This expedition of Ross and Butler closed the active warlike operations at the north for that year; but while the events traced in the few preceding pages were in progress, others were occurring in a different quarter of the country, both in themselves and in their results of far greater moment. In the bird's-eye glance taken of the progress of the war in other parts of the confederacy during the first quarter of the year, Arnold was left at Portsmouth, contiguous to Norfolk. He afterward made various movements of the character heretofore described; visiting Richmond again, and committing outrages there and elsewhere. On the death of the British Major General Phillips, the traitor succeeded to the command of the King's troops in Virginia, and maintained himself there against the Baron Steuben, and afterward against the Marquis de Lafayette, [FN-1] until Lord Cornwallis, having traversed North Carolina, and entered Virginia, formed a junction with him, and assumed the command; sending Arnold from his presence to Portsmouth as soon as possible. After his return to New-York, Arnold led another piratical expedition, early in September, against New London and Groton. The former town was burnt, and Fort Griswold, on the opposite side of the river, having been carried by assault, was the scene of a bloody massacre; the brave Ledyard, who commanded, being thrust through with his own sword. [FN-2]
[FN-1] On succeeding to the command of Phillips, Arnold addressed a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette; but the latter informed the officer who bore it, that he would not receive a letter from the traitor. Indeed, Arnold was despised by the officers in the British service; and how could it be otherwise? Even Sir Henry Clinton had no confidence in him: and in detaching him to the south, had taken special care to send Colonel Dundas and Colonel Simcoe, two experienced officers, with him, with instructions to Arnold to consult them in regard to every measure and every operation he might desire to undertake.
[FN-2] "It has been said, that Arnold, while New London was in flames, stood in the belfry of a steeple and witnessed the conflagration; thus, like Nero, delighted with the ruin he had caused, the distresses he had inflicted, the blood of his slaughtered countrymen, the agonies of the expiring patriot, the widow's tears, and the orphan's cries. And, what adds to the enormity, is, that he stood almost in sight of the spot where he drew his first breath."—Sparks.
Meantime, the American Commander-in-chief was meditating a blow, which, if successful, could not but have an important, and perhaps a decisive, bearing upon the great question of his country's final emancipation. While the Marquis de Lafayette was circumventing and perplexing Cornwallis in Virginia, Washington was preparing for an attempt upon the citadel of the British power in the United States—New-York. This design, as has been formerly stated, had been projected the season before, immediately after the arrival of the Count de Rochambeau with the French army of alliance, in Rhode Island. But so many difficulties arose, and so many supervening obstacles were to be overcome, that, in obedience to stern necessity, the project was for that year abandoned. With the opening of the Spring of the present year it was revived, and after the respective commanders had held another personal consultation, the French army moved from Rhode Island across the country to the Hudson. But other obstacles arose, which compelled an entire change in the plan of the campaign. Fortunately, however, the British commander in New-York was not quick to discover the change, and the demonstration served to divert his attention from the right object until it became too late to repair his error. The combined French and American forces, by an unsuspected but effectual basis of operations, had been tending as upon a central point toward Virginia, until, before he was aware of serious danger, Earl Cornwallis found himself shut up in Yorktown. The event was fatal to him and to the cause of his master. The post was completely invested by the 30th of September. On the 9th of October the French and Americans opened their batteries. And on the 19th, his two advanced redoubts having been carried by storm a few days before, despairing of receiving the promised succors from Sir Henry Clinton, and having, moreover, failed in a well-concerted attempt to evacuate the fortress by night, Lord Cornwallis, submitting to necessity, absolute and inevitable, surrendered by capitulation. The loss of the enemy during the siege was five hundred and fifty-two, killed, wounded, and missing; and the number of prisoners taken, exclusive of the seamen, who were surrendered to the Count de Grasse, was seven thousand and seventy-three, of of whom five thousand nine hundred and fifty were rank and file.
It would have been perfectly natural, and in fact no more than even-handed justice, had the recent massacre at Fort Griswold been avenged on this occasion. But, happily, it was otherwise ordered; and the triumph was rendered still more memorable by the fact, that not a drop of blood was shed save in action. "Incapable," said Colonel Hamilton, (who led the advance of the Americans in the assault,) "of imitating examples of barbarity, and forgetting recent provocation, the soldiers spared every man that ceased to resist." [FN]
[FN] Colonel Alexander Hamilton's report—Marshall.
The joy at this surrender of a second army was as great as universal. The thanks of Congress were voted to the Commander-in-chief, to the Count de Rochambeau, and the Count de Grasse, and to the other principal officers of the different corps, and the men under them. It was also resolved by Congress to erect a marble column at Yorktown, with designs emblematic of the alliance of France and the United States—to be inscribed with a narrative of the event thus commemorated. But, like all other monumental structures by Congress, it yet exists only on paper.
The Commander-in-chief availed himself of the occasion to pardon and set at liberty all military offenders under arrest. Ever ready and forward to acknowledge the interposition of the hand of Providence in the direction of human events, this truly great commander closed his orders in reference to this event, in the following impressive manner: "Divine service shall be performed to-morrow in the different brigades and divisions. The Commander-in-chief recommends that all the troops not upon duty, do assist at it with a serious deportment, and that sensibility of heart, which the recollection of the surprising and particular interposition of Divine Providence in our favor claims."