John Fiske The American Revolution

28

The first commander-in-chief of the United States navy was Ezekiel Hopkins, of Rhode Island, appointed by Congress in December, 1775. His rank was intended to correspond in the navy with that held by Washington in the army. In the papers of the time he is often styled “admiral,” but among seamen he was commonly known as “commodore.” The officers next below him were captains. In February, 1776, Hopkins got out to sea with a small fleet; in April, with two sloops-of-war and three small brigs, he attacked the British sloop Glasgow 20, and failed to take her. His failure was visited with severe and perhaps excessive condemnation; in the following October, Congress passed a vote of censure on him, and in January, 1777, dismissed him from the service. For the rest of the war no commander-in-chief of the navy was appointed.

One of Hopkins’s vessels, the brig Lexington 14, was commanded by John Barry, a native of Wexford county, Ireland, who had long dwelt in Philadelphia. In April, 1776, a few days after Hopkins’s failure, the Lexington met the British tender Edward off the capes of Virginia, and captured her after an hour’s fight. This was the first capture of a British warship by an American. Barry served with distinction through the war and died at the head of the navy in 1803.

29

In March, 1780, the navy of the United States consisted of the following vessels: —

America 74, Capt. John Barry, on the stocks at Portsmouth, N. H.

Confederacy 36, Capt. Seth Harding, refitting at Martinico.

Bourbon 36, Capt. Thomas Read, on the stocks in Connecticut.

Alliance 32, Capt. Paul Jones, in France.

Trumbull 28, Capt. James Nicholson, ready for sea in Connecticut.

Deane 28, Capt. Samuel Nicholson, on a cruise.

Providence 28, Capt. Abraham

Ranger 18, Capt. S. Sampson,

Saratoga 18, Capt. J. Young, on the stocks at Philadelphia.

See Sparks MSS. xlix. vol. iii. in Harvard University Library.

30

Richard Paton’s picture of this sea-fight, of which a photogravure is here given, departs somewhat from the strict truth of history, as is apt to be the case with historical pictures. The Alliance is represented in the act of delivering her impartial volley into the stern of the Serapis and the bow of the Bon Homme Richard, which occurred soon after ten o’clock. At the same time the mainmast of the Serapis is represented as overboard, whereas it did not fall until the ships were separated after the surrender, as late as half past eleven. Apart from this inaccuracy, the general conception of the picture is admirable. The engraving, published in 1780, was dedicated to Sir Richard Pearson, the captain of the Serapis, who was deservedly knighted for his heroic resistance, which saved the Baltic fleet, although he was worsted in the fight. There is a tradition that Paul Jones, on hearing of the honour conferred upon Pearson, good-naturedly observed, “If I ever meet him again I’ll make a lord of him.”

31

Agricultural communities lack the right kind of experience for understanding the real nature of money, and farmers are peculiarly subject to financial delusions. This has been illustrated again and again in American history, with lamentable consequences, from the Massachusetts issue of “paper money” in 1690 down to the drivelling schemes of the silver lunatics at the present time.

32

The story of his attempt to enter the service of Luzerne, the French minister who succeeded Gerard, rests upon insufficient authority.

33

The charge against Mrs. Arnold, in Parton’s Life of Burr, i. 126, is conclusively refuted by Sabine, in his Loyalists of the American Revolution, i. 172-178. I think there can be no doubt that Burr lied.

34

The version of the reprimand given by Marbois, however, is somewhat apocryphal.

35

To a gentleman, like Clinton, such a proposal was a gross insult, to which the only fitting answer would have been, “What do you take me for?” The scheme was highly discreditable to all concerned, and if Washington was one of these, it must be pronounced a blot upon his record. The only explanation would be that the “vague sense of injustice” mentioned below must have been felt by him so keenly as to warp for the moment his moral judgment.

36

In 1782, the British government granted him a pension of £1,000 a year for his lifetime and that of his wife. Arnold died in 1801, Mrs. Arnold in 1804.

37

As Lecky well says, “there is something inexpressibly touching in the tender affection and the undeviating admiration for her husband, which she retained through all the vicissitudes of his dark and troubled life.” Hist. of England in the Eighteenth Century, iv. 136. Her affection seems to have been repaid with perfect loyalty on Arnold’s part. His domestic life seems to have been above reproach, in which respect he presents a strong contrast to such utterly depraved wretches as Charles Lee and Aaron Burr.

38

THE SARATOGA MONUMENT

This is the most suitable place for making mention of the Saratoga monument, which was erected in 1883, but is not yet completed. The obelisk, 155 feet in height, stands upon a bluff about 300 feet above the Hudson river, and just south of the road from Schuylerville to Saratoga Springs. The view here given is taken from the southeast. The great pointed-arch niches in the base, just over the doorways, are occupied by bronze statues of heroic size. Of these it was necessary that one should be the unworthy Gates, who commanded the army and received Burgoyne’s surrender. The second and third are obviously Schuyler and Morgan. The fourth niche is vacant. The place belongs to Arnold, who was especially the hero of Saratoga. But for Arnold, the relieving army of St. Leger might have come down the Mohawk valley. But for Arnold, the 19th of September would have seen Gates’s position turned at Bemis Heights. But for Arnold the victory of October 7th would probably have been indecisive, so that time would have been allowed for Clinton to come up the Hudson. In commemorating Saratoga, to leave Arnold unnoticed would be impossible. He has therefore his niche, but it is vacant. When the monument is completed, the names of the four generals are to be inscribed below their niches, and then the empty niche will speak as eloquently as the black veil that in the long series of portraits of Venetian doges covers the place of Marino Faliero.

