Washington [256]
With the American treasury empty, Washington could not contemplate a potent offensive campaign without French largesse. That winter the French had decided to send an enormous expeditionary force to America, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the Count de Rochambeau. It was the first time the French had supplemented a fleet with a massive army. France had elevated the illustrious Rochambeau to the lofty rank of lieutenant general but, in a diplomatic concession to American sensibilities, agreed that he would be placed, at least nominally, under Washington’s orders. The French fleet under the Chevalier de Ternay would also be subject to Washington’s control, yet after his frustrations with the mercurial d’Estaing, Washington entertained no illusions about exercising any real influence.
The person assigned to herald this impending force was a natural choice for the job. In early March Lafayette set sail for America, ready to resume his post as a major general and act as intermediary between Washington and Rochambeau. As soon as he disembarked in Massachusetts in late April, Lafayette, never bashful about his starring role in the American drama, rushed off a typically histrionic letter to Washington that throbbed with boyish excitement: “Here I am, my dear general, and in the midst of the joy I feel in finding myself again one of your loving soldiers . . . I have affairs of the utmost importance which I should at first communicate to you alone.”5 Washington grew emotional as he read the message. Then on May 10 the beaming author himself strode into his presence, and the two men eagerly clasped each other. Recounting this sentimental reunion, Lafayette wrote that Washington’s “eyes filled with tears of joy . . . a certain proof of a truly paternal love.”6 Washington lost no time in lobbying Lafayette for a Franco-American invasion of New York, which would possess the collateral advantage of lessening British pressure on the southern states.
Uplifted by the splendid news from France, Washington pressed Congress for an expanded army of at least twenty thousand Continental troops to cooperate with their ally. As a matter of both pride and policy, Washington didn’t want the stylish French soldiers to patronize his men in their tattered clothing, and he appealed to Congress to rectify the matter. His army had come to a standstill, lacking money and supplies. “For the troops to be without clothing at any time is highly injurious to the service and distressing to our feelings. But the want will be more peculiarly mortifying when they come to act with those of our allies.”7 In early July, with the arrival of the French fleet imminent, Washington was chagrined by the states’ failure to muster new troops or even keep him posted on their plans. He again blamed the bugaboo of a permanent military force—the “fatal jealousy . . . of a standing army”—for the shocking failure to buttress his army.8 “One half the year is spent in getting troops into the field,” Washington complained to his brother Samuel, “the other half is lost in discharging them from their limited service.”9
When the French fleet arrived in Newport on July 10, it proved almost anticlimactic. Only five thousand soldiers, it turned out, had made the crossing, and a significant fraction were unfit for service. No sooner did Washington learn of the French dropping anchor than he received dreadful tidings from New York: Rear Admiral Thomas Graves had arrived in the harbor with a British fleet of comparable size. Washington