The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [171]
At that same time, George Washington held several meetings in Connecticut with the head of the French army, Lt. General Donatien Marie Rochambeau. The French had arrived in force in the summer of 1780, too late to see any major action, but now Rochambeau wanted to put together a plan of action with Washington to strike a major blow against the English. Its result would be a final campaign to defeat Cornwallis.
Washington had long dreamed of reclaiming New York City, where his army had been beaten so badly in 1776. Upon news that the French fleet, under Admiral Comte de Grasse, with three thousand troops, could sail from the West Indies to Virginia in early September, Rochambeau instead suggested moving their combined force southward all the way to Virginia to attack Lord Cornwallis and end the war. The plan was to merge with forces already in the south under Lafayette and Anthony Wayne, surround Cornwallis by land, and have the French ships blockade the mouth of the Chesapeake so that he could not escape by ship or be rescued. Washington quickly saw it as a golden opportunity.
The Americans did feign an assault on New York to make Sir Henry Clinton believe an attack on him was imminent; Clinton was also certain that the British navy would annihilate de Grasse’s fleet. Then the American-French army marched southward to Maryland. French transports and American ships carried the army from Elkton and Annapolis, Maryland, to Virginia for the attack. Washington and Rochambeau together had nearly eighteen thousand soldiers and one hundred cannon, making it one of the largest American forces of the war. Would the plan work? Could they defeat the well-entrenched Cornwallis? Would the British fleet rout French admiral de Grasse? Could they achieve victory before October 15, when de Grasse said he had to leave?
The journey of the First Massachusetts and its newly promoted lieutenant, Ebenezer Wild, to York, Virginia, or Yorktown, as it was also called, began in earnest on April 21, 1781, when the regiment crossed the Potomac River from Maryland into Virginia. The regiment was now attached to the combined French-American forces led by the Marquis de Lafayette. A month later, on the evening of May 21, the First Massachusetts was met by two regiments of Virginia militia on the northern bank of the James River, just outside of Richmond, where they had camped overnight. The next day, the First Massachusetts, with the others, crossed the James.
Wild’s confidence in the army was given a jolt a few days later when a sudden thunderstorm broke over the Virginia countryside following a day of excessive heat. The storm hit while the army was marching down a roadway. The thunder was so loud and so quick that the local militia troops that had just joined the column thought the noise was enemy cannon and fled into the woods for protection. It took the officers ninety minutes to bring the frightened militia back to the road.
Wild, who had been in the service for six years, had just been promoted and he seemed delighted to be an officer. He wrote that he was pleased to have been invited to Colonel Vose’s tent for a dinner of his officers just outside of Richmond and seemed to enjoy spending time with his fellow officers, among them a new acquaintance, Captain Stephen Olney. Now he would receive more pay, live in a better tent in summer, and larger hut in winter. He was also satisfied that since he was an officer he could be a member of courts martial boards. Ebenezer Wild was now a man to be respected.
Throughout the march, supplies the men had been clamoring for since winter arrived. On June 3, the angry enlisted men were quieted when a man who had ridden all the way from Boston trotted into camp on a horse with large bags of hard money consisting of gold and silver to distribute to the enlisted men in salary. A week later, on June 10, a wagon train loaded with twelve hundred shirts for the soldiers pulled up to