Source: The Yorktown Tragedy: Washington’s Slave Roundup – Journal of the American Revolution
On October 19, 1781, Gen. George Washington attained his apex as a soldier. Straddling a spirited charger at the head of a formidable Franco-American army, Washington watched impassively as 6,000 humiliated British, German, and Loyalist soldiers under the command of Lt. Gen. Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, emerged from their fortifications to lay down their arms in surrender outside Yorktown, Virginia. The following day, Washington voiced the elation filling his heart in a general order congratulating his subordinates “upon the Glorious events of yesterday.” Ordinarily a stickler for discipline, Washington authorized the release of every American soldier under arrest “In order to Diffuse the general Joy through every breast.”[1]
Five days later, October 25, the Continental Army’s commander-in-chief issued quite a different order. Thousands of Virginia slaves—“Negroes or Molattoes” as Washington called them—had fled to the British in hopes of escaping a lifetime of bondage. Washington directed that these runaways be rounded up and entrusted to guards at two fortified positions on either side of the York River. There they would be held until arrangements could be made to return them to their enslavers. Thus, with the stroke of a pen, Washington converted his faithful Continentals—the men credited with winning American independence—into an army of slave catchers.[2]
This is not the way that Americans choose to remember Yorktown. When President Ronald Reagan attended the festivities marking the battle’s bicentennial in October 1981, a crowd of 60,000 nodded in approval as he described Washington’s crowning triumph as “a victory for the right of self-determination. It was and is the affirmation that freedom will eventually triumph over tyranny.”[3] For the African Americans who constituted one fifth of the young United States’ population in 1781, however, Yorktown did not mark the culmination of a long and grueling struggle for freedom. Rather, it guaranteed the perpetuation of slavery for eight additional decades.
Perhaps the most striking thing about Washington’s fugitive-slave roundup is that the document authorizing it has lain hidden in plain sight for more than two centuries. A copy exists among Washington’s papers at the Library of Congress, and more can be found at other archives in the surviving compilations of daily orders maintained by every Continental brigade and regiment under the dauntless Virginian’s immediate command. Most historians who cover Yorktown are content to celebrate Washington’s military genius. The blinders imposed by the lingering effects of American exceptionalism deter them from grappling with issues that would complicate the traditional triumphalist narrative. A clear-eyed look at the sources—including those recorded by British and German participants—reveals that for the 200,000 African Americans who composed 40 percent of the Old Dominion’s population, freedom wore a red coat, not blue, in 1781.[4]
In the leadup to the War of Independence, prominent white colonists feared that British authorities would liberate their enslaved persons in retaliation for rebellion. The African American population certainly hoped that would be the case. After conversing with two Blacks in service to a Pennsylvania family fleeing the Redcoats’ advance on Philadelphia, Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, a Lutheran minister, confided to his diary on September 20, 1777: “They secretly wished that the British army might win, for then all Negro slaves will gain their freedom. It is said that this sentiment is almost universal among the Negroes in America.”[5]
These aspirations struck George III’s soldiers with shocking force once the war’s focus shifted from New England and the Middle Colonies to the South in 1778. Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, the hell-for-leather British cavalryman, bore witness to this phenomenon following the capture of Charleston, South Carolina, in May 1780. “All the negroes,” he testified, “men, women, and children, upon the approach of any detachment of the King’s troops, thought themselves absolved from all respect to their American masters, and entirely released from servitude: Influenced by this idea, they quitted the plantations, and followed the army.”[6] Lord Cornwallis, who would soon take command of British forces in the South, expressed his irritation at this road-choking Black exodus as he penetrated the prostate Palmetto State. “The number of Negroes that attend this Corps,” he complained, “is a most serious distress to us.”[7]
This pattern of behavior continued after Virginia became the conflict’s decisive theater in 1781. The Old Dominion—the largest, most populous, and richest of the young republic’s thirteen states—absorbed three British invasions that year. On December 20, 1780, nearly 1,800 troops under Benedict Arnold, who had betrayed the Continental cause to become a British brigadier general, set sail from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, for Chesapeake Bay. Without pausing to give the Virginia militia a chance to mobilize, the Connecticut-born Arnold swept up the James River and became the first Yankee general to capture Richmond, the state’s new capital, on January 5, 1781. Arnold then retired downstream to Portsmouth on the Elizabeth River, which he converted into a fortified naval base. More than 2,000 British reinforcements landed at Portsmouth on April 1, which facilitated another amphibious lunge up the James that culminated at Petersburg twenty-four days later. Lord Cornwallis showed up at Petersburg on May 20 with the survivors of the arduous winter campaign he had conducted in North Carolina.[8]
Along with additional British reinforcements from New York that reached Cornwallis almost immediately, he now mustered more than 6,500 fit officers and men—a big enough force to march almost anywhere in Virginia that he desired while still retaining his hold on Portsmouth. With the king’s soldiers able to penetrate parts of the Old Dominion that had hitherto escaped the touch of war, more and more enslaved persons rose to meet them. As Robert Honyman, a local physician, scribbled in his diary: “Many Gentlemen lost 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70 Negroes besides their stocks of Cattle, Sheep & Horses. Some plantations were entirely cleared, & not a single Negro remained.” Richard Henry Lee, a prominent leader in the independence movement, confided fearfully to his brother, “Tis said that 2 or 3000 negroes march in their train, that every kind of Stock which they cannot remove they destroy.”[9]
