The British garrison consisted of six thousand troops under Major-General Pigot. On the fifth of August two French frigates entered the harbor, and the British burned seven of their own frigates with which they had controlled the waters, to avoid their capture. Details of the siege of Newport, except as Washington bore relations to its progress and its ultimate failure, are not within the purpose of this narrative. It was unfortunate that General Sullivan so long detained the French troops on shipboard; where, as one of their officers wrote, they had been “cooped up” for more than five months. Their prompt landing would certainly have averted the subsequent disaster; as storms of unprecedented fury soon after swept the coast, with almost equal distress to the land forces and those on the sea. In General Washington’s letter, advising of the departure of Admiral Howe from New York for Newport, he thus forecast the future: “Unless the fleet have advices of reenforcements off the coast, it can only be accounted for on the principle of desperation, stimulated by a hope of finding you divided in your operations against Rhode Island.”
The American force was about ten thousand men. The tenth of the month had been specifically designated for a joint movement; but General Sullivan, without notifying the Count d’Estaing, anticipated it by a day, and failed. Count d’Estaing was a lieutenant-general in the French army; but agreed to waive his rank, and serve under Lafayette. The report was current at that time, that ill-feeling arose between General Sullivan and Count d’Estaing because of the precipitate action of General Sullivan on this occasion. On the contrary, Count d’Estaing understood that but two thousand troops were in the movement. He promptly called upon General Sullivan to consult as to further operations; and in a Report to Congress used this language, alike creditable to his judgment and his candor: “Knowing that there are moments which must be eagerly seized upon in war, I was cautious of blaming any overthrow of plans, which nevertheless astonished me, and which, in fact, merits in my opinion only praise; although accumulated circumstances might have rendered the consequences very unfortunate.”
When he made his visit to General Sullivan, he left orders for the troops that were to join in the land expedition to follow. He had no knowledge, at that time, that Admiral Howe had received reënforcements, and had left New York to attack the French fleet then at Newport. A large number of the French seamen were upon Connanicut Island, on account of scurvy, and the fleet was scattered, without apprehension of an attack from the sea. A fog prevailed on the morning of the visit. D’Estaing returned to his flag-ship, and as the fog lifted, there appeared in the offing a British fleet of thirty-six sail. Admiral Howe had been reënforced by a portion of Admiral Byron’s fleet, which arrived in advance of its commander; and this force was superior to that of his adversary. D’Estaing was alert. Quickly gathering his ships, in spite of a rising gale, he succeeded in gaining and holding the “weather-gauge” of Howe, who did not dare press toward the land against such an advantage in D’Estaing’s favor. Both fleets were dispersed by the tempest over fifty miles of ocean, repeatedly meeting with collisions, and after several of his ships had been dismasted, Howe ran the gauntlet of a part of the French squadron, and returned to New York.
On the twentieth, Count d’Estaing returned to Newport; and on the twenty-second sailed for Boston to refit. A protest, signed by General Sullivan and others, including John Hancock, who took an active part in the operations of the siege, did not change his purpose. He had no alternative. It is true that much bad feeling, soon proven to have been absolutely unjustifiable, existed among Americans at the date of his departure. Sullivan himself issued an intemperate order, which he speedily modified, but not until it had gone to the public; in which he used these words: “The general yet hopes the event will prove America able to procure that by her own arms, which her allies refuse to assist in obtaining.”
Just at this time, a courier from Washington reached Sullivan’s headquarters with the information that General Clinton had sailed from New York with four thousand troops to reënforce the garrison of Newport; and strongly intimated “the importance of securing a timely retreat from the Island.” The suggestion was heeded. On the twenty-sixth, the heavy baggage was removed. On the twenty-eighth, a council of officers decided to withdraw to the north end of the island, until a messenger could be sent to Boston to urge the return of the French fleet. Lafayette was the messenger, and made the round trip in a few hours. Count d’Estaing very properly held, that to put in peril the entire fleet of France, in support of land operations so far from home and upon a strange coast, was a practical disobedience of his orders, and unjust to his sovereign; but, while he would not return with his fleet, he informed Lafayette, that he “was willing to lead the French troops, in person, to Newport,” and place himself “under General Sullivan’s orders.” In a manly explanation of his course, and notwithstanding General Sullivan’s proclamation, of which he was advised, he used this language: “I was anxious to demonstrate that my countrymen could not be offended by a sudden expression of feeling; and that he who commanded them in America, was, and would be, at all times, one of the most devoted and zealous servants of the United States.”
By three o’clock of the twenty-ninth, the Americans occupied Quaker Hill and Turkey Hill. These localities are still remembered for the gallantry of their defenders during subsequent British assaults. At eleven o’clock, Lafayette returned from Boston, and before twelve—as reported by Sullivan—“the main army had crossed to the mainland with stores and baggage.” As at Brandywine, Barren Hill and Monmouth, Lafayette remained with the rear-guard, and brought away the last of the pickets in good order, “not a man nor an article of baggage having been left behind.”
On the morning of the thirtieth, one hundred and five sail of British vessels were in sight, bringing Clinton’s army to the rescue of the garrison. Howe returned immediately to New York, although Gray made an expedition from Newport which committed depredations at Bedford, Fairhaven, Martha’s Vineyard, and all places from which American privateers were fitted out for assaults upon British commerce. Admiral Howe afterwards sailed for Boston, but being unable to entice Count d’Estaing to so unequal a contest, returned again to New York. On the first of November, Admiral Byron appeared off Boston with a large naval force, but was driven to sea by a storm which so disabled his fleet that he was compelled to go to Newport and refit. On his voyage from England he had been compelled to stop at Halifax, and it has been well said of this officer, that he chiefly “fought the ocean, during the year 1778.”
Count d’Estaing sailed for the West Indies on the third of November. The first coöperation of the French navy in support of the United States had resulted in no victories, on land or sea; but it had precipitated the evacuation of Philadelphia, restricted the garrison of New York to operations within the reach of the British navy, and was a practical pledge of thorough sympathy with America in her struggle for complete independence of Great Britain, and of the emphatic determination of France to maintain, as well as acknowledge, that independence.
CHAPTER XXIV.
MINOR EVENTS AND GRAVE CONDITIONS, 1779.
The Headquarters of the American Army remained at White Plains until the latter part of September. Upon reaching that post, immediately following the Battle of Monmouth, after two years of absence, the American Commander-in-Chief, profoundly appreciating the mutations of personal and campaign experience through which himself and army had kept company in the service of “God and Country,” thus expressed himself: