2.11: The Officer and the Commoner: Lord Cornwallis and Joseph Plumb Martin at the Battle of Yorktown

It was the last significant battle of the American Revolution, although this couldn’t have been predicted at the time.  The Americans, British, and the French felt that 1781 was a "now or never" year for the Revolution, and that something big had to happen.  Many forces coalesced to turn the Battle of Yorktown into the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War, and  we’ll examine two individuals serving on opposing sides, and from very different backgrounds.  In this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook,  we’ll conclude the fighting of the American Revolution at Yorktown by spotlighting Lord Charles Cornwallis and Joseph Plumb Martin: the Officer and the Commoner at the Battle of Yorktown.

Key People
Lord Charles Cornwallis
Joseph Plumb Martin
General Henry Clinton
Alexander Hamilton

Key Events
Battle of Yorktown
Battle of New York
Battle of Monmouth

The third season of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on the stories of individuals who shaped "America's Crucial Years" of 1783-1790, and runs from October 8-December 24. Catch up on Season One, "America's Colonial Era," and Season Two, "America's Revolution," wherever you listen to your podcasts!

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Transcript

It was the last significant battle of the American Revolution, although this couldn’t have been predicted at the time.  George Washington began 1781 feeling as though he had to win the war in this year, and the man who would be his primary opponent, Lord Charles Cornwallis, also felt that this year would prove to be the crucial year of the war.  Additionally, the French were implied to have felt this way as the Americans were unaware as to whether they could rely on French support once 1782 rolled around.  As for the soldiers, the men who toiled for years and watched their friends die for the Cause of freedom?  They sure as heck wanted to win the war…but right at the top of the priority list would have been returning home, alive.  Many forces coalesced to turn the Battle of Yorktown into the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War, and as we’ve done a few times this season, we’ll examine two individuals serving on opposing sides, and from very different backgrounds.  In this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, the penultimate episode of Season 2, we’ll conclude the fighting of the American Revolution at Yorktown by spotlighting Lord Charles Cornwallis and Joseph Plumb Martin: the Officer and the Commoner at the Battle of Yorktown.

Act I: Destination: Virginia

The siege and subsequent “battles” at Yorktown, Virginia, in fall 1781 conclusively ended the major campaign operations of the American Revolution.  Getting there was quite an ordeal, but as is the case with the first act of each episode, we’ll provide a brief account of how this operation came to be.

The short version is that a combined force of American and French troops bottled up British forces under Lord Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia.  The Brits were unable to escape because the French navy blocked their potential escape route to the Atlantic Ocean.  These are certainly factual statements, but we’ll add a bit more context to flesh out why they occurred.  Lord Charles Cornwallis was placed in charge of His Majesty’s forces in the South and after enjoying initial success, had more than his fill of Continentals and militia throughout the Carolinas.  He believed that the path to success in the South lay in the conquest of Virginia: the Old Dominion.  Pacifying Virginia would, among other advantages, ensure quicker communications between his men and those occupying New York City under General Henry Clinton, the commander of all British military in North America.  It would also sever the supply chain that sustained the rebel forces led by Nathanael Greene, who had inflicted heavy casualties on Lord Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse.  General Clinton did not feel as though he could spare any troops to support Cornwallis’s efforts because he was anticipating a clash with General Washington in New York.  He was correct since, for a long time, Washington staunchly believed that the war would be decided in a grand battle with future Big Apple as the focal point.  French officer Rochambeau ended up persuading Washington to deviate from this dream: he received word that his naval counterpart, Admiral de Grasse, had departed Haiti with about 3,200 men in nearly 30 ships and was headed towards Chesapeake Bay.  This was welcome news because Marquis de Lafayette, the French nobleman who had become somewhat of a son to Washington, was already in the South mirroring the movements of Cornwallis, who ended up fortifying his position on a peninsular settlement called Yorktown.  If Washington was to move quickly and decisively, he and his French allies could entrap the British with a land-based siege that when combined with the blockade courtesy of the French navy, could be enough to force a surrender.  Washington ended up taking Rochambeau’s advice, which posterity would credit to the former, and with the diversion of troops to imply the possibility of a New York battle and thus confuse his enemy, he headed South.