Just one year earlier, Cornwallis had regarded fugitive slaves as impediments to his operations. Once he reached Virginia, however, he gave clear indications that he now viewed these Black freedom seekers as military assets. After the earl’s army reached Dr. Honyman’s neighborhood, the latter observed, “Where ever they had an opportunity, the soldiers & inferior officers likewise, enticed & flattered the Negroes, & prevailed on vast numbers to go along with them.”[10]
These runaways contributed immeasurably to Cornwallis’ mobility by bringing him the choicest thoroughbreds from their enslavers’ stables. This steady infusion of prime horseflesh gave the earl the most fearsome cavalry force fielded during the Revolutionary War, and he had enough horses left over to mount hundreds of his infantry. Some Blacks found jobs as officers’ servants, and others worked as foragers or menial laborers. Black labor raised the fortifications that protected Portsmouth and later encircled Cornwallis’s second base at Yorktown. A few fugitive slaves served the British as guides, and one daring man assumed the role of a double agent, helping to lead a force of Continentals and militia into a costly ambush at Green Spring on July 6, 1781.[11]
A few weeks after that engagement, Gov. Thomas Nelson wrote Cornwallis to enquire if there were any way Virginia planters could recover what they considered to be their property. The British commander responded with a politely worded note that gave Nelson scant comfort: “Any proprietor not in Arms against us, or holding an Office of trust under the Authority of Congress and willing to give his parole that he will not in future act against His Majesty’s interest, will be indulged with permission to search the Camp for his Negroes & to take them if they are willing to go with him.” In other words, Cornwallis declared he would force no enslaved person to return to an enslaver—even those claimed by Loyalists. Had the earl prevailed in Virginia, this de facto emancipation proclamation might have drastically altered the course of U.S. history. Washington and the French squelched that prospect three months later, however, when they trapped the British at Yorktown.[12]
Historians still debate over the exact number of Virginia Blacks who sought British protection in 1781. Thomas Jefferson, the Old Dominion’s governor during the first half of that year, claimed that the state lost 30,000 enslaved to Cornwallis—a gross exaggeration. A database compiled from affidavits filed by Rebel planters in nineteen counties and residents of Portsmouth yielded a list of 1,119 runaways, but that figure is only a partial sample of the whole.[13]
Even if Cornwallis had achieved military success, things would have still ended tragically for many Black fugitives who joined their fortunes to his. Smallpox, possibly the eighteenth century’s greatest killer, marched in the earl’s ranks, and African Americans sickened and died in droves after he entered Virginia. Brig. Gen. Edward Hand, one of Washington’s senior staff officers, recorded this trenchant comment during the Yorktown siege: “almost every Thicket Affords you the Disagreable prospect of a Wretched Negroes Carcase brought to the earth by disease & famine. the Poor deluded Creatures are either so much Afraid of the displeasure of their owners that they voluntarily starved to death or were by disease unable to Seek Sustenance.” Among the inhabitants of Revolutionary America who gave their all for liberty, these “Wretched Negroes” should join those in the forefront.[14]
The institution of slavery’s victory at Yorktown reveals the corruption that infected the American Revolution. Throughout United States history, liberty and opportunity have been purchased for some through the oppression of others. Our revered Founders—intent on rallying mass support for a revolt intended to replace one set of colonial elites with another—indulged in egalitarian rhetoric that most of them did not believe. What redeemed the Revolution is the fact that so many common Americans took that rhetoric literally. Over the centuries, various outgroups have agitated to expand the frontiers of freedom, and their efforts have made this country a fitter place to live. If we think of the Revolution as an ongoing process rather than a sanitized relic to be cloaked by myth, that movement can still serve as a positive force in American society and its professed principles remain worthy of celebration.
[1]“G.O. after orders,” October 20, 1781, in George Fleming, “Orderly Book, Second Regiment of Continental Artillery, 1 October 1781-26 April 1782,” MS 2003.12, Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Research Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA.
[2]“After Orders,” October 25, 1781, in Fleming, “Orderly Book.”
[3]“Excerpts From President’s Remarks,” New York Times, October 20, 1981, A6; and Kurt Andersen, “A Last Bicentennial Bash,” Time, 2 November 1981, 31.
[4]Operational histories covering 1781 Virginia in which Blacks are barely mentioned or not at all include: Henry P. Johnston, The Yorktown Campaigns and Surrender of Cornwallis 1781 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881); Thomas J. Fleming, Beat the Last Drum: The Siege of Yorktown (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1866); Burke Davis, The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown (New York: Dial Press, 1970); Brendan Morrissey, Yorktown 1781: The World Turned Upside Down (Oxford: Osprey Publishing Limited, 1997); William H. Hallahan, The Day the Revolution Ended, 19 October 1781 (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004); Richard M. Ketchum, Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won America (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004); Jerome A. Greene, The Guns of Independence: The Siege of Yorktown (New York: Savas Beatie, 2005); and Ian Saberton’s otherwise perceptive The American Revolutionary War in the South: Re-evaluation from a British Perspective in the Light of the Cornwallis Papers (Tolworth, Surrey: Grosvenor House Publishing Limited, 2018).
