First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [174]
Sir,
I propose a cessation of hostilities for twenty four hours and that two officers may be appointed by each side to meet at Mr. Moore’s house to settle terms for the surrender of the posts at York and Gloucester.
I have the honour to be, &c: Cornwallis
What were Washington’s feelings when he read the word “surrender” and when he wrote his reply no diary tells. After years of privations and disappointments and bloodstained footprints in the snow of the men for whom he could not obtain decent footwear, to have now brought the war to this consummation and have the enemy give in could only have stirred profound emotion. Too deep for tears, or words, it was not confided to any person or page. In reply to the notice of surrender, he wrote, “An ardent desire to spare the further effusion of blood will readily incline me to listen to such terms for the surrender of your posts and garrisons of York and Gloucester as are admissible.” He added that Cornwallis’ proposed terms should be sent in writing to the American lines prior to the meeting of the Commissioners. The word “cessation” of hostilities during the time allowed was changed in the American reply to “suspension,” at the suggestion of John Laurens, recently returned from France and acting as adviser to Rochambeau and Washington. Still concerned about leaving too much time open for rescue by sea, Washington allowed a time limit of two hours instead of 24.
Cornwallis’ feelings when he surrendered to rebels and contemptible foes, as he thought them, were equally unrecorded. The need to justify himself is uppermost in an interesting letter he wrote to Clinton on that day. Now that the fight was over, he began to find excuses and suggest blame. As might be expected, he laid the blame politely but unmistakably in Clinton’s lap. At the same time, he seems conscious that his own passivity needed explanation.
Sir,
I have the mortification to inform Your Excellency that I have been forced to give up the posts of York and Gloucester and to surrender the troops under my command by capitulation on the 19th inst. as prisoners of war to the combined forces of America and France.
He goes on to say that he “never saw this post in a favourable light,” and when found he was to be attacked in it by powerful forces—“nothing but the hopes of relief would have induced me to attempt its defence; for I would either have endeavored to escape to New York by rapid marches from the Gloucester side immediately on the arrival of General Washington’s troops at Williamsburg [the opponent appears as “General” here for the first time] or I would have attacked them in the open field, but [here comes the knife] being assured by Your Excellency’s letters that every possible means would be tried by the navy and army to relieve us I could not think myself at liberty to venture on either of those desperate attempts.… ” Why not? Desperate attempts when the worst is in prospect is a general’s business. Cornwallis was a man who could have thrust his hand in a flame if necessary, but not a man to organize the logistics and arrangements of a large campaign with a likely risk of failure. The smooth face in the Gainsborough portrait with no lines of thought or of frowns or of laughter—with no lines at all—tells as much. It is a face composed by a life of comfort and satisfaction without any need of desperate attempts.
As we know, Cornwallis took neither of the two courses he mentions to Clinton. He did nothing at the time of the Allied army’s arrival at Williamsburg on September 26, except three days later to order with-drawal from his front lines to the inner defenses of Yorktown, nor did he make