Act II: The Officer

The man Washington would square off against at Yorktown was Lord Charles Cornwallis, an individual who is often remembered by American students, if at all, as the “guy who lost the American Revolution.”  Given his primary association with Yorktown, he is also viewed almost exclusively in terms of the Southern Theater.  Couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Born into a noble family in 1738, Charles would gain combat experience in the Seven Years’ War, as did many officers who served in the American Revolution.  I say “Seven Years’ War” instead of “French and Indian War” because he missed the ship that carried his regiment to North America and instead settled for service on the Continent.  During his service, he was elected to the House of Commons, elevating to the House of Lords in 1762 when he inherited his father’s title of “Earl Cornwallis.”  What’s most compelling about the pre-Revolutionary Cornwallis is that he appeared to greatly sympathize with the arguments that the colonial Americans were making in protest of British policy, going as far as to cast his vote against the implementation of the Stamp Act.  He was also somewhat reluctant to see the military used to quell colonial protests, something that he had in common with the Howe brothers.   An attack on the King’s troops at Lexington and Concord were the equivalent of attacks on the king himself, according to Cornwallis, so his sympathy melted away as he resolved to bring the pesky Americans to heel.  He actually sent a letter to new Colonial Secretary Lord George Germain offering his services across the Atlantic, knowing full well that he would have to serve in a subordinate role to Howe and Clinton.  King George III immediately accepted this offer, and he sailed for America in February 1776, about one month after the initial publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.  His initial destination was the South, specifically North Carolina, but his focus shifted to Charleston, South Carolina, the idea being that this city could serve as a base for which attacks on the rest of the region could commence.  As we know from our last episode on Banastre Tarleton, the siege of Charleston in 1776 did not pan out for the British, so they had to set their sights elsewhere.

That “elsewhere” ended up being New York City, and was the first of several times throughout the Revolution where Lord Cornwallis’s forces would clash with those led by General George Washington.  Arriving less than one month after the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, Cornwallis’s men fought bravely and effectively in defeating a renowned regiment of Marylanders and helping to rout the Americans for which he now held tremendous contempt.  In a letter to his mother, he would write that they “have been kept in utter darkness by the tyranny of their wicked leaders and are astonished to hear how little is required of them by Great Britain,” which makes sense given the Loyalist leanings of New York City prior to the arrival of Britain’s military.  He would suffer a setback at Princeton, one of two victories in late 1776 and early 1777 that would provide a renewed sense of purpose to the rebel cause, but got his revenge in fall at Brandywine Creek, which was Washington’s last attempt to prevent a British occupation of Philadelphia before the winter at Valley Forge.  Lord Cornwallis would not stay to enjoy the hospitality provided by the Loyalists in Philadelphia as he sailed for home in December 1777, arriving in England about one month later.  He provided the King with a report on the progress of the war, and was promoted to second-in-command of all British forces in North America, a promotion that came on the heels of the resignation of William Howe.  This would prove to be a blessing and a curse: a blessing because only General Henry Clinton stood between Cornwallis and complete command of Britain’s war effort, but also a curse because his wife was ailing and he would attempt to resign in mid-1778 to return to England and be with her.  As he was next-in-line to command His Majesty’s forces, the resignation would not be accepted: he responded with a drubbing of American forces led by Major-General Charles Lee at Monmouth Courthouse in June, although Washington would rally his men to turn the contest into more of a stalemate.  Still, Lord Cornwallis was demonstrating his aptitude for command and warfare, certainly getting the better of Washington multiple times, and as he was second-in-command in North America, he was the General who was sent South to implement the Southern Strategy.  The battles in this region were summarized last episode, as Banastre Tarleton British Legion were often under the banner of Cornwallis’s forces; however, his attempt to take Virginia would lead him to that ill-fated Yorktown peninsula.

