Chapter 9
In This Chapter
● Jacobite stirrings, 1708
● The Jacobite Rising, 1715 and 1719
● The Jacobites try again, 1745
● The American War of Independence, 1775-1783
The Stuart kings never quite understood why people didn’t want them back on the throne of Great Britain. Perhaps they should have read Sean Lang’s British History For Dummies (published by Wiley) which explains the whole situation - if they had, lots of innocent people would have been saved a great deal of grief. The American colonists, on the other hand, had a sound case for their call to arms against the crown, but if both sides hadn’t been pig-headedly stubborn, perhaps they would not have engaged in a shooting war with their mother country. This chapter gets to grips with the military action that followed the political wrangling in Scotland and America.
The propaganda put out by the Jacobite losers in one case and the American victors in the other tends to obscure the fact that the Jacobite Risings and the War of Independence were actually civil wars, fought between the British government and aggrieved British citizens in Scotland and America.
With the notable exception of a few new units detailed in this chapter, British soldiers of this period were little changed in appearance from those described in Chapter 8. However, the infantry fought the American War of Independence in a slightly smarter version of their earlier uniform. This was a coat cut away above the knees and gaiters, now black rather than white, that reached to just below the knee. A bearskin had replaced the mitre cap worn by grenadiers and fusiliers.
One Day My Prince Will Come, 1708
In 1701 Parliament passed the Act of Settlement, which said that if Anne, the second daughter of the exiled James II, died childless after she ascended the throne, the crown was to pass to Sophia, Princess of Hanover, a granddaughter of James I, and that all future sovereigns were to be Protestants. Anne succeeded William III in 1702, a year after James II died. Five years later Parliament passed the Act of Union, where England and Scotland became one country, and Great Britain was born.
James II’s son, James Edward, wasn’t within a sniff of the crown and became known as the Old Pretender (to the throne). Someone told him that the Act of Union had made most Scots very angry indeed (although in fact it hadn’t) and in 1708 he arrived in Scotland, expecting a spontaneous uprising in his favour. No uprising occurred, nor did crowds cheer, bands play, or flags wave. Even the French troops he’d had promised to him didn’t turn up because a storm had scattered their ships. No one seemed to care that he was in Scotland, so he went back to France.
Here Comes James - Again! The 'Fifteen’
Despite the failure of James Edward to stir up trouble (see the previous section), some of Scotland’s most powerful families thought themselves wise to keep a foot in both camps (Anne’s and James Edward’s). Some individuals also enjoyed plotting for its own sake. When they drank the Loyal Toast to the British monarch after dinner, some folks passed their glasses over a finger bowl and thereby drink the health of ‘the king over the water’, James Edward. When Anne died in 1714, George, Sophia’s eldest son, arrived from Hanover and became George I of England. He didn’t speak English, he didn’t like England, and he wasn’t a popular figure. The moment seemed right for the cloak-and-dagger crowd to put their plans into action, starting the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion.
The principal instigators of the 1715 Rebellion were the Earl of Mar in Scotland and the Earl of Derwentwater, egged on by a rascally Member of Parliament named Thomas Foster, in the north of England. They seemed to think that because people didn’t like George from Germany they were bound to like James Edward from France. Their thinking wasn’t logical, but plenty of waverers existed to back the idea if the Jacobites experienced a success or two.
In Scotland, Mar managed to raise a 7000-strong army consisting mainly of Highlanders armed with muskets, Lochaber axes, swords, and shields, and famed for their ferocious charges. On 13 September, at Sheriffmuir, east of
Dunblane, Mar met John, Duke of Argyll, commanding a government army consisting of 2200 infantry and 960 dragoons. The right wings of both armies put their respective opponents to flight and then returned to the field. Both sides spent the rest of the day glaring at each other from a distance of 350 metres (400 yards). Casualties had been light: Mar lost 250 killed and wounded, while Argyll lost 350. Technically it was a drawn battle, but Mar needed a clear-cut victory to win further support and his army simply dissolved.
