General Charles O’Hara was a veteran soldier
by the time of the American Revolutionary War.
He had fought in the Seven Years’ War in Europe and also saw service in
Africa before coming to the British colonies in North America in 1778. As second in command to General Charles
Cornwallis, he led the counterattack at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781,
chasing General Nathanael Greene and his men from the field of battle. Later, with Cornwallis claiming illness,
O’Hara led the surrender of the British troops at Yorktown.[i] The day following this surrender O’Hara wrote
to the Duke of Grafton stating, “Our Ministers will I hope be now persuaded
that America is irretrievably lost….The French talk of attacking Charles
Town….America is theirs.”[ii]
This vignette is presented to demonstrate how
vital the Franco-American alliance was and how significant the victory at
Yorktown was to the final peace treaty with British acknowledgment of American
independence. Not only did a veteran
general in the British Army think that the colonies were lost after Yorktown,
but he believed the French, through their alliance with the Americans, would
ultimately control the former British colonies.
Still, few Americans, and few Frenchmen, believed that victory at
Yorktown meant victory in the overall war.
The soldiers captured there (about 7,000 men) represented only about
one-fourth of the total British strength in North America.[iii] Comparatively, over 6,000 had been captured at
Saratoga four years earlier, and the war continued. A simple shuffling of troops would have
replenished those men easily within months.
So why, then, was the Franco-American coalition and the victory at
Yorktown the final blow cast for American independence?
By the time the war had moved south, the British
and the Americans were far from giving up fighting. However, with the French entrance into the
war, the British were on the ropes. Even
without full French assistance in the North American colonies, the alarm and
anxiety caused by now having to protect the West Indies, India, Gibraltar and
the other British possessions against the French caused a change in the British
manner of thinking about the North American war. The French declaration of war against the
British led to eventual American victory.
The final two large battles before Yorktown,
at Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse, were fought between the Americans under
General Greene, and the British under Cornwallis, without French
assistance. The Americans were
victorious at Cowpens in January, providing a morale boost, and they could at
least claim that even though they had lost the field at Guilford Courthouse,
they had added twenty-five percent of Cornwallis’s force to the casualty list.[iv] Even though Cornwallis publicly claimed
victory, he privately noted that the British “had not a regiment or corps that
did not at some time give way.” He also
reportedly said in private, “The Americans fought like demons.” After the battle, Greene proclaimed that he
thought that is was “out of the enemies power to do us any great injury.”[v] Despite the victories, without French
assistance, the Americans struggled to put the final nail in the coffin of the
British Army. The war would continue.
The American and British back-and-forth that
began in the northern colonies in 1775, continued in the southern colonies in
1781, however, the French entrance now had the British on the ropes. Though the French fleet bungled their way
around the American coastline, they made good on their attacks against the
British elsewhere, especially in the Caribbean.
Still, General Washington wanted for French assistance and cooperation
with his army, or, at minimum, communication from the French fleet as to their
designs.[vi]
Cornwallis realized the predicament facing
him before leaving North Carolina. He
knew that leaving Virginia unconquered would provide no security to him in the
Carolinas, but should he leave the Carolinas for Virginia, he had not enough
men to keep the restless populace subdued.[vii] However, as had happened within the British
command throughout the war, communication was lacking. Cornwallis moved toward Virginia to the
disappointment of Sir Henry Clinton.
Clinton wrote that had Cornwallis informed him of that move, Clinton
most certainly who have “endeavored to have stopped” Cornwallis.[viii] But Cornwallis was frustrated by the
hit-and-run guerrilla tactics of the Americans, and his inability to defeat the
Americans. He and his army chased the
Americans through the Carolinas and into Virginia. Cornwallis’s lust for victory and glory
partially led to the final defeat of the British in the American colonies.
Cornwallis chose Yorktown because of its
defensive nature and access to the sea.
Both of these features would assist in his downfall. With French assistance at sea, the Americans
could complete the blockade of the British army at Yorktown. In this way, French support was completely
necessary for American victory at Yorktown.
Without the French fleet off the Virginia coast, the British could have
resupplied Cornwallis and his men indefinitely.
Clinton could also have decided to disembark Cornwallis’s troops,
bringing them back to New York, or some other location, or he could have reinforced
them with more men and ordered Cornwallis to break out and attack the
Americans. Happily, for the Americans,
the French fleet was able to defeat the British fleet in the Chesapeake and
blockade the Cornwallis in Yorktown from the sea before assistance could
arrive. Washington, in shrewd and
cunning fashion, snuck off to Yorktown with a combined Franco-American
force. The classic siege which followed
the Franco-American arrival outside of Yorktown, combined with the French naval
blockade finally forced Cornwallis into submission.
General O’Hara led the somber procession of
the British to surrender their arms at Yorktown. Whether to avoid or to insult Washington,
O’Hara attempted to surrender Cornwallis’s sword to Rochambeau, but the
Frenchman declined, directing O’Hara toward Washington. Washington, as a sign of protocol, or maybe
as his own form of insult, passed O’Hara on to General Benjamin Lincoln, one
subordinate submitting to another.[ix] Despite the show of fealty by Rochambeau,
O’Hara believed the French were the true masters of the victory.
Washington hoped to build on the allied
victory and free Charleston and Savannah from British control, but the French
Admiral de Grasse informed Washington that his orders were to proceed to the
West Indies immediately.[x] Without French help, Washington was not
confident that he could take those cities, or New York. Though those were the only British
strongholds remaining in the former colonies, the British had about 26,000 men
spread across those areas, as well as along the Great Lakes region and Canada.[xi] However, the British Parliament realized that
the war was already too costly, and to continue to fight against the Americans,
French, and increasingly the Spanish as well, would “jeopardize the very
existence of the British Empire.”[xii] The French, though not assisting Washington
and the Americans to their liking, nevertheless contributed elsewhere. The end of the war did not come swiftly – it was
still two years before the final peace treaty was signed – but there was not
another major battle fought between the British and the Americans after
Yorktown. The French handled the load.
Babits, Lawrence E. A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Buchanan, John. The Road
to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas. New York:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.
Davis, Burke. The
Cowpens-Guilford Courthouse Campaign. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co.,
1962.
Greene, Jerome A. The
Guns of Independence: The Siege of Yorktown, 1781. New York: Savas Beatie,
2005.
Ketchum, Richard. Victory
at Yorktown: The Campaign that Won the Revolution. New York: Henry Holt
& Co., 2004.
Savas, Theodore P. and J.
David Dameron. A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution. New
York: Savas Beatie LLC, 2006.
[i]
Savas, 290, 336.
[ii]
Qtd. in Greene, xv.
[iii] Ibid.,
xvi.
[iv]
Savas, 291.
[v]
All qtd. in Buchanan, 382.
[vi]
Ketchum, 29.
[vii]
Davis, 180.
[viii]
Ibid., 184.
[ix]
Greene, 297.
[x]
Ibid., 319.
[xi]
Ibid., 323.
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