Washington's Engineer by Norman Desmarais (speed reading book TXT) 📕

PRISONER EXCHANGE

Before this letter could reach its destination, Congress had passed the following resolution on July 13, 1780:

The abilities and experience of Brigadier General du Portail, in the line of his department as an engineer, appearing to Congress essential to the effectual promotion of the operations of the ensuing campaign;

Resolved, that General Washington immediately endeavor to obtain the exchange of Brigadier General du Portail, now a prisoner on parole.18

Washington, in consequence of this resolution of Congress, wrote to the commissary general of prisoners on July 24, 1780,

In consequence of directions I have just received for the purpose you will propose to Mr. Loring to exchange any Brigadier General belonging to those in our hands for Brigadier Genl. du Portail who was taken at Charlestown, and if the proposition is agreed to, you will take immediate measures for releasing the officer given on our part and will give an order for releasing Genl. Portail for his safe conduct to Philadelphia or some part of Jersey, if Sir Henry Clinton will indulge him with a passage by water, or if not till he may arrive at such place in North Carolina, as he may mention.19

He also wrote to the president of Congress on July 22, 1780, “I was honoured Yesterday with Your Excellency’s Letter of the 14th, and with it’s inclosure, directing me to endeavour to obtain the exchange of Brigadier General du Portail. A proposition to this effect will be made by the earliest opportunity; in compliance with the direction, but I do not think there is any prospect of it’s being acceded to.”20

General Washington here alludes to officers taken prisoners at Saratoga in October 1777. Negotiations began at once. He wrote to Abraham Skinner on September 17, 1782, to specify the general rules for him to follow in negotiating the release of officers and mentioned that Congress specifically directed the release of General Duportail. He wrote a second letter more than three months later, on October 31, 1780: “It is my wish that you exchange the Gentleman of the Convention above mentioned—but I make it a condition to the exchange of the general officers that General Du Portail and the other characters particularly mentioned to you by Congress and the Board of War be included.”21

The following communications tell the final steps of the exchange. The first is to the president of Congress, in which Washington says,

I have the pleasure to inform Congress that at the late meeting of the respective commissaries, the exchanges of about one hundred and forty of our officers, and all our privates in New York, amounting to four hundred and seventy-six, were effected. Among the former are Major General Lincoln, Brigadier-General Thompson, Waterbury, and Duportail, and Lieutenant Colonel Laurens.

Washington was pessimistic that the British would accept the proposal, but Duportail’s exchange was effected on October 17, 1780.22

In a letter to General Greene, commander of the Army in the South, dated November 7, 1780, he sent the following message, with a letter to General Duportail enclosed: “I have to request that you will be pleased to send by a flag of truce the enclosed letter to Brigadier-General Duportail, who is exchanged.”23

Washington wrote to General Duportail the next day, “I have the pleasure to announce to you your exchange for Brigadier General de Gaull the Convention troops. Inclosed you have a Certificate of the same, and Sir Henry Clinton’s passport for your return to Philadelphia. I need not tell you how happy I shall be to see you again with the army.”24

One can better imagine than describe the joy with which this message was received. Duportail regretted that he could not take his subalterns with him. Colonels Laumoy and Cambray and Captain L’Enfant were not exchanged until nearly a year after the surrender of Yorktown, although they had been previously released on parole for some time.25

General Duportail had been a prisoner in Charleston since May 1780. His certificate of release was dated November 1780, but some time elapsed before it reached him at Charleston. Before leaving the South, he visited General Greene at his camp on the Pee Dee River in early January 1781. Greene had been put in command of the Army of the South after its defeat under General Gates at Camden. Duportail was traveling under a British “passport” to Philadelphia, where his exchange was to be finalized. Colonel Nisbet Balfour, the British commander at Charleston, angrily complained that by visiting Nathanael Greene’s camp, Duportail had committed a “direct breach of that passport.”26

Duportail may have seen Lafayette, for he speaks of bringing letters from him to Washington as he was on his way to join the Northern Army and to inform General Washington about conditions in the Southern Department. He stopped at Petersburg, Virginia, on January 23, 1781. Baron von Steuben was away, so he gave Greene’s letters (January 11 and two dated January 13) with all the news to von Steuben’s aide, who would “send them immediately.”27

6

THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS

Congress created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, and two days later, the day before the Battle of Bunker Hill, it authorized one chief engineer and two assistants, as well as one chief engineer and two assistants “in a separate department,” commissioned in the grades of colonel and captain, respectively. Congress also resolved on January 16, 1776, “That if General Washington think proper Col. R. Gridley be continued chief engineer in the army at Cambridge.”1

It soon became apparent that the army needed experienced engineers, and they looked to France, where the Corps of Engineers was very honorable and from which different European powers sought officers. Congress instructed its ministers to France, Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin, to “secure skilled engineers, not exceeding four,” who might serve in the Continental Army, and to solicit material assistance. The commissioners made an agreement with the four selected men to advance them one degree from the rank they held at home, but