Henry Knox (29 page)

But Knox and the other generals believed they had no other option. Part of their dilemma lay in the fact that the enemy British fleet could transport troops up and down the American seacoast whenever needed. Unless the French fleet arrived to cut off the British sea-lanes, Washington and Knox thought it pointless to march the army south to help Greene when the redcoats could simply send fresh reinforcements to outnumber their troops. The only other option was again to plan an assault of New York City.

Knox meanwhile closely read reports of Greene's struggles against Lord Cornwallis's army in the Carolinas. Greene continued to lead the British on hopeless chases that were beginning to wear out British supplies and patience. Green was demonstrating his own exceptional strategic and tactical abilities. He even split his force to leave the British searching for him, then attacking and retreating before the enemy could capture his army. Greene explained to the French ambassador in America, the Chevalier de La Luzerne: "We fight, get beaten, and fight again.“
¹
Knox was amazed at Greene's resilience, writing
to a friend: "[Without] an army, without means, without anything, [Greene] has performed wonders.“
²

Knox was given the order to put the nation's ordnance and artillery in motion for an all-out siege of New York on Monday, May 28. In issuing the command, Washington acknowledged the limitations that Knox faced as well as his own personal doubts about the probable success of the siege: "Put the whole business for the operation (so far as is within your reach) in the best train of execution, which our embarrassed circumstances will possibly admit.“
³

Henry tried to offset the shortfalls in the army's supplies by pressing the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut for loans of gunpowder from state magazines. Much of his time was spent supervising the military laboratories and overseeing the preparation of munitions, and drilling his artillery corps. As if these responsibilities were not exhausting, he even found time to come up with an improved baking plan to feed the army.

Lucy, in the third month of another pregnancy, accompanied Henry along most of the trip as the army moved to Peekskill, where the French and American armies were ordered to rendezvous. She parted with her husband to travel farther north along the Hudson with Mrs. John Cochran, the wife of the director general of the military hospitals of the United States. The two women proceeded toward Albany to find lodging. The separation was difficult for both of Henry and Lucy. They both had fears over her health and that of the unborn child. Her resentment over the war was growing, leading her to plunge into bouts of self-pity, especially over being deprived the company of her husband while facing the significant risks of pregnancy. She continued to lament the loss of her father, mother, sister and brother, yet thought that even the loss of her childhood family would be bearable if Henry was not absent for so much of the time. The separation left Henry feeling lonely as well. His family had become a lifeline that helped sustain him in the midst of war. Lucy was critical to his own stability, he believed, and his brother William, had returned to Boston after his trip to Europe.

Yet Henry's duties took priority over his personal wishes. As the army geared up for the summer military campaign, he had a myriad of errands to attend to each day. Rochambeau's 4,000-man French force arrived at Dobbs Ferry the first week of July, and both armies made final preparations to attack New York City while awaiting the arrival of the French fleet. As Knox watched the 9,000-man force of American and French soldiers intermingle, he was pleasantly surprised at the lack of friction between the men and the air
of camaraderie that pervaded. The French sympathized with the under-manned Continentals and viewed their struggle for independence and liberty through a romantic prism.

He was clearly weary with the war, however. He wrote to William on Friday, July 20, that he longed for an end of the conflict, for the return of civilian life, and to be able to build a permanent family estate for the comfort of his family: "Although we are not bad in accommodating ourselves to our circumstances, yet I sensibly feel the inconveniences we labor under, to accumulate in proportion to the increase of our family. I sincerely pray God that the war may be ended this campaign, that public and private society may be restored.“
⁴

To his brother, he expressed his frustration over the weak national government and state rivalries under the Articles of Confederation, which he already viewed as inadequate and as a severe handicap to their effort: "The vile water-gruel governments which have taken place in most of the states are totally disproportioned to the exigencies of the war, and are productive of sentiments unworthy an energetic republic."

