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The following are biographies of selected prominent American
Revolutionary War figures (American and British).
CHARLES, EARL CORNWALLIS
The man who would one day be
accused of "losing America" was born on New Year's Eve, 1738, the eldest
of a titled and highly respectable family. The Cornwallis tribe had
established itself in Suffolk, which occupies the easternmost knob of the
British Isles. Though not fabulously wealthy, they had the kind of
connections, through blood and marriage, that meant everything in British
society. Young Charles's grandfather was awarded a baronetcy for
faithful service to King Charles II; his father, also named Charles, was
the first Earl Cornwallis; his uncle served as Archbishop of Canterbury;
his mother was a daughter of Lord Townshend and a niece of Robert Walpole,
one of England's great Prime Ministers. None of this means much to
us today, of course, but the young Cornwallis was born with his world at
his feet.
His formal education took place
at Eton academy, which marked him for life--not least by the blow from
a hockey stick that pitched his left eye at a permanent tilt. Eton
was a rough place in those days; underclassmen were routinely beat up by
seniors and the law of the jungle ruled. Nevertheless, Cornwallis
retained fond memories of his school years all his life and credited Eton
with shaping much of his character. Since he was tall and physically
strong, we can presume he learned to look after himself.
Most young men in his privileged
position went on to Oxford, thence to a life of leisure and general uselessness.
But Cornwallis possessed a strong sense of duty from an early age, which
probably figured in his choosing the military as a career. After
purchasing an ensign's commission in 1756, he took another unusual step
and studied for the job. Since England had no military academies
at the time, he attended Turin, a highly respected school in northern Italy.
Only a few months after his enrollment, however, the Seven Years' War broke
out in Europe and it was time to close the books and take to the field.
This particular conflict had
begun in the distant wilderness of western Pennsylvania, where French soldiers
had set up a fort in defiance of English orders. A young provincial
officer named George Washington had been sent to discourage them; his failure
to do so ignited the French and Indian War, which spread to disputed territory
in Canada and India and eventually involved much of Europe. The ins
and outs of the Seven Years' War need not concern us; it's sufficient to
understand that Britain came out on top and the young Cornwallis distinguished
himself first as a staff officer and then as a Lieutenant Colonel of the
12th Foot, gallantly leading his troops into combat.
In 1762 his father died and
passed the entire estate on to his oldest son, now the second Earl of Cornwallis.
Duty demanded that young Charles return home, set the estate in order and
take his father's seat in the House of Lords. While going about all
this necessary business, he also found the time to fall deeply in love.
The lady of his choice, the daughter of an army Colonel, could bring neither
title nor fortune to the marriage, but Cornwallis had enough for both of
them. He loved Jemima Jones, and that was that. After their
marriage in 1768 the couple retired to Brome Hall, the ancestral estate
in Suffolk, to enjoy the countryside and start a family of their own.
But complete isolation was not
possible for a man in Cornwallis's position, and he was continually shuttling
back and forth to London for Parliamentary sessions and audiences with
the King. George III developed a fondness for the Earl; they were
similar in character and temperament even though their views regarding
American policy were opposed. Cornwallis consistently voted against
harsh measures toward the colonies, such as the Stamp Act, even when only
a handful of his peers joined him. When the shooting started at Lexington,
however, there was no question of where he stood; in 1776, he accepted
a General's commission and volunteered for service in America.
His first duty was not a good
omen: he participated in the first British attempt to capture Charleston,
an operation that was botched from the beginning and ended a miserable
failure. But the outlook brightened for His Majesty's troops when
they sailed to New York and took part in the extensive operations there
under the command of Sir William Howe. At the Battle of Long Island,
General Cornwallis helped outflank the Americans and force them from New
York. A few months later he was outfoxed by Washington, who slipped
away after Cornwallis thought he was successfully trapped on the Delaware.
Washington then circled around and pounced upon the British rear guard
at Princeton. But the Earl retrieved his reputation at the battles
of Brandywine in the fall of 1777, and Monmouth in the summer of 1778.
