The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [156]
The veteran soldier and sailor left Boston just as he had arrived there eight years before, in the summer of 1775 at the age of fifteen, carrying fifes in his backpack, bragging to all at a roadside tavern where he entertained patrons with his fife that year that he was there “to fight for my country.”
He certainly had done so, and there was still one more chapter left in his story.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
1779–1780:
The War’s Worst Winter and Mutiny
The War
The Crown, determined to destroy Washington’s main army, sent more than six thousand troops up the Hudson toward West Point, where he was headquartered, in the spring of 1779. The British force seized and held Fort Lafayette and a garrison at Stony Point, both twelve miles south of West Point on the banks of the Hudson. In a daring nighttime raid, Anthony Wayne’s men retook Stony Point on July 16, ending the British threat against the army. A month later, on August 19, Light-Horse Harry Lee captured the British garrison at Paulus Hook (Jersey City).
The major battle between British and American troops in 1779 was the failed attempt by a combined American and French forces to recapture Savannah, seized by the British at Christmas, 1778. A September 1779 siege to take Savannah, aided by French troops who arrived with Admiral d’Estaing’s fleet, failed and residents complained that the Americans had destroyed half the town in the process. D’Estaing insisted that he could not stay and forced an early final assault on October 9 that was easily repulsed by the British.
British forces in Georgia captured several towns and then Augusta, and administered a devastating defeat to an American force that tried to reclaim it. In May, Redcoats in Virginia easily captured Suffolk, Portsmouth, and a naval shipyard at Norfolk, where they seized or wrecked 137 American ships.
Indian raids on rural towns in Pennsylvania and New York infuriated Congress, who had been courting tribal leaders. In the summer of 1779, Washington sent Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton and a force of thirty-seven hundred men to upstate New York and western Pennsylvania with orders to destroy the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederation and capture as many Indians as possible. Troops sent to the Pittsburgh area burned ten Indian villages while Sullivan’s main force campaigning through New York destroyed forty, including the entire community of Genesee, New York with its 128 buildings. The devastation of the communities made it difficult for the Indians to find much shelter for the coming winter. Sullivan’s men also ruined corn fields and apple orchards to make it impossible for the Iroquois to live off the land.
The alliance with the French had not been as productive as Congress had hoped. The massive numbers of troops promised by Paris had not arrived and those that did saw meager action. The French navy had so far contributed little to the American cause. Its admirals were strongly criticized for leaving the battle of Newport, refusing to attack New York, and leaving too soon in the aborted effort to retake Savannah. In 1779, the U.S. received some more international help when Spain declared war on England, seized several towns from the British along the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico and helped financially with some small loans. The Spaniards could not be convinced to contribute much needed troops, however, and a promised combined Spanish-French sea assault on the British navy in waters near England, to be followed by an amphibious attack, never materialized.
Sea battles between America, France, and Spain against England raged in the Caribbean throughout the year. American ships successfully harassed British warships and merchant task forces around Great Britain and in a much heralded battle, John Paul