In England, the rebel army also included a contingent of Highlanders and a number of Jacobite landowners joined in, dragging their unwilling tenants with them. Foster persuaded everyone to let him command, and he led them south through Lancashire, where the support he promised simply did not materialise. His intentions were to capture the port of Liverpool, and then join an entirely imaginary army of Welsh Jacobites that he thought would come swarming out of the hills. The reality of the situation fell far below his ambitions. On 13 November the energetic Major General Wills, who had 2500 men at his disposal including five regiments of dragoons, brought Foster up short at Preston. Wills boxed in the rebels in the town centre, although they beat off his attacks. The following morning, nevertheless, Foster surrendered. Of his 3000-strong army, 42 had been killed or wounded and 1468 were taken prisoner. The rest had escaped through a gap in the government cordon during the night, and were on their way home. That was the end of the rebellion in England.
James Edward reached Scotland in December. By then the rebellion was all but over. As the last of his Highland supporters dispersed, he returned to France on 5 February 1716. For those of his supporters captured in arms the penalties were, depending on rank, the headsman’s axe, the hangman’s noose, transportation for life, or, if they were lucky, a spell in prison.
Hola! Spain's (Mini) Invasion of Scotland, 1719
In 1719 the Spanish government, annoyed by the Royal Navy’s continual balking of its plans in the Mediterranean, decided to send an expedition to Scotland in support of James Edward. The weather seemed to be on King George’s side and a gale scattered the Spanish ships. Some got through to the western Scottish isles, however, and in due course landed their troops, amounting to approximately one battalion, on the west coast of the mainland. Some Jacobite support was forthcoming from the local clans, but not a lot. Commanded by George, Earl of Marischal, they began marching inland along the narrow and desolate pass of Glenshiel.
On 10 June the Jacobites learned that a government force, commanded by General Wightman, was moving towards them from the opposite direction. The Jacobites immediately deployed in an extremely strong position across the pass. Whiteman’s regiments closed up during the afternoon and launched a series of attacks. These proved too much for the Highlanders, who simply disappeared. This left the Spaniards, alone and under fire from four mortars, to face Wightman by themselves. Their position was hopeless and they surrendered next day.
The Jacobites Return... And This Time They're Bonnie: The 'Forty-Five'
For many years the Jacobite cause seemed lost. Then in July 1745, Charles Edward, James Edward’s son, decided to make one last, all-out attempt to recover the crown while Britain was heavily involved in the War of Austrian Succession (see Chapter 8 for more on this war). Cloak-and-dagger folk prepared the ground well, and when Charles raised his standard at Glenfinnan, no fewer than 2000 clansmen rallied to it. Ominously, rather more, whose support for the Stuarts had cost them blood and treasure in the past, stayed away.
Charles would become known as the Young Pretender, but for the moment his Highlanders called him Bonnie Prince Charlie. In later years, writers such as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stephenson would deeply romanticise the lost cause of the Forty-Five Rebellion; however in reality, Charlie was half Polish, spoke with an Italian accent, drank heavily, womanised, and was overrefined to the point that he wouldn’t touch butter if breadcrumbs were mixed with it. He didn’t wear Highland dress until someone told him that it was good public relations. In fact, he didn’t like Scotland at all, Gaelic was gibberish to him, and he tended to look down on the Highlanders who were willing to fight and die for him. His one lasting achievement is to appear, year after year, on the lid of Scottish biscuit tins.
The Battle of Prestonpans, 21 September 1745
Having appointed Lord George Murray as his military commander, Charles began marching on Edinburgh. On 17 September Charles took the city without difficulty and held an expensive party to celebrate. Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Sir John Cope, commanding a 2000-strong government army including two regiments of dragoons and six guns, had deployed at Prestonpans, six miles east of Edinburgh. During the night of 20/21 September, Murray led the Jacobite army right around Cope’s position. Dawn found it deployed just 180 metres (200 yards) from the government army’s left flank. Cope’s troops just had time to change front when the Highlanders charged. A ragged volley failed to stop them. It took only ten minutes of savage hand-to-hand fighting to destroy Cope’s army, which sustained 1800 casualties, including 1500 prisoners, and lost all its guns. Jacobite losses amounted to 30 killed and 80 wounded.
