Victory at Yorktown by Richard M. Ketchum Read Free Book Online

by flatterers or secret enemies … [Washington] finds in me a sincere friend, in whose bosom he may always confide his most secret thoughts, and who will always speak the truth.”
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    FOR THE GENERAL , the matter at hand was New York, and the question of attacking the city was resolved to his keen regret when Ternay announced flatly that he would not put his ships at risk in New York’s harbor, where a superior British fleet and ground troops could bottle them up and hammer them from land and sea. The alliance seemed to be going nowhere, with the lack of personal contact keeping plans in limbo. As yet, Washington had not met the French officers; Rochambeau begged him to visit them, saying, “In an hour of conversation, we shall be able to settle things far more definitely than in volumes of writing.” And although the American commander felt the same way, his army was in such dire straits he simply could not take the time for a face-to-face meeting. As he put it, “my presence here is essential to keep our preparations in activity, or even going on at all.”
    The fact that the French troops, who had disembarked on July 11, 1780, were firmly established in Newport was a reminder of the incompetence of Admiral Arbuthnot and his stubborn unwillingness to cooperate with General Clinton. The latter’s knowledge that Rochambeau’s army was bound for Newport came from the American general Benedict Arnold, who had secretly been in touch with Clinton at intervals during the past year. Sir Henry, who had a large garrison in New York and wanted to occupy Newport before the French arrived, was frustrated in this by Arbuthnot, who would not believe the intelligence and wanted to wait for reinforcements that had been promised him.
    Failing in his hope of reoccupying Newport, Clinton prepared to attack the French when they landed and were at their most vulnerable, but Arbuthnot, who rarely missed a chance to do nothing, advised against it and the rare opportunity vanished. Indeed, neither the British general nor the admiral knew when the French arrived; on July 5 Arbuthnot’s frigates had sighted Ternay’s fleet off Virginia, but Ternay then disappeared. (Why the frigates did not follow the French is a mystery. As Clinton said to himself, the admiral had learned about the French on July 5, “why then did he lose sight of them afterwards?”) Meantime, Clinton was doing his level best to ready a force of six thousand men to hit the French when they reached Newport, but for now all he could do was wait.
    Admiral Thomas Graves’s squadron was expected any day from England, and he showed up on July 13 with seven hundred of his seamen sick and far from ready for duty, but in theory, at least, he added to the British naval strength.
    Again Clinton argued for an attack; Arbuthnot kept finding reasons for delay, finally warning that the combined American and French artillery in Newport, added to Ternay’s firepower, would be too much for his ships. And by now Clinton’s enthusiasm for the project was waning, as he focused more on the risks than on opportunities. When he convened a rare council of war, the members unanimously voted that the army should stand down and Sir Henry concurred. With that decision he effectively abandoned the initiative and lost what he had regarded as the greatest opportunity since the war began. Ternay, after all, was reported to have seven or eight ships of the line and was convoying some six thousand troops under Rochambeau, and what a coup it would have been to destroy or badly damage the Americans’ French allies.
    After Clinton made his decision a British naval officer remarked that the fleet “would never see Rhode Island because the General hated the Admiral. ” That was true enough, and from Sir Henry’s standpoint quite legitimate, for Arbuthnot had from the beginning opposed Clinton’s plan, ignored a