Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader by Robert Middlekauff

Author:Robert Middlekauff [Middlekauff, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), Biography & Autobiography, Presidents & Heads of State, Military
ISBN: 9781101874240
Google: F01ABAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00MKZE2TS
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2015-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Citizen of the World

8

Citizen of the World

Britain’s General Clinton, now Sir Henry, emerged from the Battle of Monmouth in a spirit far different from Washington’s. He did not feel defeated, but neither did he consider himself a victor of the battle. He was not really surprised that he had led his army to New York without crippling losses, though the “butcher’s bill,” as knowledgeable British commanders referred to a casualty list, was not small. In fact, it grew longer every day after he gained separation from the Americans, the increase coming in the form of enlisted men who deserted. German soldiers, who left the army in numbers, had come to despise service in America, and the countryside in New Jersey and Pennsylvania proved attractive.

William Howe had been a popular man in the army. His officers in America seem always to have liked him, though more than a few complained quietly of his propensity to enjoy himself when they thought he should be leading an army looking for combat. Henry Clinton never drew his officers’ affection, never showed his ease in military or other society, but also never displayed a preference for rest over action, as his predecessor had. Clinton in fact was a difficult man, uneasy with himself, sometimes aggrieved, often offended, under Howe’s command, that his chief rejected or ignored his suggestions, which sometimes became pleas to accept fresh plans. Clinton described himself as a “shy bitch,” a reference to the anxiety he felt in putting himself forward by pushing his own ideas in the war.1

Clinton, an English aristocrat born in 1730 in New York, spent his first nineteen years there, a period that included a stretch during his father’s service as governor. At nineteen he went to England and a commission in the army. In the Seven Years’ War he served Prince Charles of Brunswick as an aide, and though he never had a command, he emerged from the war with a good reputation as an officer. He returned to America with Howe and Burgoyne to suffer through the first year of the war at Boston and New York. Those campaigns were not happy ones for him as he spent his time in perpetual impatience with Howe.

Now, in May 1778, the army in America was his, just as it was shrinking in numbers, both by detachments and by desertions of its soldiers. No British officer liked the idea of his troops melting away in America, and Clinton hated the idea. But he was gratified to have the command, even if he knew that in a short time his soldiers would serve other commanders. He had been ordered to send off some five thousand of them to the West Indies and soon after to detach three thousand for the Floridas. These instructions, drafted in March, reached him in April.2

That he was to be on the defensive soon became clear to him. At home early in the year, even before the ministry learned of the decision by France to ally itself with the Americans, fear increased that Saratoga would bring the French into the war.

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