The outcome of the battle attracted sufficient recruits to the Young Pretender’s cause for him to cross the border with an army of 4500 infantry and 400 cavalry. He took Carlisle and Manchester and then marched on to Derby, which he reached on 4 December. All seemed to be going his way, but concern was growing that no support was forthcoming from English sympathisers. The Duke of Cumberland was coordinating the response to the Jacobite invasion, and Jacobite intelligence sources suggested that proceeding further into England would risk two strong government armies crushing the rebellion between them. After some debate, Charles reluctantly fell back into Scotland.
The Battle of Falkirk, 17 January 1746
Cumberland followed Charles closely until his advance guard got a bloody nose near Penrith. The encounter, which took place on Clifton Moor, was the last battle fought on English soil. Now back in Scotland, Charles laid siege to Stirling Castle, a task for which he was ill equipped. Meanwhile, a government army under Lieutenant General Henry Hawley recaptured Edinburgh and was advancing to break the siege. Murray deployed his Jacobites on the moorland above Falkirk and on 17 January 1746 Hawley’s troops began emerging from the town to engage them. They had barely formed up when the Highlanders launched a devastating charge that swept away most of Hawley’s line. Murray’s forces killed or wounded about 350 of Hawley’s men and captured 600, and the government army lost all its guns and baggage. The Jacobite army’s casualties were negligible.
Hawley went insane with rage. For starters, he smashed his own sword against Falkirk’s market cross. Then he hanged 31 dragoons who rejoined their regiments after the battle on the idiotic charge of ‘deserting to the rebels’. Finally, when the Jacobites began releasing their prisoners, he had 32 returned infantrymen shot for cowardice. Forever after, he went by the nickname of the Hangman. The irony was that on 1 February the Jacobites abandoned the siege voluntarily and retreated into the Highlands.
The Battle of Culloden, 15 April 1746
Shortly after the government humiliation at Falkirk, Cumberland arrived to take command in Scotland, and followed up the Jacobite withdrawal. He trained his men rigorously in techniques of bayonet fighting designed to meet the Highlanders’ style of fighting with broadsword (a sword with a wide blade for cutting rather than thrusting) and targe (a light shield).
On 15 April the Jacobite army was in position on Culloden Moor, five miles east of Inverness. It was 5400 strong and consisted of 21 small (mainly Highlander) infantry battalions, 400 cavalry, and 12 guns. Cumberland’s army lay within striking distance to the east. It was 9000 strong and consisted of 15 regular infantry battalions, four regiments of dragoons, a number of Scottish volunteer units, and 16 guns. During the night the Jacobites tried to mount a surprise attack on Cumberland’s camp. Already on the verge of starvation and now utterly weary, they lost their way and had to return to their starting point. Cumberland’s army, fed and rested, followed up and deployed for battle as it approached Culloden.
For 30 minutes Cumberland’s artillery hammered the Jacobite line. The ordeal was too much for the patience of some clans. They launched piecemeal charges that the government army easily defeated; a few men broke through the first line of infantry, only for the second line to despatch them.
A double envelopment by the government cavalry completed the destruction of Charles’s army, which they pursued to within one mile of Inverness. Cumberland’s men killed about 1000 of the rebels and captured 558, together with all their guns. Government losses amounted to 50 killed and 239 wounded.
Cumberland’s savage treatment of his prisoners and the brutal repressive measures he imposed afterwards earned him the title of the Butcher, but he had won a decisive victory that destroyed Stuart ambitions forever. Some people still regard the battle as a Scottish defeat. In fact, more Scots were fighting for King George on 16 April than for Prince Charlie, whose army also included French and Irish elements.
Subsequent political measures destroyed the old clan structure. Relieved of their responsibilities, the lairds (landowners) preferred sheep and deer to populate their glens rather than people, who provided less profit. As a result of these evictions, called the Highland Clearances, Highlanders in their thousands emigrated to the New World or went to live in the cities. They also provided a ready recruiting ground for some of the finest regiments in the British army (see the sidebar, ‘The Highland regiments’).
The Highland regiments
The first regiment composed of Highlanders was the 42nd (originally 43rd) Foot, also entitled The Royal Highland Regiment but more commonly known as The Black Watch. The term Black refers to the dark government tartan, and Watch simply describes the role it was originally intended to perform: policing the glens. The regiment proved to be so efficient that it quickly found itself serving as conventional line infantry in numerous theatres of war. Raised in 1739, several more Highland regiments followed it about this time, but the army disbanded these a few years later. More Highland regiments became part of the Regular Army's establishment in the 1770s and more again in the 1790s.
