Chapter 22: Breaching the ramparts at Yorktown

I was much impressed with the defensive posture of Cornwallis at Yorktown. I thought this must be due to extensive experience in European style warfare in direct confrontation and meeting engagements on open fields of battle.

That sort of warfare was really a place where reality was replaced by toy soldiers on a flat playing board in a child’s game with no blood being spilled in copious quantities. It would be totally unlike a deadly duel in the sun with actual firearms and sharp swords that showed no quarter to any opponent even in surrender.

I was fully convinced that the thirteen original colonies were not the ideal location for European style warfare. The battle of Cowpens in South Carolina underscored that factoid and many other battles on a grander scale further affirmed the weakness of a European style battlefield strategy that was probably long past its expiration date.

In some respects, the Cornwallis defense was inexcusably medieval in its entirety and the lower ranking officers were hamstrung in using adaptive tactics to offset the Patriot innovations.

Inside the city, the civilian populace was vaguely uneasy with the process because they were not happy about being right in the thick of things with two sides committed to total destruction of the other side.

Several times, the Tory wing of the bureaucracy pleaded fruitlessly with the British high command to quit the city and take their battle elsewhere. Unfortunately, the British forces had allowed their forces to be squeezed into a trap from which there was no realistic land exit.

Their only hope was to hope that the naval reinforcements from New York Harbor had already left and would soon be sighted on the horizon coming to their rescue. Such was not the case and the battle was doomed from the very beginning. It was exceedingly wise of General Cornwallis to sue for peace with agreeable terms because any sort of stiff resistance would be met with bloodshed that would surpass Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill.

Down in the lower ranks, the defenders had hope that their layered defense would hold until reinforcements would arrive. The rumors of the forces surrounding them were greatly exaggerated but even without the exaggeration, they were in a trap of their own making.

Arnold had managed to extricate his forces from the trap and was making his way back up the shoreline to the New Jersey area hoping to link up with the redcoat forces and hasten a relief column to Yorktown. With each passing day, that hope was slowly extinguished.

Then on a bright and shiny Monday morning, numerous sails were sighted on the horizon. The bells in the city rang out thinking that they had been miraculously saved by the British fleet making swift time from the New York area.

When it was discovered that the many sails were the advance column of the French fleet sent to assist Washington in a total surrender of the British army of the south, the morale collapsed to its lowest ebb and Cornwallis realized the extent of his failure. He was not the type to cry over spilled milk and made immediate plans to get the best deal possible for his officers and men on the premise that he would not put up a stiff resistance and cause the casualty lists to grow even longer.

I was ordered to take my unit and follow behind the retreating Arnold to see when and where he rejoined the British forces. It was obvious that Washington was still cautious when it came to General Arnold because he had a habit of changing a defeat into a victory at the last moment with some shocking new tactic that turned the tides of war in the opposite direction.

That meant that I would personally miss the surrender of the British Army in the south but I had studied it in great detail hundreds of years later and knew every nuance of the process. The officers were allowed to keep their personal horses and their swords and battle flags but had to return to Britain never to return to American shores in uniform again. In point of fact, that was quite agreeable to the officer corps because they felt that they had not been given proper support from Whitehall in the conduct of the war against the defecting colonists in the new world.

They had to turn in all firearms and ammunition and board ship within forty-eight hours for the return to the other side of the pond. The non-combatant units were allowed to leave at a later date as well as the dependent wives and children of the officers if they found the accelerated departure to be too much of a hardship for their well-being. All Tory residents and supporters of the King would be allowed to continue in their civilian roles regardless of political belief providing they gave no direct support to British Army units still in the colonies. If they desired to leave, it was entirely their choice and the Patriot naval units would assist them when it was feasible.

I was there for the beginning of the assault and saw the Rebel forces bolstered by a number of Polish and German fighting units called in from other colonies to breach the defensive lines. It seemed strange to hear the German language being spoken on both side of the conflict as the opposing forces fought on American soil against British regular Army forces. The sappers were magnificent and caused the breaching of the defenses in several key areas making the fall of the city a definite probability.

In a way, I knew it was not entirely Cornwallis’s fault except perhaps for the fact he did not listen to the passionate plea from General Arnold to quit the city and repair to a better defensive position further inland and not vulnerable to the possible entrance of the French fleet at his rear door. I had only seen Cornwallis a few times but I was shocked by his lack of caution and supreme over confidence that he could easily defeat the “backwoods” opponents with little if any skill in actual combat conditions.