The Glorious Cause, page 72
The British themselves, though looking for a settlement with America and an end to the war with their enemies on the Continent, wanted to retain their old colonial possessions. Shelburne, to whom it fell to supervise negotiations after he came to head the ministry on Rockingham’s death in July, sought to separate France and the United States. If he could play one against the other, favorable terms might be obtained in the European settlement.
To represent Britain in the informal talks that began in April, Shelburne sent Richard Oswald to Paris. Oswald was a Scot, a merchant, and a much more astute man than his political masters in the ministry believed. Years before when he was young he had lived for a time in Virginia, and he still owned land in America. He had money—made in the Seven Years War and in the slave trade—and no political ambitions. His manner of presenting himself seemed to suggest that he was too old and philosophical for politics. He was known to Laurens, who had acted as his Charleston agent in the slave trade. Altogether, Oswald was the sort to get along with Franklin; both were comfortable men with few illusions and with their passions under control.27
The two first saw one another in April, and Franklin took Oswald to Vergennes soon after. They did not accomplish much before the summer. Oswald lacked a formal commission when they began, and Franklin lacked colleagues, with Jay sitting unhappily in Madrid awaiting some sign of recognition from Spain and Adams maneuvering at The Hague for a loan for his country. Laurens, whom Oswald had bailed out of the Tower and brought to the Continent, sank into inertia produced perhaps by sickness and grief over the death of his son, Colonel John Laurens, killed in action in August 1782.28
The talks almost froze at one point: Oswald’s instructions did not include recognition of United States independence as a preliminary to negotiations; the Americans insisted that Britain must recognize independence before a treaty of peace was agreed upon. Franklin also pressed for accession of Canada to the United States. By late summer all parties began to move slowly toward agreement. The battle of the Saints in April made the French a bit more reasonable; their commander in the West Indies, Grasse, was captured and his fleet damaged, though not destroyed, by Admiral Rodney. The British soon sensed after a secret meeting in England with Rayneval, Vergennes’s secretary, that the French were not much interested in defending American claims to the fisheries or to Canada. But the British feared the outcome of a Spanish expedition against Gibraltar. The Americans, principally Franklin and Jay, who reached Paris on June 23, feared what was going on in secret between their ally—the French—and their enemy—the British.
In September, Jay and Franklin agreed to proceed with negotiations if Oswald’s commission was altered to permit him to treaty with them as the representatives of the United States. The formula adopted was ambiguous—Congress took it as recognition of American independence; the Shelburne ministry did not, and had negotiations broken off, would doubtless have denied that Britain had recognized the United States.
What happened in the next three months may have taken place on diplomatic quicksand, but the results were solid enough and preliminary articles of peace were signed on November 30 by the Americans and the British commissioners. A few hours before the signing, Franklin sent Vergennes word that agreement had been reached. He did not admit of course that, in negotiating, the American delegation had violated its instructions from Congress to consult the French and to follow their advice. The Americans had not, however, violated the treaty obligations to France, for the agreement with Britain was not to go into effect until France and Britain concluded peace.
The first article of the treaty stated that “His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States. . . to be free Sovereign and independent States. . . .” After this supremely important article, boundaries were taken care of: in the north, a line close to the present-day line; in the south, the thirty-first parallel; in the west, the Mississippi River. The old American fishing rights off Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence were guaranteed along with “the Liberty” to dry and cure fish in the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, the Magdalen Islands, and Labrador. Creditors “on either side” were to meet “no lawful Impediment” in collecting debts “of the full value in Sterling Money” “heretofore contracted”; and Congress was to recommend earnestly to the state legislatures to return confiscated property of British subjects. This article, which has to be read in full to be appreciated, dealt with the tricky issue of loyalist property. The article slid over the question of how much a recommendation by Congress would be worth. If loyalists believed that Congress could force the states to act on their behalf, they were soon to change their minds.29
The treaty also provided that there would be no further confiscations of property or prosecutions of persons for actions taken in the war; that the British would withdraw their forces “with all convenient speed”; that the Mississippi River would be open to navigation by citizens of both Britain and the United States; and that any conquests of territory made before the articles of peace arrived in America would be returned.
Agreement between the Americans and the British stimulated the French, who wanted to end the drain on their treasury the war created, and on January 20, 1783, they and their ancient enemy signed preliminary articles of peace. Spain and Britain agreed on peace at the same time, and orders went out to suspend all military operations. The way to agreement had been eased by events—the great Spanish attack on Gibraltar had failed in September and, of course, the Americans had settled. Spain did not receive Gibraltar, but Britain did cede Minorca, which had fallen in the war to the Spanish, and east and west Florida.
All parties signed the definitive articles of peace on September 3, 1783. In America, General Carleton who had replaced Henry Clinton performed the melancholy tasks of packing up the army and evacuating America. By the end of 1783, the United States was free of British troops except for the detachments still occupying posts in the Northwest.