The advantage for a Highlander joining a Highland regiment was that, apart from the scarlet coat, he wore traditional dress (in his regiment's tartan, of course) and, at the time and for many years after, he and his comrades could converse in their native Gaelic. Reminders of the old days of clan warfare remain. For example, the pipes can rouse Highlanders to berserk fury before an attack so that they become almost impossible to stop.
During their early years, the failure of others to recognise the sensibilities of Highland culture, let alone the fact that Highlanders simply would not tolerate flogging as a punishment, led to no fewer than 16 incidences of mutiny. Despite this, Highlanders and Sassenachs (to Highlanders, everyone south of the Highlands) settled down quickly together and proved to be a formidable combination. Nowhere in the British army is the power of tradition stronger than in the Highland regiments. During both World Wars, men from all over the Commonwealth and the United States travelled to Great Britain with the sole object of joining the Highland regiment in which their father, grandfather, or even great-grandfather once served.
The American War of Independence, 1775 -1783
People don’t rebel without good reason. In America the reason was not an attempt to seize the British throne, but anger at the taxation that the British government imposed on the American colonists. Rubbing salt into the tax-related wound, the colonists had no representatives in Parliament and therefore had no say in the matter. Their slogan, therefore, was ‘No taxation without representation’. It was a fair point - hadn’t a civil war taken place in England about such things a century earlier (see Chapter 6)?
For sheer stubborn stupidity, George Ill’s government took some beating. It viewed most colonists as Puritans, no-hopers, bond-servants, or criminals transported for the common good, and considered that they had no business asking for seats in Parliament. For their part, the colonists’ more extreme political leaders decided that if that was how the government felt, then they would form their own government and become independent of Britain. What the situation boiled down to was a handful of obstinate people on both sides who weren’t prepared to compromise. A fight became inevitable.
The war that followed was a civil war. Most of the colonists considered themselves to be English, Scots, Welsh, or Irish. Fighting their own kind was not what they wanted, unless they were forced into it. Taken as a whole:
● One third of the colonists wanted complete independence from Britain.
● One third wished to retain ties with the Old Country.
● One third just wanted to get on with their lives in peace.
In the New England colonies in the northeast, a higher proportion of people wanted independence; in the southern colonies the reverse applied. And the French Canadians, who were doing better under British administration than they had when France had ruled them, were all for preserving the status quo. War hardens attitudes and communities, neighbours, and families were forced to decide whether they were revolutionaries or loyalists (see the sidebar, ‘The loyalists’), and that was a tragedy.
The Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, 1775
The first shot of the American War of Independence was fired on 19 April 1775. General Thomas Gage, the British Governor of Massachusetts, received word that the colonists were stockpiling munitions at the town of Concord. He despatched 700 men from the Boston garrison to seize these. On Lexington Common they found a company of militiamen barring their path. Someone fired a shot, the troops opened fire, and the militiamen scattered, leaving eight of their number dead and ten wounded. When they got to Concord, Gage’s men found that colonists had removed some of the munitions, but the Governor’s troops destroyed the rest. The march back to Boston was a nightmare. Colonists sniped continually at Gage’s column and some men had to carry the wounded, which slowed its progress. If reinforcements had not arrived from Boston the future of the troops would have been doubtful. As it was, British casualties for the day amounted to 73 killed and 174 wounded, while the colonists lost 93 killed, wounded, and missing.
Some 15,000 rebels drawn from several New England colonies besieged Boston. On 15 June, Congress appointed George Washington as commander of its new revolutionary army (with the rank of major general) and gave instructions for the fortification of Bunker Hill overlooking Boston harbour (for some reason the work actually took place on the lower Breed’s Hill). Meanwhile, Gage had secured reinforcements to bring his garrison up to 7000. With the reinforcements came three generals who would each play a significant role as the war continued: John Burgoyne, William Howe, and Henry Clinton.
At dawn on the morning of 17 June, Gage reacted to the American fortifications on Breed’s Hill. The warships in the harbour bombarded the rebel position and Howe crossed the bay with 2200 men. Incredibly, the 1200 rebels holding the position stood off two attacks, although they all but exhausted their ammunition supply doing so. A third assault carried the position at the point of the bayonet. Howe’s troops sustained over 1000 casualties, while the rebels lost 140 killed, 271 wounded, and 30 captured.