[5]David Waldstreicher, Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 210; Theodore G. Tappert and John W. Doberstein, trans., The Journal of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1942-58), 3: 78.
[6]Banastre Tarleton, A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America (1787; reprint, New York: New York Times and Arno Press, 1968), 89-90.
[7]Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, to Sir Henry Clinton, May 17, 1780, Sir Henry Clinton Papers, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
[8]“Extract of a Letter from New-York, Dec,” St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post (London), January 25-27, 1781; Johann Ewald, Diary of the American War: A Hessian Diary, trans. and ed., Joseph Tustin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 258-78, 294-99; John Graves Simcoe, Simcoe’s Military Journal: A History of the Operations of a Partisan Corps Called the Queen’s Rangers, Commanded by Lieut. Col. J. G. Simcoe, during the War of the American Revolution (1844; reprint, New York: New York Times & Arno Press, 1968), 159-204; Cornwallis, to Clinton, May 20, 1781; Cornwallis to Clinton, May 26, 1781; “Return of the Troops sent to Virginia ——— Since Oct. 80,” circa June 1, 1781; Benedict Arnold to Clinton, May 12, 1781; “Return of the Troops in Virginia on Lord Cornwallis’s arrival and including the Corps with his Lordship,” circa June 1781, all in Clinton Papers; Tarleton, Southern Campaigns, 285, 294-95; Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War, 2 vols. (Dublin: P. Wogan, P. Byrne, J. Moore, and W. Moore, 1794), 2: 393-94; Johann Ewald, “Diary Kept by Captain Ewald of the Honourable Field Jager Corps concerning the Expedition under Brigadier-General Arnold,” December 21, 1780—January 21, 1781, Knyphausen Correspondence, Part 2, GG 360, Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown, NJ, microfilm at the David Library of the American Revolution, Washington Crossing, PA.
[9]Richard Henry Lee to William Lee, July 15, 1781, in James Curtis Ballagh, ed., The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1911-14), 2: 230; Richard K. MacMaster, ed., “News of the Yorktown Campaign: The Journal of Dr. Robert Honyman, April 17-November 25, 1781,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 79 (October 1971): 394.
[10]MacMaster, “Honyman Journal,” 400; Ewald, Journal, 335.
[11]Royal Gazette (New York), August 29, 1781; Regimental Orders, July 28, 1781, After Orders, August 4, 1781, Morning Regimental Orders, August 25, 1781, all in “British Order Book: H.B.M. 43rd Regiment of Foot, General Orders, May 23 to August 25, 1781,” British Museum, London; William Phillips to Clinton, April 3, 1781, P.R.O. 30/11/96, Alexander Ross to Lieutenant Paterson, June 20, 1781, PRO 30/11/87/15-16, and Cornwallis to Charles O’Hara, August 4, 1781, PRO 30/11/89/5, all in Charles Cornwallis: Papers, National Archives, Kew; Headquarters, Cox’s Plantation, June 5, 1781, “’Cornwallis’ Orderly Book,’ February 8, 1781-July 13, 1781,” Orderly Book Collection, 1764-1815, William L. Clements Library; Joseph G Rosengarten, trans. and ed., “Popp’s Journal, 1777-1783,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 26 (1902): 38; Edmund Pendleton to James Madison, September 10, 1781, in David John Mays, ed., The Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, 1734-1803, 2 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), 1: 371; Robert J. Tilden, trans, “The Doehla Journal,” William and Mary College Quarterly History Magazine 2nd Series, 22 (1942): 243; Marquis de Lafayette to George Washington, July 20, 1781, in Louis Gottschalk, ed., The Letters of Lafayette to Washington, 1777-1799 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976), 209; Tarleton, Southern Campaigns, 353.
[12]Thomas Nelson to Cornwallis, October 20, 1781, P.R.O. 30/11/90/17-18, and Cornwallis to Nelson, August 6, 1781, PRO 30/11/90/19-20, both in Cornwallis Papers.
[13]Thomas Jefferson to William Gordon, July 16, 1788, in Julian P. Boyd, et al., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 43 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950-2018), 13: 363-64; Cassandra Pybus, “Jefferson’s Faulty Math: The Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 58 (April 2005): 243, 247-48, 258-59, 261. The author and his wife, Cathy Kunzinger Urwin, constructed that database from the numerous complaints pertaining to citizens’ property lost and destroyed by the British, which were sent to the Virginia General Assembly in 1782. Those records reside today at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. It bears noting, however, that the complaints from a dozen counties affected by the British invasions are missing.
[14]Edward Hand to Jasper Yeates, October 12, 1781, Edward Hand Papers, 1775-1801, MssCol 17927, Archives & Manuscripts, New York Public Library, New York, NY.
Source: This Day in History: Old Ironsides is launched
