern sense, did not exist. The aristocracy, however, felt such loyalties and provided the officers to drill and lead the scum who made up the rank and file. Frederick, who set the standards of organization and the direction of much military doctrine, warned against reliance on any but aristocrats; bourgeois officers he despised as deficient of any motive other than a wish to fatten their purses. But neither Frederick nor any other eighteenth-century ruler could avoid reliance on foreign-born rank and file. Press gangs swept the scum into the army and recruiters hired foreign mercenaries; and officers of noble birth subjected both to exacting and sometimes savage discipline. Still the rate of desertion proved appallingly high. A French traveler once observed that the main duty of the native half of the Prussian army was to prevent the foreign half from deserting.