Although Gage claimed a costly success, the battle did not change the overall situation. The number of rebels surrounding Boston grew month by month until by March 1776 there were no fewer than 26,000 of them. In addition, they had emplaced some captured British heavy guns. Howe, now commanding in place of Gage, recognised that remaining in Boston would solve nothing and on 17 March he evacuated the city and sailed for Halifax, on the Canadian coast.
The loyalists
Many people in the colonies took up arms to maintain the link with Great Britain. Loyalists formed numerous units and these served alongside the regular regiments, usually with a stiffening of regular soldiers.
Most loyalist troops dressed in green to indicate their status. The best known of these units was the British Legion, consisting of both cavalry and infantry elements. Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was its commander, a British regular officer who became the most outstanding cavalry leader of the war, winning one engagement after another until the Legion suffered a serious reverse at Cowpens in 1781. Tarleton gave his name to the smart, fur-crested helmet that light dragoon regiments and the Royal Horse Artillery later wore. A cruel streak marred his brilliance and led his enemies to name him 'Bloody' Tarleton, a nickname conferred for an incident in which he was, ironically, innocent.
After the war most loyalists left the United States for Canada, Newfoundland, or Nova Scotia. Among them was Flora MacDonald, who helped Prince Charles Edward Stuart escape from Scotland following his defeat at Culloden (see the section 'The Jacobites Return . . . And This Time They're Bonnie: The 'Forty-Five', earlier in this chapter).
Rebel failures in Canada
American General Richard Montgomery, with 1000 men, managed to penetrate Canadian territory by way of the Richlieu river in the autumn of 1775 and occupied Montreal on 13 November. Simultaneously, Benedict Arnold set out with a similar number of Americans to the St Lawrence river, which he reached after a gruelling march through Maine reduced his strength to 600 men. On 3 December Montgomery joined him and took command at his camp near Quebec, bringing with him 300 men from Montreal. On 31 December they launched a foolish assault on the formidable defences of Quebec in a driving snowstorm. The 1800-strong garrison, commanded by Sir Guy Carleton, the British Governor General of Canada, experienced no difficulty in repelling the attack. His men killed Montgomery and wounded Arnold, also killing or wounding almost 100 of the attackers and capturing 300.
Arnold and the rebel survivors remained in the vicinity until May 1776, then fell back on Montreal when General Burgoyne arrived with British and German reinforcements. General John Sullivan was now commanding the rebel forces in Canada, and he planned a counter-stroke that he hoped would restore the initiative to him. In June he despatched General John Thomas with 2000 men to attack Trois-Rivieres; Thomas’s troops lost their way and blundered into Burgoyne’s entire army. Predictably, the British army dispersed the rebel force. Sullivan hastily abandoned Montreal and withdrew first to Crown Point and then to Ticonderoga.
In a perceptive letter Arnold had already written to Sullivan, he commented that there was nothing to be gained for the rebel cause in upper or lower Canada, and that they had better return to their own country before it was too late.
New York, New York
British General Howe had 32,000 men at his disposal, including regiments hired from the ruler of Hesse (in modern-day Germany). This was a propaganda gift to the rebels, who could not only claim that the London government was quite prepared to use foreigners against its own people, but also invoke foreign assistance of their own whenever they wanted. In fact, Kings Louis XVI of France and Charles III of Spain, still smarting from the losses they endured during the Seven Years’ War (see Chapter 8), were gibbering with delight at Britain’s transatlantic problems and had already authorised the despatch of munitions to the American colonists.
Howe believed that a major defeat would destroy the rebels’ will to fight. His transports arrived off New York on 2 July 1776. Two days later Congress made its formal Declaration of Independence (for more on this, see Steve Wiegand’s US History For Dummies, published by Wiley). There could be no going back for either side now.