He passed his thirty-first birthday on Wednesday, July 25, longing for his family. Lucy's twenty-fifth birthday, a week later, proved painfully lonely. Writing to her from Dobbs Ferry on August 3, Henry lamented: "Yesterday was your birthday. I cannot attempt to show you how much I was affected by it. I remembered it, and humbly petitioned Heaven to grant us the happiness of continuing our union until we should have the felicity of seeing our children flourishing around us, and ourselves crowned with virtue, peace, and years and that we both might take our flight together, secure of a happy immortality."

As he wrote, his mind fluctuated from heights of optimism to pangs of doubt over the upcoming military campaign. In one sentence he observed, "All is harmony and good fellowship between the two armies. I have no doubt, when opportunity offers, that the zeal of the French and the patriotism of the Americans will go hand in hand to glory." Yet in the very next line, he admitted that much of the army's plans were still unsettled and that it was entirely uncertain when the French fleet might arrive—if at all. The prospect of victory seemed to be founded on sanguine dreams rather than solid expectations. "You know what we wish, but we hope more at present than we believe.“
⁵

Lucy wrote back expressing her bitterness over the war and the tribulations she endured: "Oh, horrid war, how hast thou blasted the fairest
prospects of happiness. Robbed me of parents, sisters and brother, thou are depriving me of the society of my husband, who alone can repair the loss.“
⁶

All of the plans for the siege of New York were canceled when Washington received a dispatch on Tuesday, August 14, telling him that Admiral Francois Joseph Paul Comte de Grasse, commander of the French fleet, declined to sail to New York because he did not want to risk his ships navigating the difficult waters of the harbor and the Hudson. De Grasse proposed instead to sail up the Chesapeake with twenty-nine ships; his fleet would be available for a joint campaign of just a few weeks. Washington and Knox were crestfallen. All their hopes of ending the war by liberating New York had failed to materialize once again as the war dragged on into its sixth year.

Trying to salvage the situation, Washington then made the pivotal decision of the war by ordering his army to immediately march 450 miles south to hook up with the French fleet in an attempt to trap Cornwallis's army, which was now entrenching in Yorktown, Virginia, trying to regroup after vainly chasing Nathanael Greene.

This change of plans meant that Knox had to devise ways to transport artillery from New York to Virginia and to find siege guns that could be shipped to the battlefront. The task must have reminded him of his Ticonderoga mission. It demanded the utmost celerity, since the Continental and French armies were engaging in a foot race to reach Yorktown before the British could reinforce Cornwallis or rescue him by sea. Despite the pressures on Knox, he made plans for the pregnant Lucy and their children to accompany him on the trip to Virginia. Clearly he could no longer live without them nearby.

The vanguard of the American army crossed the Hudson at King's Ferry at 10
A.M.
Monday, August 20, and Knox had the artillery over the following day. He then rode ahead of the marching troops with Washington and Rochambeau, playing interpreter as well as general. His brother realized that Henry's study of French was proving invaluable once again. Writing from Boston on August 22, William observed: "I suppose, from necessity, you are obliged to speak much French, which, you having long since learnt the theoretic part, I should imagine from a little practice, would come easy to you. I recollect, the Compte Rochambeau doesn't speak a word of English.“
⁷

The army paused a few days near the New York Harbor to help foster the illusion that it was merely circling around New Jersey to reach Sandy Hook as part of a plan to begin the siege of New York. But on Thursday, August 30, the troops were ordered to face south and to march as quickly as possible
more than 200 miles to the Head of Elk at the northern tip of the Chesapeake. The race was on. Within a day or two, the British would realize that Cornwallis was in grave danger.

Knox arrived with Washington in Philadelphia on Friday. At 3
P.M.
, they paid their respects to Congress and met with delegates to discuss the war. Afterward, they dined with congressional president Thomas McKean and finance superintendent Robert Morris. Knox enjoyed a pleasant evening as he watched marine vessels fire salutes into the night sky, and countless toasts were hoisted to the officers and the army. As night fell, the city was illuminated with every kind of light, and Washington and Knox were greeted as heroes in the streets.