Monmouth brought the war to an effective end in the northern colonies,
and Cornwallis had proved himself to be an energetic and fearless field
commander, with a reputation quick movement very unusual for a British
general. No one, least of all Cornwallis, knew what he could do with
complete control of an operation. The indications are that he was
eager to try.
A number of changes in 1778
led to his opportunity. First Sir William Howe resigned his position
as Commander-in-Chief; he had never liked the American War and he believed
the King was not supporting him. Sir George Clinton was named to
take Howe's place. (Cornwallis had served under Clinton at Charleston
and in New York and the two men got along well, a happy situation which
was soon to change.) Cornwallis returned to England on leave, only
to find his wife Jemima gravely ill. This distracted him from military
affairs for several weeks, but when she died early in 1779 he found that
life held little else for him. Across the sea His Majesty's forces
were fighting to retain an empire. "I love that army," he wrote his
brother, "and flatter myself that I am not quite indifferent to them."
Back to America he went, determined to lose himself in the war. Such
dedication might have proved fortunate for Britain, except that relations
between Cornwallis and Clinton rapidly deteriorated. General Clinton
was the better strategist of the two, but he was almost pathologically
suspicious of anyone who approached him in rank. Cornwallis was the
better field commander, but he had often felt caged and hemmed in by his
superior. What might have been a good team was thus hamstrung from
the beginning, with disastrous results for His Majesty's cause.
A huge expeditionary force sailed
from New York harbor in December 1779, with Clinton at its head and Cornwallis
as second-in-command. Their goal was Charleston, again; only this
time, after a nightmare voyage and a three-month siege, they succeeded
in taking the city. The fall of Charleston in May of 1780 was a great
blow to the Americans--their greatest loss of the entire war in terms of
men, equipment, horses, and ammunition. General Clinton returned
to New York in June leaving his subordinate in control of the entire southern
operation, with the charge of holding Charleston and doing whatever else
might be necessary to subdue the south. It was the opportunity Cornwallis
had been waiting for.
Neither Cornwallis nor Clinton
believed that the southern colonies would put up any serious resistance
to British regulars; the job would be a mopping-up operation. Cornwallis
moved quickly to set up outposts in Georgetown, Camden, and Ninety-six,
forming a rough arch through South Carolina. He determined to march
from Charleston in the fall, invade and subdue North Carolina, and eventually
meet Clinton's forces in Virginia where they would finish Washington's
Continental army, conclude the war and sail home as heroes. When
South Carolinians began coming forward in droves to take the loyalty oath
and be restored to British rule, the impending southern campaign began
to look like a picnic.
But no one in the British high
command, from the King on down, understood the temper of the south.
There, more than anywhere else in the colonies, the Revolution took on
the character of a civil war. Not only was the number of loyalists
greater in the south, but southern loyalists were more inclined to defend
their cause with guns and knives. The fall of Charleston had ignited
both revolutionary and loyalist fervor, even though the patriots seemed
subdued for the present. American resistance seemed to have only
one focus early that summer--a band of volunteers serving under Thomas
Sumter, whom they elected as their General. Cornwallis did not take
such partisan bands seriously at first, but he was rather alarmed to hear
that two regiments of the Continental army were on their way south to form
the core of new "Southern Department." As summer progressed, this
army had swollen to over 3000 regulars and volunteers. In August
Cornwallis marched north to meet them.
On the night of August 16, the
two armies literally blundered into each other on the road just north of
Camden. Once their respective commanders realized what had happened,
they pulled back about six hundred yards and waited until dawn. The
resulting Battle of Camden was another disaster for the Americans; though
outnumbered, Cornwallis commanded his disciplined troops far more capably
than his opponent, General Horatio Gates. Once again an American
army was rendered useless: captured, wounded, killed or simply scattered
through the Carolina pine woods. Out of approximately 3000 Americans
engaged, only about 700 escaped. Immediately afterward Cornwallis
sent his favorite cavalry officer, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, to deal
with Thomas Sumter's little army of 1000. Tarleton dealt in spades;
he caught Sumter literally napping on Fishing Creek, and destroyed or scattered
his entire force.