Washington predicted that New York would be Howe’s objective and posted some 7000 men under Major General Israel Putnam on Long Island, retaining a similar number himself in Manhattan. Howe landed 20,000 men on Long Island and on 27 August expertly turned the American left, forcing Putnam to abandon his position with the loss of 200 killed and 1000 captured. Howe lost 400 men killed or wounded. Washington evacuated Long Island during the night of 29-30 August and abandoned New York on 12 September (the city remained in British hands for the rest of the war). Howe followed up by:
● Manoeuvring Washington off Harlem Heights on 16 September
● Defeating Washington at White Plains on 28 October
● Storming Fort Washington, overlooking the Hudson, on 16 November, taking 2800 Americans prisoner
The rebels abandoned Fort Lee, on the opposite shore, on 18 November, along with much war material. Washington commenced a retreat across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. On 12 December Congress fled from Philadelphia to Baltimore, conferring dictatorial powers on Washington, whose army stood at just 3000 men. Now was the moment for Howe to finish the business, but he lacked the killer instinct and instead dispersed his troops into winter quarters throughout New Jersey.
The revolutionary flame was on the verge of flickering out, but in a few short days Washington fanned it back to life. He realised that a combination of Christmas and complacency rendered the British vulnerable to a counterstroke. On Christmas night 1776, under cover of a blizzard, Washington crossed the Delaware with 2400 men and overran the Hessian post at Trenton. Of the 1400-strong garrison, his men killed 30 and captured 1000, along with a large quantity of military stores. Two Americans froze to death and five were wounded. By 2 January 1777 the British area commander, Lord William Cornwallis, had closed in on Trenton with 5000 men. A further 2500 men, based at Princeton, some 12 miles away, were ordered to join him with a view to mounting an attack on the Americans next day. That night, Washington left his camp fires burning and slipped round Cornwallis on a little-used track. He now possessed 1600 regulars and 3600 militia. On 3 January he inflicted a defeat on the Princeton reinforcements and captured yet more stores. He then made a rapid march to Morristown before Cornwallis could react. This placed him in a position to menace the communications of British garrisons in central and western New Jersey, resulting in their withdrawal.
Making plans with Johnny and George
‘Gentleman Johnny’ Burgoyne was a fair soldier, an absentee Member of the House of Commons, a poet, a playwright, a successful gambler, a sportsman, and a compulsive party goer. The best parties were in London, so he left Canada on winter leave. He judged, correctly, that the heart of the revolution lay in the New England colonies and formulated a plan to isolate the rebels there by a triple thrust converging on Albany in the Hudson valley. First, Howe’s army would strike north up the river from New York, then a force under Colonel Barry St Leger would advance along the Mohawk to its confluence with the Hudson, and finally his own army would enter the Hudson valley by the traditional route from the north. In London, he discussed his ideas with Lord George Germain (who, as Lord George Sackville, had brought such disgrace on the cavalry at Minden - see Chapter 8) and been declared unfit to serve the Crown in any military capacity. Since then, Germain had become a close friend of King George III and been appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord North’s government. It beggars belief, but Germain now had more say in how the war should be run than anyone else. He accepted Burgoyne’s plan, then made a hideous blunder by informing Howe of the details while leaving it to his discretion whether he played his part in it or not. As it happened, Howe’s plans for 1777 involved an advance against Philadelphia with a view to forcing Washington into a decisive battle. He was, in any event, senior to Burgoyne and fully intended to exercise the discretion Germain had given him. Unaware of the strategic time bomb ticking away beneath his feet, Burgoyne returned to Canada and prepared to take the offensive.
The Saratoga Campaign, June-October 1777
Burgoyne began moving south from Canada in June 1777. He defeated the American forces holding the Lake Champlain sector, but his advance was slowed down by felled trees, enabling the Americans to concentrate troops from all over New England. On 3 August he received the shattering news that Howe was not cooperating (see the previous section for their planning problems). At this point, Burgoyne could have abandoned his advance and consolidated his gains, but he chose not to.
On 16 August the rebels ambushed a column of Brunswick mercenaries, sent to secure supplies at Bennington, and over 900 men were killed, wounded, or captured. Again, Burgoyne could have retreated, but he pressed stubbornly on. In the middle of September he found further progress halted by an entrenched position near Saratoga, held by 7000 Americans under Major General Horatio Gates. On 19 September Burgoyne mounted an unsuccessful attack, known as the Battle of Freeman’s Farm, sustaining 600 casualties to the Americans’ 300.