Act III: The Commoner

Our contrasting figure for this episode is Joseph Plumb Martin, a Continental soldier who would end up serving in many of the major engagements of the American Revolution, including Yorktown.  He wrote an account of his time known as The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier that was published in 1830…and was read by very few individuals, so it languished in obscurity.  It enjoyed renewed attention in the 1960’s and stands out as an American account of the war through the eyes of an ordinary soldier as opposed to the perspective of an officer, of which there are ample pieces of evidence.  In this act, we’ll trace his experience from the war’s beginning to it’s Yorktown conclusions, and much like last season’s episode that focused on Mary Rowlandson, much of our narrative derives from his narrative, which is freely available online.

Most chapters of Martin’s account are divided up by year, with “Chapter 1: Introductory” being the exception in that it encompasses the pre-war years.  Joseph Plumb Martin was born as the French and Indian War was winding to a close in America in fall 1760, and his father sent him to live with his grandfather in Connecticut when he was seven years old.  Martin wrote kindly of his grandfather, who he describes as “kind to me in every respect: always gave me a playday when convenient, and was indulgent to me almost to a fault.”  And so his life would remain so until the first shots of the war were fired at Lexington and Concord.  He summarizes the pre-war occurrences that we examined in our earliest episodes of this season within a few paragraphs, explaining that he was “so young that [he] did not understand the meaning of [the Stamp Act].”  He recalled the anger that the Stamp Act stirred within the people, became much more aware of the turmoil in the colonies when the Boston Tea Party occurred, and by the time the Intolerable Acts were passed in 1774, Martin claimed that he held no real desire to go to war himself.  That all changed in April 1775, when he wrote of church bells going off on April 21 as well as the firing of guns which signaled a call to arms.  Lexington and Concord were days past, and men were being raised to march off to Boston to fight the British; upon enlistment, men would be paid one dollar for their services.  Ironically, Martin writes that, “The men that had engaged "to go to war" went as far as the next town, where they received orders to return, as there was a sufficiency of men already engaged, so that I should have had but a short campaign had I have gone.”  Young Joseph would push his grandfather to allow him to serve, but was given a stern “no” with the justification that his parents had not consented to his service.  He continued to live in Connecticut and work on his grandfather’s land, but spring of 1776 brought changes to colonial America and Martin’s grandparents.  Apparently, Martin’s grandmother told his grandfather that she heard Joseph claim that he desired naval service, so his grandfather stated that …”he supposed I was resolved to go into the service in some way or other, and he had rather I would engage in the land service if I must engage in any.”  That June, the 15-year-old Joseph Plumb Martin enlisted for six months, and at an age when most American children currently begin high school, he was off to war.

The first destination of Private Joseph Plumb Martin: New York City and the thousands of Redcoats and Hessians that were currently bearing down on the vital port.  A good deal of Martin’s autobiography touches upon the monotony of everyday soldiering, especially as he recalls an incident when his comrades raided a wine cellar on the basis of rumors that the British intended to confiscate all property.  However, the horrors of war soon became apparent to the teenager as he marched to participate in the Battle of Brooklyn, writing, “We now began to meet the wounded men, another sight I was unacquainted with, some with broken arms, some with broken legs, and some with broken heads. The sight of these a little daunted me, and made me think of home, but the sight and thought vanished together.”  Certainly a shock for one who has minimal experience with the aftermath of combat, but also the response of one who was locked in on his current mission and was perhaps already beginning to desensitize to the reality of Army life.  We already know that this battle will end in failure for the Continental Army, save for the ensuing evacuation, and Martin wrote of the secrecy of this evacuation in which, “All orders were given from officer to officer, and communicated to the men in whispers.”  He would fight in the ensuing battles at Kip’s Bay and White Plains, but when his six-month term was up in December, he marched home, and thus did not participate in the critical battles of Trenton and Princeton.  Once spring 1777 rolled around, he decided to re-enlist in the Army, explaining that all enlistees were given the option of either enlisting for a three-year period, or serving the rest of the war.  Martin chose to enlist for the rest of the war, reasoning that he didn’t believe that the war would last another three years.  He received his smallpox inoculation, which increased the odds that he would survive the subsequent winter, marched incessantly from place to place and participated in the Battle of Germantown and defense of Fort Mifflin, then settled into winter quarters at Valley Forge.  Aside from the constant drilling to which Martin claimed to be “a continual routine,” but one which would turn his Continental Army into a true fighting force, he foraged the countryside for food and strove to avoid sickness, not always with the greatest degree of success.