With all effective resistance
crushed, Cornwallis began a rather leisurely invasion of North Carolina
late in September, establishing a base of operations in Charlotte.
Almost immediately, things began to go wrong. Patriot resistance
was proving more stubborn than expected, and Tory cooperation had turned
out to be less than hoped. The British high command had never understood
how to make use of their American allies, a deficiency never more glaring
than in the south. A capable British officer, Major Patrick Ferguson,
was appointed to recruit and train the Tory militia and bring them under
Cornwallis's command. But almost soon as he had raised a force of
about 1000, Ferguson managed to get them wiped out (and himself with them)
at the Battle of King's Mountain on the border between North and South
Carolina. Ferguson's defeat so demoralized the local Tories that
Cornwallis was convinced he could expect no support from them. Accordingly,
after occupying Charlotte for only three weeks, he pulled his troops in
mid-October and established winter quarters in Winnsboro, South Carolina.
For the next few months his hands were full keeping supply lines open and
putting down the guerilla bands that seemed to be popping up everywhere.
For this he relied extensively on Col. Tarleton, who was young, brave,
swift, and ruthless. But not even Tarleton could subdue such resourceful
fighters as Francis Marion (the "Swamp Fox") or Thomas Sumter, who had
gathered another band of volunteers and was making life miserable for British
details and foragers. All these little engagements were endlessly
frustrating to Cornwallis, who longed for a decisive battle to bring the
conflict to a head.
In December certain developments
seemed to offer him the opportunity he had been waiting for, when General
Nathanael Greene arrived to take command of the American army in the south.
Only about two weeks later Greene divided his troops, which numbered a
mere 2000. Roughly half the army marched west under Brigadier General
Daniel Morgan, a hero of the revolution and a formidable foe. The
other half moved east to a camp at Cheraw, South Carolina. Although
he hardly knew what to make of Greene's unorthodox maneuver, Cornwallis
worked out a plan to deal with it: Colonel Tarleton, with his own cavalry
plus two regiments of light infantry, would chase Morgan eastward and either
destroy the Americans or run them into the main British command under Cornwallis.
With Morgan's army out of the way, they would then be in a position to
deal with Greene's.
It sounded wonderful, but in
his enthusiasm for the boy colonel, Cornwallis forgot that Tarleton was
still very young, reckless, and relatively inexperienced. Daniel
Morgan decidedly out-maneuvered him at the Battle of Cowpens on January
17, 1781, with the result that Tarleton lost almost all of his superior's
light troops.
Nathanael Greene soon reunited
the American army and began a strategic retreat across North Carolina.
Almost frantic to get his light troops back, the Earl piled up all superfluous
supplies--such as tents, extra blankets, and rum--and burned them so that
his own army could travel faster in pursuit. Thus began the "race
to the Dan" (i.e., the Dan River, which marked the border between North
Carolina and Virginia), an exciting chase undertaken in the near-steady
rains of February, through innumerable flooded creeks and rivers under
conditions as miserable for the British as they were for the Americans.
Cornwallis has been criticized for burning his supply wagons, because he
sacrificed everything that makes a soldier's life bearable and ultimately
gained nothing by it. But he almost caught his prey; at times the
American rear guard and the British vanguard were less than a mile apart.
If he had succeeded in crushing Greene's army, the judgment of history
would doubtless be much kinder to the Earl.
But the desperate gamble failed.
Still seeking a decisive battle, Cornwallis retreated to Hillsboro, North
Carolina and rested his exhausted troops. A few weeks after making
his escape, Nathanael Greene felt his own army sufficiently strong to meet
Cornwallis in a pitched battle, so he crossed the border again and established
a position at Guilford Court House, about 25 miles west of Hillsboro.
Obligingly Cornwallis marched to meet him. The resulting Battle of
Guilford Court House is considered by some to be the hardest-fought of
the entire war; "I never saw such fighting," Cornwallis later declared,
"since God made me." The Earl displayed his courage and tenacity
as a combat commander (at one point, he ordered the artillery to shell
the lines his own men were fighting in) but also his deficiencies as a
strategist. Though he won the battle, the victory gave him no advantage.