Meanwhile, Clinton had marched up the Hudson with more British troops, taking Forts Clinton and Montgomery on 6 October. He then returned to New York, hoping that this diversion had been helpful to Burgoyne. It hadn’t, because Gates now had 9000 men under his command. When Burgoyne launched a second attack on 7 October (the Battle of Bemis Heights) he simply sustained another 600 casualties to the Americans’ 150. The American strength continued to grow, until it outnumbered Burgoyne’s remaining 5700 men by three to one, and Burgoyne surrendered.
To the Americans, victories at Saratoga served as a balance to Howe’s successes in Pennsylvania, but they went much further than that. France not only recognised the United States of America but also declared war on Great Britain in 1778, to be followed by Spain in 1779, and Holland in 1780. In the long term, an American victory was assured and Saratoga can therefore be seen as the war’s major turning point.
Fighting at Philly
Howe believed that capturing Philadelphia, the seat of Congress, while simultaneously destroying Washington’s army, would make the revolution collapse. On 23 July 1777 he sailed from New York with 18,000 men, bound for Chesapeake Bay. Landing at Elkton, he set off for Philadelphia, defeating Washington at the Battle of Brandywine on 11 September. Ten days later, a British night attack routed the brigade of Brigadier General Anthony Wayne at Paoli. The Congressmen fled first to Lancaster and then to York, once more conferring dictatorial powers on Washington (see the section ‘New York, New York’, earlier in this chapter) in the hope that he would keep them safe. On 26 September, Howe entered Philadelphia, but having been reinforced to a strength of 13,000, Washington attempted to attack the main British encampment at Germantown on 4 October. His plan was too complex and his senior commanders blundered in their attempted execution of it, incurring 700 casualties and losing 400 prisoners.
After Germantown, Washington’s army, now much reduced, spent a miserable, freezing winter at Valley Forge. While Howe had repeatedly proved to be the better tactician, his lack of killer instinct permitted the American army to survive its ordeal. It also cost Howe his job and Clinton came forward to replace him. Meanwhile, a German calling himself General Baron Augustus von Steuben was licking the Americans into shape. He was neither a general nor a baron, and probably not a ‘von’ either, but he was quite correct in saying that if the Americans wanted to start beating British regulars in the open field, they needed to become as disciplined and fully trained.
In June 1778, following the outbreak of war between Great Britain and France, Clinton began marching overland to New York. Washington, with 13,000 men, followed closely. On 28 June an attempt to intercept Clinton’s withdrawal at Monmouth came to naught when Major General Charles Lee mishandled the American advance guard. The result was a hard-fought action that proved the worth of Steuben’s training methods, but failed to stop Clinton’s army reaching New York. Lee was court-martialled and dismissed from the service.
Georgia on my mind, 1779-1781
So far, the war in the southern colonies had consisted of guerrilla activities by rebel or loyalist groups. At the end of December 1778, however, British regular troops defeated the local rebel militia and occupied Savannah, Georgia. In September 1779, the French Admiral D’Estaing arrived off the port with 4000 French troops. Having joined forces with the local rebel commander, he laid siege to the town. Unwilling to expose his ship to autumn gales, he insisted on assaulting the British lines on 9 October. A deserter warned the 3500-strong British garrison, commanded by Brigadier General Augustine Prevost, and they threw the attackers back, having inflicted 800 casualties in exchange for 150 of their own. D’Estaing embarked his troops and sailed off while his American allies returned to Charleston, South Carolina.
The British were planning no major operations against the northern colonies, but it seemed as though they could bring the southern colonies under control. The main actions of this campaign were:
● Clinton’s 14,000 British troops laid siege to Charleston. Bombarded by land and sea, General Benjamin Lincoln’s garrison held out until 12 May 1780, then surrendered. Clinton, in no mood to be generous, granted only partial honours of war. Included in the surrender were 5400 prisoners, four frigates, 400 guns, and a huge quantity of small arms and ammunition. It was the worst American disaster of the war and it looked very much as though South Carolina as well as Georgia could be recovered for the Crown.
● Clinton returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis with 8000 men to pacify the area. Unfortunately, Cornwallis didn’t believe in the modern hearts-and-minds method of winning over the population. It wasn’t enough for him that people should stop being rebels, they had to join in the fight against other rebels, and that was too much to ask. He was also heavy handed in the matter of confiscations, especially of slaves. This stimulated guerrilla activity, and the brutal methods that Tarleton’s loyalist British Legion employed to obtain results infuriated the population.
