Victory at Yorktown (17 page)

For Lord Cornwallis, it was a body blow. He had been confident that Tarleton would destroy Morgan's force handily, and was obviously undone when the cavalryman reported to him the day after the battle. An eyewitness said that the earl “leaned forward on his sword as he listened to his subordinate. Angered by what he heard, he pressed so hard that the sword snapped in two, and he swore loudly that he would recapture Morgan's prisoners no matter what the cost.” Later, writing to Lord Rawdon, whom he had left behind in Camden, he confided, “The late affair has almost broke my heart.”

In Greene's camp at Cheraw the electrifying news was delivered to the general by an excited Major Edward Giles, Morgan's aide, and the troops went wild. Giles wrote Morgan to say, “We have had a feu de joie,
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drunk all your healths, swore you were the finest fellows on earth, and love you if possible more than ever.” He added that victory had been celebrated with what were undoubtedly generous portions of spirits known as cherry bounce.

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DANIEL MORGAN WAS
acutely aware that he had no time to celebrate. His position was precarious, to say the least, since he didn't know where Cornwallis was—only that he would be on the march as quickly as possible, determined to pounce on the rebels and liberate their prisoners. Within two hours after the last shot was fired at Cowpens, the exhausted old wagoner, in such agony that he could ride only at a walk, set his face to the north.

When Cornwallis learned to his dismay of Tarleton's defeat, he was about twenty-five miles to the south, waiting for Major General Alexander Leslie to arrive with reinforcements from New York. He decided to pursue Morgan immediately, but the army was not ready to march until two days later, the 19th of January. Figuring that Morgan would stay near the Broad River or perhaps attack the garrison at Ninety-Six, Cornwallis marched in a northwesterly direction, hoping to cut him off. However, Morgan had headed on another tangent, and when Cornwallis, realizing his mistake, arrived at Ramsour's Mills, it was to learn that his foe had passed that way two days earlier and by now had crossed the Catawba, putting two rivers between them. On that same day Cornwallis wrote to Lord Rawdon, “My situation is most critical. I see infinite danger in proceeding, but certain ruin in retreating. I am therefore determined to go on.” What he did not say was that he had burned his bridges behind him, by destroying the fortifications in Charleston and taking with him all the matériel he was to need during the campaign.

Realizing that the only way he could possibly catch up with Morgan was to lighten the loads his soldiers were carrying, he made the decision to destroy all extraneous baggage—burning the men's tents, all the wagons and their contents except for ammunition, medical supplies, hospital stores, and salt, even food that could not be carried in the men's haversacks and, unkindest cut of all, the rum. While anguished troops looked on, casks were stove in and the liquor was poured out on the ground. The earl tried to set an example by consigning the headquarters baggage to the flames, but that carried little weight with some men; significantly, many of his Hessian troops and some of the British—perhaps 250 in all—deserted after these extreme economy measures.

At Gilbert Town Morgan had detached Pickens and most of the militia, plus some of William Washington's cavalry, to march the prisoners to a ford across the Catawba, whence they were to be sent to Virginia. The old wagoner and his Continentals rested at their camp until February 1, when Pickens rejoined them, and in the meantime Greene, having learned about Morgan's plans on January 25, could see how desperate the situation was and dispatched a courier to Lieutenant Colonel Edward Carrington, his quartermaster general, telling him to assemble boats on the Dan River to ferry the entire army across. The race for the Dan was on.

That river, which was now the goal of both armies, lay along the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia. Greene put his army under the command of Brigadier General Isaac Huger and ordered him to move up the Pee Dee and the Yadkin (which were the same river) as far as Salisbury, North Carolina, where Morgan would rendezvous with him. Meanwhile Greene, with an aide, a guide, and a handful of dragoons, set off through Tory-infested country on a 125-mile ride. When Greene arrived at Morgan's camp, the two had a heated discussion over their next move: Morgan arguing for a retreat into the Blue Ridge Mountains where the troops would be safe, Greene with another scheme in mind. When Morgan informed him that Cornwallis had destroyed his baggage and probably intended to march north, Greene was elated. “Then he is ours!” he exclaimed.

Greene wrote at once to Huger, describing Cornwallis's plan as a “mad scheme of pushing through the country,” moving farther and farther from his supply bases. Behind the American general's confidence was the belief that he could keep just far enough ahead of Cornwallis to tempt him to follow along, day after day, ever hopeful of catching up and forcing the rebels to fight. It was a huge risk he ran, and Morgan told him so, saying he would not answer for the consequences if the plan failed. “You won't have to,” Greene replied, “for I shall take the measure upon myself.”