After lingering in the area for several days, he marched his army to the
North Carolina coast and spent the month of April in Wilmington.
General Clinton in New York
declined to give his subordinate any clear orders, which Cornwallis failed
to solicit anyway; thus developed a fatal lack of communication that would
bear bitter fruit in time. At the end of April, Cornwallis determined
to take ship for Virginia and continue the war there; precisely where he
got this notion and what he expected to accomplish thereby is not clear.
But his experience in the Carolinas was so miserable he was ready to give
them up as a lost cause. If this war could be won at all, it would
have to be won by engaging the Continental army under Washington himself.
Throughout the summer, Cornwallis
skirmished through eastern Virginia in engagements with the Marquis de
LaFayette. In July he almost captured the Marquis' army at Green
Spring Farm, but nightfall intervened and allowed the Americans to escape.
Late in the summer he was ordered by Sir Henry Clinton to select and fortify
a post along the coastline that could be used as a supply base for the
Royal Navy. His scouts located a promising location: a smallish town
at the headwaters of the York River, ten miles east of Williamsburg.
It was called Yorktown.
The main American army was still
encamped in New Jersey, where Washington was trying to put together a coalition
of French and American field troops to recapture New York City. In
August, however, Washington learned that the French navy was now available
for a bottling-up operation. Once it was discovered that Cornwallis
was digging fortifications at Yorktown, opportunity knocked loud and clear.
Washington slipped around New York City and was well on the way to Virginia
before Clinton realized his objective. Throughout the month of September,
communications between Clinton and Cornwallis were vague and vacillating;
the commander-in-chief delayed reinforcements or even the promise of them
until late in September. Then, on the basis of a pledge that Clinton
himself would be sailing south with the British fleet, Cornwallis decided
to stay where he was.
It was a fatal decision, for
contrary winds and Clinton's own contrary nature delayed him. By
the time Cornwallis understood this, it was too late to do anything about
it; he was blocked off by land and soon by sea, once the French fleet had
arrived. The bombardment of Yorktown began on October 9, with terrible
destruction to the British lines. A last-ditch attempt to escape
over the York River to the British post at Gloucester Point was thwarted
by a storm, and by October 17, Cornwallis knew it was all over. His
surrender on that day effectively brought an end to the war, though it
would be two years before an official agreement was signed. Cornwallis
was so mortified that he claimed to be ill and sent his second-in-command,
Brigadier General Charles O'Hara, to hand over his sword to the enemy.
Only later did the Earl discover that on that same day, Sir Henry Clinton
had finally sailed out of New York harbor with the promised reinforcements.
The first few years after cessation
of hostilities were marred by a public squabble with Clinton over who was
responsible for the humiliating defeat, but Cornwallis soon began to recover
his damaged reputation. In 1786 he accepted the difficult post of
Governor General of India, where, he reformed the administrative system
and set about untangling the impossible web of Indian politics. He
also proved he'd had learned something about tactics in his American adventure,
when he effectively put down a rebellion by Sultan Tippoo Sahib against
the Rajah of Travancore, an ally of the King. The grateful British
government sent him to Ireland in 1798 to quell yet another rebellion there;
he served with admirable restraint and diplomacy. A few years later,
dutiful as always, he returned to India at the age of 67, with the unenviable
task of putting an end to "this most unprofitable and ruinous warfare"
against rival native factions. He had hardly begun the task when
he was stricken by fever. On October 5, 1805, Lord Cornwallis died
at Ghazipore on the Ganges River. His grave and monument there are
maintained by the Indian government to this day.
Sources:
Wickwire, Franklin and Mary. Cornwallis: The American Adventure. New York, 1970
Flood, Charles Bracelen. Rise, And Fight Again. New York, 1976
Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Court House:
the American Revolution in the Carolinas. New York, 1997
This page created by Chris Dix