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

Reconstructed zigzag communication trench between the first and second parallels. The actual trenches would have been much deeper. Photo courtesy of the author.

Reconstructed redoubt 9, Yorktown, showing the fraise and embrasures for gun emplacements. Photo courtesy of the author.

Map of Yorktown showing deployments and defense works. Colonial National Historical Park Visitors Brochure.

and dispatch that the enemy were, I believe, totally ignorant of our labor till the light of Morning discovered it to them. Our loss . . . was extremely inconsiderable.”51

Even though several of Duportail’s engineer officers were still imprisoned following their capture at Charleston the previous year, the allies had more than a dozen engineers at Yorktown. Fifteen thousand fatigue men did the work, covered by “armed detachments numbering 2,800 men.”52 Duportail directed them with the assistance of only two of his officers, Lieutenant Colonel Gouvion and Captain Rochefontaine. Laumoy, Cam-bray, L’Enfant, and Schreiber were still detained prisoners.

The intense strain, constant activity, and responsibility involved undermined the health of the commandant of engineers. Duportail had dysentery at the end of the siege and was unable to take part in the final triumph. That did not matter much to him. It was more important to him that the united efforts of the allied armies succeeded. However, neither Duportail nor the commander in chief realized how badly the enemy had been beaten at Yorktown. They were too close to the conflict to realize the significance of what had happened.

SURRENDER AT YORKTOWN

After the surrender, Washington urged Grasse to help him drive the British from Charleston. Grasse thought that there was no need to waste time and treasure, not to mention human life, in wresting territory from the British. Failing in that request, he asked for assistance in transporting his army as far as Wilmington, North Carolina. The Comte de Grasse was willing and eager to gratify Washington, even though he himself realized that the effort was unnecessary. But he had already outstayed the time his orders permitted for the operations at Yorktown, so he and Washington expressed their good wishes and parted company. The British abandoned both New York and Charleston less than a year later without spilling a drop of blood. This was not due to the military power of the allies but to Great Britain’s “temporary loss of maritime supremacy and political support.”53

The day after the surrender, General Washington personally commended Duportail for his siege work in the attacks and commended him and Colonel Ethis de Corny in the general orders of the day “for the Vigor and Knowledge which were conspicuous in their Conduct of the Attacks.”54

Reenactment of the surrender at Yorktown. Photo courtesy of the author.

REQUESTS FOR PROMOTIONS

Following the capitulation, General Duportail sought a leave of absence on October 24 to permit him to visit France for the approaching season, when little could be done in the field. He requested Washington’s intervention to get him promoted to major general and an advancement in rank for Gouvion. He also asked for and renewed his entreaties that Colonels Laumoy and Cambray be exchanged. The letter ended with assurances of his attachment to the American cause in general but particularly to the person and glory of the commander in chief.

Washington replied two days later pointing out the very grave difficulties that stood in the way of asking Congress for a raise in rank for the Royal Engineers. It meant that all the foreign officers who had fought so bravely and so well would feel they had been slighted if some special promotion were not granted to each one. This, in turn, would set a precedent to American officers, and the troubles that surfaced at the beginning of the war would reassert themselves:

In answer to your letter of the 24th I beg leave to inform you, that as no immediate operation requires your presence in this country, I shall most cheerfully second your application to Congress for a six months furlough to yourself and Col. Gouvion for the purpose of arranging your private affairs in France.

The other request appears to me to involve difficulties that will deprive me of the pleasure which, from a sense of your merit I should feel on every possible occasion of promoting your views. In the present instance the infringement of the rights of seniority in so many individuals, and the pretentions of some who have particular claims upon their country, convince me that your desires could not be accomplished but at the expence of the tranquility of the Army—I cannot forebear adding at the same time that it will always afford me the greatest pleasure at all times, to give the most particular testimony of the real talents and distinguished services of yourself and Colonel Gouvion and entreat you to be persuaded my earnest wish that you may receive those rewards from Congress which you desire, at a more convenient opportunity.

Cols. Laumoy and de Cambray will probably be released in a short time under a general exchange.55

Duportail was insistent, at least under the then present circumstances, when he had definitely made up his mind that the rank in question was due himself and Gouvion and that Congress would be persuaded to grant the request if presented tactfully. He recognized at the same time the commander in chief’s delicate situation, and he saw that the request should not come from that quarter. Duportail’s real reason for the first letter to the commander in chief was to have some tangible proof in writing of his willingness that the requested grade should be granted. Washington’s reply gave him all that was needed in this respect.

He addressed the commander in chief again on October 27,

When i am going to France it is so important for me to have here the rank of major general that i cannot easily give up the idea of getting it. it appears to be a plan of the french ministry to give to the officers who have