In the view here given, the empty niche is seen on the left. The niche on the right, or east, contains (on almost too small a scale to be here visible) the statue of Schuyler, with folded arms, gazing upon the field of surrender where he ought to have presided. On the north side stands Gates with a spy-glass, as in the final battle; while Arnold was winning victory for him, he stood on Bemis Heights to watch what he supposed would be the retreat of the Americans! On the west side Morgan is in the attitude of ordering his sharpshooter Tim Murphy to fire upon General Fraser. These poses were suggested by Colonel William Leete Stone, secretary of the Saratoga Monument Association, to whom, indeed, the monument owes its existence.

The interior of the monument is finely decorated with bas-reliefs of scenes in the Burgoyne campaign.

39

It was the sons of these invincible men who vanquished Wellington’s veterans in the brief but acute agony at New Orleans; it was their grandsons and great-grandsons who came so near vanquishing Grant at Shiloh and Rosecrans at Stone River.

40

“History, perhaps, does not furnish an instance [he means another instance] of a battle gained under all the disadvantages which the British troops … had to contend against at Guilford. Nor is there, perhaps, on the records of history, an instance of a battle fought with more determined perseverance than was shown by the British troops on that memorable day.” Stedman, History of the American War, London, 1794, ii. 347.

41

It is interesting to contrast with the movements of Cornwallis those of an eminent general in more recent times. Early in 1865 General Sherman was at Columbia, on the Congaree river, about thirty miles southwest from Camden, and the difficult task before him was, without any secure base of operations nearer than Savannah, to push the Confederate forces northward to a decisive defeat in North Carolina. With this end in view, Sherman feigned to be aiming at Charlotte, while in reality he moved the bulk of his army northeasterly across the Pedee and Cape Fear rivers to Goldsborough, near the coast, where he established a new and secure base of operations. The battle of Bentonville, fought just before Sherman reached this base, was the unsuccessful attempt of his skilful antagonist, Joseph Johnston, to prevent his reaching it. Sherman’s march northwestward from his new base was well secured, and Johnston’s surrender near Hillsborough was a natural sequel. But – as my friend, Mr. John Codman Ropes, in a letter to me once pointed out – "had Sherman pursued his march from Columbia to Charlotte, and thence until he had met and fought Johnston, the result of the inevitable losses of the battle, leaving the question of victory aside, might have been such as to compel a retreat to Savannah.”

42

FRANCISCO’S SKIRMISH WITH TARLETON’S DRAGOONS

Just after the fight at Green Spring Tarleton made a raid through Amelia county and as far as Bedford, a hundred miles west of Petersburg. One of the incidents of this raid was made the subject of an engraving that was published in 1814 and soon became a familiar sight on the walls of public coffee-rooms and private parlours. Peter Francisco was a Portuguese waif, an indentured servant of Anthony Winston. As he grew to manhood his strength was such that he could lift upon his shoulder a cannon weighing half a ton, and his agility was equally remarkable. He entered the Continental service in 1777, in his seventeenth year, and fought at Brandywine, Germantown, Fort Mifflin, Monmouth, Stony Point, Camden, Cowpens, and Guilford, where he was wounded and left for dead. Plenty of life remained in him, however. On a July day, somewhere in Amelia county, alone and unarmed, he fell in with nine of Tarleton’s dragoons, one of whom demanded his shoe-buckles. “Take them off yourself,” said the quick-witted fellow-countryman of Magellan. As the man stooped to do the unbuckling, the young giant snatched away his sword and crushed in his skull with a single blow. Then quickly turning he slew two others, one of whom sat on horseback snapping a musket at him. At this moment Tarleton’s troop of 400 men appeared in the distance, whereupon the astute Francisco shouted in tremendous voice some words of command as if to an approaching party of his own. The six unhurt dragoons, who happened to be dismounted, were dazed with the sudden fury of Francisco’s attack, and at his deafening yell they fled in a panic, leaving their horses. These things all happened in the twinkling of an eye. Then Francisco vaulted into the saddle of one of the horses, seized the others by their bridles, and made off through the woods to Prince Edward Court House, where he sold all the horses save one noble charger which he named Tarleton and kept as his pet for many years. See Winston’s Peter Francisco, Soldier of the Revolution, Richmond, 1893.

The above incidents are epitomized in the picture without much regard to accuracy.

43

This slaughter, though sanctioned by European rules of warfare at that time, was not in accordance with usage in English America, either on the part of British or of Continentals. It was an instance of exceptional cruelty, and must be pronounced a serious blot upon the British record. See above, p. 116.

44

He died in London, June 14, 1801, and his burial in Brompton cemetery is mentioned in the Gentleman’s Magazine, lxxi. 580.

45

In using such a word as “gratitude” in this connection, one should not forget that the purposes of France, in helping us, were purely selfish. The feeling of the French government toward us was not really friendly, and its help was doled out with as niggardly a hand as possible. An instance of this was furnished immediately after the surrender of Yorktown, when Lafayette proposed to Grasse a combined movement upon Charleston in concert with Greene, but Grasse obstinately refused. See Harvard University Library, Sparks MSS. Such a movement promised success, though it might have entailed a battle with the British fleet. But Grasse was faithful to the policy of Vergennes, to help the Americans just enough, but not too much. This policy is discussed in my Critical Period of American History, chap, i., “Results of Yorktown,” in which the story is continued from the present chapter.