Following this time, but prior to the Battle of Yorktown, Joseph Plumb Martin’s unit would participate in the Battle of Monmouth, the battle from Act II which featured the retreat of the same General Charles Lee who was captured under the command of Banastre Tarleton in December 1776.  Martin wrote of the retreat, and also the arrival of who he called “the Commander-in-Chief.”  Washington asked Martin’s superiors “by whose order the troops were retreating,” and Washington allegedly swore when he was told the answer of “General Lee,” which Martin remarks was very unlike him.  Martin’s unit was among those ordered to make a stand, and so they did.  He spent the winter of 1779-1780 at Morristown, a winter that was much more brutal than the one at Valley Forge, and Martin would say of this time “The winter of 1779 and '80 was very severe; it has been denominated "the hard winter," and hard it was to the army in particular, in more respects than one. The period of the revolution has repeatedly been styled "the times that tried men's souls." I often found that those times not only tried men's souls, but their bodies too; I know they did mine, and that effectually.”  THe snow fell…and fell and fell and fell, same as the mercury, but Martin and his comrades pressed on.  After surviving yet another harrowing time, Martin’s fortunes would change.  Martin’s words as to his situation will suffice, and provide an appropriate bridge to the battle to come: “And now there was to be a material change in my circumstances, which, in the long run, was much in my favour. There was a small corps to be raised by enlistments, and in case of the failure of that, by drafts from the line; these men were called "Sappers and Miners," to be attached to the engineer's department. I had known of this for some time before, but never had a thought of belonging to it, although I had heard our Major (to whose company I belonged) tell some of our officers (after I had neatly marked his name upon his chest) that if there was a draft from our regiment, he intended I should go, although, he added, he did not wish to part with me. I, however, thought no more about it, till a Captain of that corps applied for a draft of one man from each regiment throughout the whole army present. This Captain was personally acquainted with our Major and told him he would like to have him furnish him with a man from the regiment that he knew was qualified for a non-commissioned officer; the Major then pitched upon me.”

Act IV: Yorktown

We’ve arrived in 1781, and the decisions that led to Yorktown.  Lord Cornwallis wrote a note to Lord Germain explaining his rationale for moving into Virginia, and he also saw fit to inform his direct superior, General Clinton, about his intentions.  Marquis de Lafayette was responsible for halting Cornwallis’s penetration into Virginia, and did so to the best of his ability.  While dealing with the Americans, Cornwallis also dealt with the reality that not only was he not in charge of British Operations during the Revolutionary war, but the orders of his direct superior ran contrary to what he felt was the best strategy. General Clinton advised Cornwallis that he did not want his men to March into New York, but Philadelphia would be a better option to destroy the rebel supplies in the region. Cornwallis disagreed, and refused to alter course. Clinton then ordered his subordinate to establish a base along the Chesapeake Bay, recommending Yorktown as the best possible location. Cornwallis's engineer surveyed the region and informed his boss that Yorktown was indefensible, and at that, a terrible place to establish a base of operations.  So not only has posterity ridiculed Lord Cornwallis for losing at Yorktown and choosing the site.. the choice wasn't even his to make. Disagree as he may with his superior.. Clinton was still his Superior, and thus he was compelled to follow orders.  Cornwallis marched to Yorktown with his men, and began to fortify his position.