● Gates, commanding the American forces in the south, assembled an army of 3000 men, mainly militia, and marched into South Carolina.
On 16 August Cornwallis with 2400 regulars and loyalists met him at Camden and routed him, inflicting losses of 900 killed and 1000 captured.
● Rebel militia virtually wiped out an 1100-strong loyalist unit commanded by Colonel Patrick Ferguson at King’s Mountain, North Carolina, on 7 October. Apart from Ferguson, everyone present was American born. Worse was to follow, for Brigadier General Daniel Morgan worsted Tarleton at Cowpens, South Carolina, on 17 January 1781, killing 110 and capturing 830 from Tarleton’s total strength of 1100. Morgan, commanding approximately the same number, lost only 12 killed and 61 wounded. The news that Tarleton’s hated Legion was beaten at last provided a greater boost to American morale than the size of the engagement suggests.
● Major General Nathanael Greene replaced Gates as the American commander in the south after the Battle of Camden. He assembled a 4400- strong army, consisting mainly of militia and partially trained regulars, and advanced into North Carolina. At Guilford Court House, he established a defensive position in depth on Cornwallis’s projected route to Wilmington, where the British hoped to replenish their supplies. On 15 March, Cornwallis attacked the position with just 1900 men. As much of the battlefield consisted of woodland, Greene’s troops were unable to support each other and the British were able to fight their way through each of the defences in turn, at the cost of 500 killed, wounded, and missing. Greene broke off the action and withdrew, having sustained 1300 casualties and lost four guns.
● Greene realised that while he could replace his casualties, his opponents could not. As he advanced into South Carolina, local British commanders beat him at Hobkirk’s Hill on 19 April, Fort Ninety-Six on 19 June, and Eutaw Springs on 8 September 1781.
The overall result of this campaign was that the British had to withdraw isolated garrisons, so that by the end of September only Charleston and Savannah remained in British hands south of Virginia. Cornwallis, having decided that he could no longer hold the Carolinas and Georgia, marched north into Virginia. It was to prove a fateful decision (the following section explains why).
Turning the world upside down
Cornwallis marched into Virginia because he thought that he could gain supplies and reinforcements there. That could only be at Clinton’s expense, but back in London, Lord George Germain thoroughly approved of the strategy, so that was that (see the section ‘Making plans with Johnny and George’ earlier in this chapter for more on Germain’s role).
On 4 August, in response to orders from Clinton, Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, on the tip of the Virginia peninsula. This proved to be the deciding moment of the war.
By land and sea, Washington and his French allies closed in. Cornwallis believed that Clinton would keep him supplied and despatch reinforcements should the need arise, but at the critical moment the Royal Navy temporarily lost its command of the sea at the Second Battle of the Capes, 5-9 September. By the end of the month, 9500 Americans and 7500 French regulars were besieging Yorktown.
Cornwallis made the mistake of withdrawing inside his inner defences in the hope that Clinton would come to his assistance. This meant that the entire defended area was now within range of the allies’ siege artillery. On 14 October Cornwallis lost two important redoubts. He pushed new batteries forward and beat off an American counter-attack two days later. A storm forced Cornwallis to abandon the idea of evacuating at least some of his troops across the York river to Gloucester. In addition to his other worries, ammunition was running low and smallpox had broken out among his troops. Realising that defeat was now inevitable, he asked Washington for terms. Remembering the humiliating terms imposed on the American garrison of Charleston, the rebels decreed that when the British marched out, their bands would not be permitted to play a French or American march. With wry humour equal to the occasion, the bandmasters chose ‘The World Turned Upside Down’, a popular song that ironically had formed part of one of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne’s comic operas.
Neither side undertook any more major military operations in North America after the fall of Yorktown. Everyone was sick of the war and simply wanted to get out of it on the best terms possible.
Britain lost 13 colonies in North America, but its merchants did better business with the former colonists than they had done before. The Americans found that they had exchanged one set of politicians for another, but at least they could vote for or against the new lot. Congress was stony broke, despite having disbanded its army.