The next morning, Knox continued to scramble to equip the army. Once the bombardment and attack began against the British at Yorktown, he believed that the stream of firepower could not slacken even momentarily to allow the enemy to escape or strike a counterblow. In Philadelphia, he drafted an appeal to the congressional Board of War asking that all the arms that could be spared be shipped to the Chesapeake. He asked for three-pound, six-pound, and twelve-pound guns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, 300,000 musket cartridges, 20,000 flints, priming wires, musket balls, 1,000 powder horns, and a supply of cartridge papers.

Knox continued south. Lucy had accepted an invitation to stay with Martha Washington at the Mount Vernon estate for the duration of her pregnancy and the siege of Yorktown. She planned to enroll their daughter, Lucy, in a boarding school in Philadelphia, and to then proceed with their son, Henry Jackson Knox, to the Washington home in mid-September.

Knox had little time to pause. As he was traveling through Chester, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, September 5, an express rider galloped up with an urgent dispatch for Washington. The message reported the news that de Grasse's fleet had already landed at Jamestown, at the mouth of the Chesapeake. Knox and Washington had been concerned that the French fleet would fail to arrive—or that it would sail to the wrong location. Suddenly that groaning weight was lifted from their shoulders. For the first time in the war, they had the advantage over the British. The fleet, it was reported, included twenty-five large battleships or ships of the line, each with two decks of cannon, ranging from sixty-four to eighty guns. The fleet also included six smaller frigates along with 3,000 French infantry soldiers to reinforce Lafayette, whose force was holding Cornwallis at Yorktown. An overjoyed Washington and Knox turned back on the dusty road to look for
Rochambeau, who was traveling down the Delaware River. As Rochambeau's boat approached a wharf to dock, the Frenchman was surprised to see the normally taciturn Washington frantically waving his hat and screaming that the fleet had arrived.

That same day, the masts of nineteen battleships and seven frigates sailing under the Union Jack were spotted. The English fleet decided to attack the French ships. A three-day sea battle ensued in which the French emerged victorious, forcing the British ships to sail back to New York for repairs. Knox realized that Cornwallis would have no relief from the sea, and was now pinned in.

His optimism over the prospect of victory soared, and he sent a letter to William, inviting him to travel to Virginia to witness the triumph he anticipated. Writing on Saturday, September 8, from Head of Elk, he laid out his expectations: "I rob my business of one moment to inform you that our army is here, and will, with all its stores, proceed down the Chesapeake in three days. Our prospects are good; and I shall hope to inform you, in fifteen days, that we have had Cornwallis completely invested. The Count de Grasse's squadron is a noble one, and will prevent the enemy's escape by water. I hope we shall do it by land.“
⁸

Knox beamed as the allied forces marched into place at Williamsburg, Virginia, on Saturday, September 15, for a grand military review. Washington and Rochambeau stood at the head of the columns. The force, which had swelled to 16,000 troops, amply outnumbered Cornwallis's 7,000-man army. At Cape Henry on Monday, Knox accompanied Washington and Rocham-beau as they boarded the cutter
Queen Charlotte
and sailed to the French fleet for a meeting with de Grasse aboard his towering, 110-gun
Ville de Paris
. The aristocratic de Grasse, who was born into one of France's oldest families, was cordial and cooperative, if condescending. He kissed Washington on both checks, referring to the American commander in chief as "my dear little general." After an awkward silence, Knox laughed to defuse any tension.

The American and French officers agreed on most of the strategic issues for carrying out the siege and naval blockade. They would encircle Cornwallis's fortifications with a series of trenches and then bombard the British with cannons and heavy siege guns landed from the French fleet and from Knox's artillery. But de Grasse was clear that he could not continue the blockade around Yorktown beyond November 1 because of the advent of the hurricane season. For Knox, this added even more pressure to come up with all the necessary ordnance and artillery for the siege to succeed. To complicate
matters, on the return trip aboard the
Queen Charlotte
, contrary winds prevented Knox and Washington from stepping back on land until Saturday, September 22.