Joseph Plumb Martin began 1781 with a furlough and a visit to his grandparents’ home…only to find that it was his sister who was keeping up the homestead, which he was happy to see.  After a few days recruiting, and a few more for his leisure, he rejoined the Army at West Point.  Similar to the beliefs of his General, Martin thought that he and his fellow sappers and miners would bear down for a siege of New York.  However, with a few stops in between, he received orders to “join Gen. Lafayette, and very soon after, our whole army arriving, we prepared to move down and pay our old acquaintance, the British at Yorktown, a visit.”  Instead of laying siege to New York City, it was the British encampment at Yorktown which would receive the attention of Martin and his unit.  Keep in mind that the “battle” of Yorktown consisted of few instances of hand-to-hand combat, but mostly played out as a siege, in which the French were experts.  Many sources give credit to the French for taking the lead in digging the parallel trenches that would seal off Cornwallis’s units, which had previously been kept in check by Lafayette’s undermanned forces.  Yes, the French may have taken the lead, but Martin wrote of one third of his unit commencing with the digging on the “very dark and rainy night” of October 5, 1781.  A stranger, as Martin put it, even came to personally supervise the progress and remind Martin to not give up his occupation if captured, given that, as he stated, “Sappers and Miners were allowed no quarters;” he soon figured out this person was when he was addressed as “His Excellency.”  The digging of these two trenches would clear the way for the storming of British redoubts nine and ten, thus allowing the siege to press forward to Yorktown, so Martin performed work that was essential to the success of the mission.  He even led the way for the famous charging of Redoubt Ten, led by Alexander Hamilton, his task being to use axes and clear a path for Hamilton’s men.  WIth bayonets fixed, Martin cleverly explained “Our watchword was "Rochambeau," the commander of the French forces' name, a good watchword, for being pronounced Ro-sham-bow, it sounded, when pronounced quick, like rush-on-boys.”  The entire affair was done in ten minutes, earning Hamilton a lifetime of accolades…and another notch in the metaphorical belt for the kid from Connecticut.  Three days later, on October 17, 1781, Lord Cornwallis would wave the white flag or surrender.  The Battle was over.  The Americans…and the French…had won.

So, what happened next for our two figures?  Lord Cornwallis would famously send his subordinate, Charles O’Hara, to present his sword at the surrender, himself being too ill to do it himself…although the Americans considered it an act of his cowardice.  Whatever the reason, LOrd Cornwallis sailed for New York, and what he considered to be an uncertain fate.  AS we stated in Act II, Americans may remember him as the guy who lost the war, but his reputation in England was far greater.  Despite the attempts by his subordinate, Banastre Tarleton, to heap blame on him for decisions that may have cost the war, Cornwallis would serve out his days in administrative positions: he would serve as Governor-General of Ireland, and twice serve as Governor-General of India, which is where he died in 1805 and was subsequently buried.  And Joseph Plumb Martin?  After witnessing the surrender of the British at Yorktown and experiencing its aftermath, which included the abandonment of slaves whom Lord Cornwallis had convinced to help the British beyond the walls of their encampment, Martin left Yorktown and would remain in the Army almost until the official end of the war in 1783.  He settled in what’s now the state of Maine

Where he and his wife would have five children.  He ended his 1830 account of the war by explaining the broken promises, among them decent food and land following the war, that plagued so many soldiers during the post-war years.  He also made an assertion which the nation would have been wise to heed if it wished to survive, and we end with Martin’s prophetic words: “That the Militia did good and great service in that war, as well as in the last, on particular occasions, I well know, for I have fought by their side; but still I insist that they would not have answered the end so well as regular soldiers; unless they were very different people from what I believe and know them to be, as well as I wish to know. Upon every exigency they would have been to be collected, and what would the enemy have been doing in the mean time?—The regulars were there, and there obliged to be; we could not go away when we pleased without exposing ourselves to military punishment; and we had trouble enough to undergo without that.”

Next week, we end Season 2 of History: Beyond the Textbook by going across the pond: the focal point will be the Treaty of Paris, the one that ended the war, but our main figure will serve as a recap of the entire season.  Our final episode will examine the life of King George III, the English king who served as the de facto symbol of tyranny during the American Revolution.