TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.
(ORIGINAL.)
Camp, 28th June, 1781.
MY DEAR GENERAL,—Inclosed, I have the honour to send you a copy of my letter to General Greene. The enemy have been so kind as to retire before us.~{1}
Twice I gave them a chance of fighting (taking care not to engage farther than I pleased), but they continued their retrograde motions. Our numbers are, I think, exaggerated to them, and our seeming boldness confirms the opinion.
I thought, at first, Lord Cornwallis wanted to get me as low down as possible, and use his cavalry to advantage. But it appears that he does not as yet come out, and our position will admit of a partial affair. His lordship had (exclusive of the reinforcement from Portsmouth, said to be six hundred) four thousand men, eight hundred of whom were dragoons, or mounted infantry. Our force is about equal to his, but only one thousand five hundred regulars and fifty dragoons. Our little action more particularly marks the retreat of the enemy. From the place whence he first began to retire to Williamsburg is upwards of one hundred miles. The old arms at the Point of Fork have been taken out of the water. The cannon was thrown into the river, undamaged, when they marched back to Richmond; so that his lordship did us no harm of any consequence, but lost an immense part of his former conquests, and did not make any in this state. General Greene only demanded of me to hold my ground in Virginia. But the movements of Lord Cornwallis may answer better purposes than that in the political line. Adieu, my dear general; I don't know but what we shall, in our turn, become the pursuing enemy; and in the meanwhile, have the honour to be, &c.
Endnote:
1. It was the 20th of May that Lord Cornwallis effected his junction with the troops of Arnold, whose unexpected opposition re-established the affairs of the English in Virginia. The war became from that moment extremely active, and the movements of the two armies very complicated. M. de Lafayette maintained his position, and experienced no other check than the loss of some magazines, at the forks of James River, which had been confided to the care of Baron Steuben. His position was, however, rather a defensive one, until the period at which that letter was written, when the English abandoned Richmond. Cornwallis obtained, and usually by the aid of negroes, the best horses of Virginia. He had mounted an advance-guard of Tarleton on race-hores, who, like birds of prey, seized all they met with, so that they had taken many couriers who were bearers of letters. Cornwallis stopped once during his retrograde march on Williamsburg; the Americans being close to him, it was thought an affair would take place, but he continued on his road. It was before he reached Williamsburg that his rear-guard was attacked by the advance corps of Lafayette under Colonel Butler. He evacuated Williamsburg the 4th; Lafayette had done all he could to convince him that his own forces were more considerable than they really were. Either the night of, or two nights before, the evacuation of Williamsburg, a double spy had taken a false order of the day to Lord Cornwallis,—found, he said, in the camp,—which ordered General Morgan's division to take a certain position in the line. The fact was, that General Morgan had arrived in person, but unaccompanied by troops: Dr. Gordon justly observes, that Lord Cornwallis, from Charlestown to Williamsburg, had made more than eleven hundred miles, without counting deviations, which amounts, reckoning those deviations, to five hundred leagues. The whole march through North Carolina and Virginia, and the campaign against Lafayette, were effected without tents or equipages, which confers honour on the activity of Lord Cornwallis, and justifies the reputation he had acquired, of being the best British general employed in that war.—(Extract of Manuscript, No. 2.)