This was orange-clay country, broken by the
S
-curves and oxbows of the winding Yadkin, with visibility that was often poor on account of heavy fogs. The river, like so many other streams, was a deep-brown color from the clay of the banks, and it was bordered by fertile bottomland and low-lying hills. At the Catawba River crossing, where the British hoped to outflank Morgan, they were delayed by high water and rebel militiamen, but persevered and reached the other shore without great loss, only to discover that Morgan had marched all night and part of the next day, reaching the Yadkin, thirty miles away. The experience, one of his men observed, was “very unpleasant … it having rained incessantly all night, which rendered the roads almost inaccessible.” Meanwhile Greene waited until midnight for the militia at the appointed rendezvous, and upon learning that those troops had been hopelessly dispersed, he rode on alone to Salisbury. There he dismounted at Steele's Tavern and was greeted inside by an acquaintance.

“What? Alone, Greene?”

“Yes,” the general replied, “alone, tired, hungry, and penniless.”

He was overhead by Mrs. Steele, who brought him breakfast and two small bags of hard currency, saying he needed them more than she did. Indeed he did. Mrs. Steele could not have known it, but those two bags contained all the money that was possessed just then by the army of the southern department of the United States of America.

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AS NATHANAEL GREENE
wrote the commander in chief, Huger was prevented by “heavy rains, deep creeks, bad roads, [and] poor horses” from reaching Salisbury in time to meet Greene and Morgan, so he was instructed to rejoin the old wagoner at Guilford Courthouse. Morgan's men were on short rations but made a forced march through driving rain and sleet toward their new destination. When they reached Guilford, they had marched forty-eight miles in the past forty-seven hours, in what could only be described as abominable conditions. At Guilford Huger and his ragged, emaciated soldiers, most of whom were barefoot and were sharing a single blanket for every four men, met them, and with the Dan still seventy miles distant Greene was faced with a new dilemma. Daniel Morgan was simply unable to continue; the agony of his sciatica was complicated by such painful hemorrhoids that he could no longer sit a horse, and he wanted to head for home. Reluctantly, Greene gave him a leave of absence, and General Morgan, who had rendered invaluable service to the cause from 1775 to 1781, from Boston and Quebec to South Carolina, now vanished from the scene of action.

In his place Greene put another experienced, dependable man: Colonel Otho Williams from Maryland, who had begun his military career at Boston in 1775 as a lieutenant in the Franklin County rifle corps. He was another of the hard-core cadre who had started at the beginning and was still fighting six years later, having been with the unlucky Canadian expedition and at Fort Washington, where he was captured. After being exchanged, he marched to South Carolina with Baron Johann Kalb and was one of the last Maryland Continentals to leave the field at the disastrous Battle of Camden. Another welcome addition to the army was Colonel Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish volunteer and engineer who had selected the site and supervised the building of fortifications at Saratoga.

In charge of the light troops and cavalry, which now included Henry Lee's legion, Otho Williams headed out on February 10 as if bound for the upper fords of the Dan, but this was a feint planned by Greene, who believed that was the direction Cornwallis would take, rather than crossing the river below, where he would have to have boats. Greene, of course, had already arranged for boats to be at the lower ford, ready for his army. One reason he chose that location was its proximity to more populated areas of Virginia, where reinforcements could join him; another was that if Benedict Arnold planned to join Cornwallis, that was the route he would probably take, and nothing would please Greene more than to be there to greet him.

The march to the Dan was a nightmare—day after day of rain, turning the red clay roads into slippery troughs. To keep from freezing, both armies had to have fires, and the men slept in the open since the only tents were used to keep provisions and powder dry. Greene's soldiers had nothing but rags for clothing; hundreds were without shoes and suffering in agony from lacerated, half-frozen feet. Unhappily, only 200 of the expected reinforcements from Virginia turned up, and as he took stock of his force, Greene could count on a few more than 2,000, of whom 1,426 were reliable Continentals, in contrast to Cornwallis's 2,500 to 3,000 veterans.

Williams and the light troops had turned right and were following Greene's men on a parallel road, ready to swing into action if the British came too close. He kept just far enough ahead of Cornwallis so the latter could not get between him and Greene, and to do so he kept half his men on patrol at night while the others slept, then he got them marching at 3
A.M
. to get far enough ahead to cook the meal that had to last until the following morning. Even so, Cornwallis's vanguard was almost always in sight, though never close enough to bring on a fight.

What was at stake here was of enormous importance to the rebel cause, for if Greene's small army were destroyed, Cornwallis would unquestionably join forces with Generals Arnold and William Phillips—a tough career officer who had been Burgoyne's artillerist in the Saratoga campaign and who, with General Friedrich Riedesel, had been exchanged for General Benjamin Lincoln. Cornwallis could then release all the prisoners surrendered by Burgoyne at Saratoga, who had been incarcerated in Virginia, plus those captured at Cowpens, and the war in the South would be all but over except for some partisan fighting. Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia would be securely in enemy hands.

One evening, just after dark, Williams's men glimpsed a row of campfires ahead of them and assumed it must be Greene's men, which meant they would have to fight the British pursuers to give Greene's troops a chance to flee. Fortunately, what they saw proved to be campfires lit by Greene's soldiers two nights earlier, which had been kept burning by volunteers in the hope that Williams's men could use them while they rested. But there was no rest in store for these fellows; the redcoats were hot on their trail. A messenger from Greene rode up and handed Williams a note, stating that the general had arranged for his baggage and stores to be ferried across the Dan. Meantime, the message continued, “The North Carolina militia have all deserted us, except about 80 men.… You have the flower of the army, don't expose the men too much, lest our situation grow more critical.” That was easier said than done, for Williams and his 700 soldiers, consisting of the light troops and Light-Horse Harry Lee's cavalry, were a long way from the Dan, a troop of Tarleton's horse was on their heels, and the rest of Cornwallis's force was only four miles away.

At midnight Williams had his men on the march again, having heard from Greene: “4 o'clock. Follow our route. I have not slept four hours since you left me, so great has been my solicitude to prepare for the worst.” After a brief halt, they were on the move once more, half frozen, shuffling along the cold, muddy roads, when a courier rode up with yet another message from Greene: “Irwin's ferry, twelve past 5 o'clock. All our troops are over and the stage is clear.… I am ready to receive you and give you a hearty welcome.” The word was passed down the ranks, and Williams's entire command shouted for joy at the top of their lungs. General Charles O'Hara, riding at the head of Cornwallis's vanguard, which was now well behind their prey, heard them and knew what the cheering meant. Williams detached Lee's cavalry to delay the British while he marched his troops to Irwin's ferry. They arrived as the sun was setting on February 14, having traveled forty miles in sixteen hours under all but impossible conditions. It was dark when Lee's exhausted horsemen finally arrived at the south bank of the Dan between eight and nine o'clock, just as the boats returned from delivering Williams's infantrymen to the Virginia shore. Lee's men clambered aboard the boats, the horses swam alongside, and they reached the opposite bank just as the British van appeared. The water was too high for the enemy to cross without boats, and there were no boats. The rebels had won the race, thanks to the herculean efforts of a Rhode Island ironmaker and a ragged band of southern rebels who didn't know the meaning of the word
quit
.

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ON DECEMBER
20, 1780, Benedict Arnold, commanding some seventeen hundred men, had embarked for Chesapeake Bay with a fleet of forty-two sail. He had orders to fortify Portsmouth, the town that commanded entry to the bay from the sea. Accompanying him were his own American legion, which had been beefed up by the addition of numerous loyalist volunteers, along with Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe's Queen's Rangers, a loyalist regiment of horse and foot whose bridles were adorned with black and white feathers, memorializing Simcoe's closest friend, the late John André. Without this outfit it is doubtful that Arnold would have had a command, but these troops graciously agreed to serve under him despite his reputation as the man responsible for André's death. He also had a company of Hessians, a regiment of British regulars, and an extremely reluctant soldier in the person of John Champe, formerly sergeant major in Lee's Light-Horse Corps, who would now be compelled to fight against his own country. If captured by the Americans, he faced execution unless he could somehow get word to Light-Horse Harry, the only man in the southern army who knew the circumstances of his “desertion.” If captured as a deserter by the British, he would surely be hanged. Sometime during the coming months, no one knows how, Champe deserted from the British camp and found his way through the backwoods to Lee's legion's campsite on the Congaree River. To keep him from being hanged by the enemy if he were captured in battle, Lee gave him an honorable discharge and sent him to Loudoun County, in Virginia, where he sat out the rest of the war for independence.
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