Clinton do? The wounded officer of Johannisberg, the winner of Charleston, Sir Henry Clinton, a lieutenant general and former member of Parliament, enjoying great repute, was holding New York, not yet the second city of the world nor even the first of the United States, covering only with its modest houses, churches, and gardens the lower part of Manhattan, and reduced, owing to the war, to 10,000 inhabitants.
But, posted there, the English commander threatened the road on which the combined armies had to move. He had at his disposal immense stores, strong fortifications, a powerful fleet to second his movements, and troops equal in number and training to ours.
There are periods in the history of nations when, after a continuous series of misfortunes, when despair would have seemed excusable, suddenly the sky clears and everything turns their way. In the War of American Independence such a period had begun. The armies of Washington and Rochambeau, encumbered with their carts, wagons, and artillery, had to pass rivers, to cross hilly regions, to follow muddy tracks; any serious attempt against them might have proved fatal; but nothing was tried. It was of the greatest importance that Clinton should, as long as possible, have no intimation of the real plans of the Franco-Americans; everything helped to mislead him—his natural disposition as well as circumstances.
Clinton's fatal error
He had an unshakable conviction that the key to the whole situation was New York, and that the royal power in America, and he, too, Lieut. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, would stand or fall with that city. Hence his disinclination to leave it and to attempt anything outside. His instructions ordered him to help Cornwallis to his utmost, the plan of the British court being to conquer the Southern States first, and then continue the conquest northward. But he, on the contrary, was day after day asking Cornwallis to send back some of his troops.
A great source of light, and, as it turned out, of darkness also, was the intercepting of letters. This constantly happened in those days, to the benefit or bewilderment of both parties, on land or at sea. But luck had decidedly turned, and the stars shone propitious for the allies. We captured valuable letters, and Clinton misleading ones.
On the 18th of August the two armies raised their camps, disappeared, and, following unusual roads, moving northward at first for three marches, reached in the midst of great difficulties, under a torrid heat, greatly encumbered with heavy baggage, the Hudson River and crossed it at King's Ferry, without being more interfered with than before.
How can such an inaction on the part of Clinton be explained? “It is for me,” writes Count Guillaume de Deux-Ponts in his journal, the manuscript of which was found on the quays in Paris and printed in America, “an undecipherable enigma, and I hope I shall never be reproached for having puzzled people with any similar ones.”
The river once crossed, the double army moved southward by forced marches. Rochambeau, in order to hasten the move, prescribed the leaving behind of a quantity of effects; and this, says Closen, “caused considerable grumbling among the line,” which grumbled, but marched.
The news, to be sure, of so important a movement came to Clinton; but, since the stars had ceased to smile on him, he chose to conclude, as he wrote to Lord Germain on the 7th of September, “this to be a feint.” When he discovered that it was not “a feint” the Franco-American army was beyond reach. “What can be said as to this?” Closen writes merrily. “Try to see better another time,” and he draws a pair of spectacles on the margin of his journal.
Philadelphia's welcome
The march southward thus continued unhampered. They crossed first the Jerseys, “a land of Cockayne, for game, fish, vegetables, poultry.” Closen had the happiness to “hear from the lips of General Washington, and on the ground itself, a description of the dispositions taken, the movements and all the incidents of the