III
The celebrations in America greeting the news of peace often included a long series of toasts. Americans lifted their glasses to the “United States,” “Congress,” the “American army,” “General Washington,” the “memory of heroes who died in war,” the “Peace Commissioners,” “Louis XVI,” “Rochambeau,” and others on a list that must have drained bottles and barrels by the score. The toasts expressed joy and indicated to some extent how Americans explained their victory. Understandably, no one drank to King George III, Lord George Germain, Henry Clinton, Earl Cornwallis, William Howe, or to the British army and navy. Had these Americans been more interested in explaining their victory than celebrating it they might have mentioned the British. For the Americans had not simply won the war, the British had also lost it.30
The British faced problems in the war unlike any they had ever faced, and as rich as their past was, it furnished only limited guidance. The war was not just another struggle in the wilderness of the New World. The army and navy knew America; they had fought there before, and had fought well. The war was in fact a civil war against a people in thirteen colonies who gained determination as they fought and sacrificed. The military problems of dealing with this people were baffling; not only were they at a great distance and scattered from Maine to Florida, they were full of surprises. Few in Britain had imagined that the Americans could pull themselves together and create a central government and an army—and then fight year after year. Fewer still sensed their “political enthusiasm,” as Burke had styled their near-fanaticism for self-government.
The British in their confusion believed that they should fight a conventional war, a war familiar to the eighteenth century. Piers Mackesy, a distinguished historian, has written that the American war fell into such a category, saying it was “the last great war of the ancien régime.” Such a war translated into limited measures—an avoidance of operations that might lead to heavy losses such as Bunker Hill, a reluctance to conduct operations which might evoke civilian opposition, and a shying away from any military conception that would widen conflict. Limits, rules, the separation of war from civilian life all figured in the British conception of the American war. Of course, they occasionally violated their own precepts, but by and large they remained faithful to these old standards.31
The Americans, on the other hand, fought a different kind of war. They no more than Europeans had any notion of total war, but they recognized that they were engaged in a new kind of conflict. It was not the war of the ancien régime. Though many Americans hoped to have a professional army, their war could not be left to the professionals. Their war bit too deeply into their society for any such assignment, and they had only a handful of professional soldiers in any case. What they had were militias, citizen-soldiers. These men, including the Continentals or the “regulars,” fought not for pay, not because fighting was what they did, a habitual or professional activity; rather they fought for a cause, and were led by officers who believed in it. Even Washington, who yearned for a professional army and who despised the militia, fought for ideals and appealed to his army in terms of liberty and love of country. Early in the war, July 1775, he was confronted by the threat of resignation from Brigadier General John Thomas, an able Massachusetts officer, who, feeling slighted by the arrangement of ranks among brigadier generals, declared his intention to leave the army. Washington appealed to him to stay, pointing out that this war was different from others and, in effect, far more important than anyone’s sense of entitlement: “In the usual Contests of Empire, & Ambition,” he wrote, “the Conscience of a Soldier has so little share, that he may very properly insist upon his Claims of Rank, & extend his Pretensions even to Punctiles: but in such a Cause as this, where the Object is neither Glory nor Extent of Territory, but a Defence of all that is dear & valuable in Life, surely every Post ought to be deem’d honourable on which a Man Can serve his country.” Apparently convinced, or shamed, by Washington’s argument, General Thomas remained in the army, and Washington, dismayed as he often was by the militia, used such troops and continued to remind Americans that the war was theirs—not the task of some isolated and remote military caste.32
Thus it was that the British fought one war—of the old kind—and the Americans fought another, one that looked toward the massive conscripted armies of the next century. Their conception of war differed from the British one, just as their politics, with its emphasis on rights and freedom, was different from that of the ancien régime. These differences were all a part of the reasons for American victory.
The successful conduct of a war required that the objectives of the war be stated. Because the British did not fully understand the struggle they were engaged in, they failed to think through their purposes—most important, their political purposes. Did they mean to crush their colonies militarily by destroying the institutions the Americans created to carry on the conflict? Or, did they mean to achieve a reconciliation by a blend of firmness and conciliation, limiting the effectiveness of the American army and thus allowing the loyalists to assert political control? With no clear objective laid out, strategy and military operations followed an erratic course even before the entrance of the French. The belligerence of the French transformed the problems the British faced but produced no greater clarity.
Failures in political comprehension were responsible in part for failures in command, strategy, and operations. Command remained a difficult problem for the ministry throughout the war. Britain did not send brilliant generals to America; as a tactician, especially in the heat of battle, Cornwallis may have been the best. The commanders in chief, William Howe and Henry Clinton, lacked strategic vision and daring. Their government probably could not have supplied them with these qualities but it could have given them firm direction and, had it possessed energy itself, might have infused them with drive and zeal. The government at home failed, however, to direct and to stimulate its generals.
Nor did it use the navy well. Before 1778, the sea belonged to Britain. France’s decision to fight changed all that, but the ministry never really tried to assert its control of the sea. Instead, on the insistence of Sandwich, it kept much of its strength at home while the French, who showed no great imagination themselves, operated pretty much as they wanted to in the West Indies until Rodney defeated Grasse in 1782. And by then there was no saving the colonies from independence.
British command in America suffered from still other disabilities. Every commander in chief knew that reinforcements would be difficult to come by, knowledge which bred caution in leaders already convinced that battle must be risked only as a last resort. Naval commanders were more prepared to seek out the enemy. But Keppel proved unwilling to try to blockade the French in their European bases, and in America Arbuthnot was simply sluggish. There was another problem: the scarcity, age, and decrepitude of many British ships.
The military and naval commanders themselves were an uneven lot. General Thomas Gage had ability, but he was relieved early in the war, in part because he had frightened the ministry with his predictions of what lay in store for British power in America unless great efforts were made immediately to put down the rebellion.
William Howe was in many respects a solid officer, brave in battle and popular with most of his subordinates. But Howe seems not to have ever grasped the nature of the problems he faced, or if he did he may have been disabled by his sympathy for America. He lacked energy, and he sometimes failed to plan intelligently. He should have struck at Washington’s demoralized army immediately after the battle of Brooklyn but chose to begin regular approaches instead. Washington took advantage of his opportunity and recovering quickly, boated his troops across the river to Manhattan. Howe’s failure to anticipate Washington’s daring strike across the Delaware on Christmas night 1776 is understandable. It was a devastating failure, for his complacency communicated itself to Rall and the officers in command in New Jersey. They, of course, were unprepared for Washington’s attack. Howe’s move to Philadelphia by sea in July 1777 may have been his worst blunder. A resourceful commander would have attempted to drive up the Hudson to meet Burgoyne, who himself was engaged in a badly conceived operation. To be sure, Howe’s orders from Germain permitted great discretion in devising his operations. Whatever his reasons and his orders, his plan for 1777 ignored all but the narrowest strategic considerations.
Henry Clinton may have had greater ability than Howe, but his temperament, compounded of fear and suspicion of others, usually restrained whatever disposition he may have had to act. Clinton’s judgment also played a part in holding him in place. He overestimated his difficulties and then did not really try to overcome them. He allowed his one great victory—the capture of Charleston in 1780—to be squandered. Cornwallis of course must bear his share of this failure, but Clinton after all gave Cornwallis command and then returned to New York. His departure ended his last burst of activity in the war and freed Cornwallis to run his own operation.
The two had regarded one another uneasily from the moment Clinton assumed command in America. Until May 1780, Cornwallis was quite prepared to give his chief loyal service, a willingness that Clinton could never quite bring himself to believe. As time passed he saw Cornwallis more and more as his rival, the natural choice of Germain and the ministry to replace him. Cornwallis’s ambitions seem to have grown with his chief’s suspicions. In the campaign at Charleston the two men found ways of avoiding one another, and afterwards, with Clinton in New York, neither could make the other understand what he was doing.
Clinton had even less success in dealing with Arbuthnot, the naval commander. Clinton despised Arbuthnot, and Arbuthnot did not care much for Clinton. Both men had weaknesses; unfortunately for British arms in America the weakness in one fed the weakness in the other.
Cordial personal relations among British commanders would not have won the war for them. But they might have permitted these officers to deal more effectively with problems which seemed intractable without the cooperation of the two branches of the armed forces. The possibility of coordinated efforts might also have released energies and perhaps even stimulated inventive thinking. As matters turned out, the British fought their war in conventional grooves and in an atmosphere soured by jealousy and crabbed spirits.
The morale of commanders had not been good even when the war began. Most did not like what they had to do—suppress the military forces of a people for whom they felt affection. Not that they approved of rebellion; many felt horror and rage at it. Still, the fact remained that they had to kill Americans, who, though not exactly Englishmen, were certainly not the usual sort of enemy. For officers who felt this way, perhaps the Howes among them, the whole affair from 1775 on was a dreadful business.
Unlike the British, the Americans decided on their objective in the war—the winning of independence—and shaped their actions accordingly. Just as the British irresolution affected their planning and conduct of operations, so also did the American certainty shape theirs. American strategy after Lexington emerged slowly; yet its aim seemed almost inevitable. It was to maintain the army, to seek foreign aid and recognition, both in the belief that armed opposition that refused to be subdued would eventually persuade the British government to yield. This strategy could not have been sustained had the larger purpose of the Revolution not been already stated and widely accepted. For this purpose constantly ran up against their localism, their provincial suspicions, and their unbridled individualism.
The defeats that the army absorbed and the years of sacrifice took their toll of American morale nonetheless. Civilians showed their weariness in various ways—by profiteering, refusing to honor requisitions of food and money, and avoiding military and governmental service. The army seemed about to disintegrate on several occasions. But the virtually constant desertions and the mutinies of several regiments in 1780 and 1781 did not arise from political unease or from a divergent conception of the cause. Rather, breakdowns in discipline occurred from concrete grievances—lack of pay, hunger, near nakedness, and uncertainty over the length of enlistments.33
