IX

Seeds of Failure

THE lull of bringing up cannon and opening batteries presents a favorable moment to look in on the camps of the French and Americans. What one saw there did not augur much in the way of success.

Among the French themselves the essentials of cohesion were lacking. The presence of so many noblemen in the army and navy hardly contributed to real discipline. The noble-born officer was inclined to consider himself on the same level with his fellow aristocrats even though they might outrank him. The courtier class in the service looked down on the provincial nobility and both lorded it over the commoners. The esprit de corps that existed was surprising for an army in which nobles became colonels in less than four years and lieutenants as young as fifteen while the ordinary soldier was fortunate to reach the grade of petty officer after twenty years.

The army that d’Estaing brought to Georgia was a heterogeneous affair, made up of regulars drafted from no fewer than fourteen different regiments and of volunteers recruited in the West Indies. According to Captain de Tarragon, the regulars were “prejudiced against the militia uniform.” They did not relish fighting beside militiamen. Matters were not made any less difficult by the presence in the army of several hundred free Negro troops from San Domingo, that fantastic isle of sugar plantations and voodoo where the witch doctors of racial unrest were stirring a horrible brew for the future. In Count d’Estaing’s elaborate printed orders concerning the expedition, pointed reference was made to the fact that the “people of color” would “be treated at all times like the whites.” “They aspire,” he said, “to the same honor, they will exhibit the same bravery.” A generous “emulation between the mulattoes and blacks” was predicted.

Things did not turn out exactly that way. Between the mulattoes and the blacks existed wide social distinctions. Among mulattoes themselves there were varying degrees of privilege. As many as thirteen distinct subdivisions were recognized by the whites. Mulattoes and blacks stood on equal footing only in the matter of their common objection to heavy labor. An official roster of the French forces at Savannah contained a notation that the corps of free Negroes was “capable only of employment on trenches.” However, their commander insisted, d’Estaing complained in his Notes of the Siege, that they be treated as “des mousquetaires.” During the march from Beaulieu the Count had to put his own shoulder to a field piece in order to demonstrate, as he sarcastically put it, that these “musketeers” were “quite able to perform that work without dishonoring or tiring themselves too much.” The truth was that the cannon were of little use at the moment. In the confusion of the landing and the march, Meyronnet de Saint-Marc tells us that “one found no ammunition.” The Comte de Truguet, who was serving as an aide to d’Estaing, was hurriedly sent back to Beaulieu to take over the functions of chief of artillery.

The French commander was unpopular with a considerable group of his officers. His rapid promotion had aroused much jealousy in the navy where he was thought to favor the “officiers bleus.” Originally an army man, he was regarded in naval circles as “un intrus,” being referred to as “pousse-caillon” or “infantryman.” To such detractors d’Estaing replied, what of Duquesne, Tourville, Duguay-Trouin, and Jean Bart? They had not passed through the lower grades in the navy either. “If I ever come to imitate them in anything,” said the Vice-Admiral, “it will be glory for me to have had the same disadvantage that they had.”

It is safe to say that no such glory awaited Admiral d’Estaing. Intrepid on land, he was hesitant and overcautious on sea. The choleric Suffren complained after the brush with Admiral Byron off Grenada that if his commander-in-chief had been “as good a sailor as he was brave, we should not have allowed four demasted vessels to escape.” The opposing admirals were a “well-matched” pair, said du Petit-Thouars—“Byron lacked activity, d’Estaing judgment.”

It might have helped if there had been more co-operation by some of d’Estaing’s naval officers. If accounts are to be believed, the lack of it amounted at times to sabotage. Nathanael Greene, who was familiar with the situation (although he would never reveal the source of his information), is quoted as authority for the statement that “A party had been formed against this admiral . . . resolved to thwart, and if possible, disgrace their commander.” The same sort of thing occurred off Grenada that had been experienced the year before at Newport. There, to quote the author of the Journal d’un officier de la marine, “The general gave the signal all day with cannon shots to put on all sail. I cannot hide that some captains were neglectful and others in the rear took in sail.”¹

The French officers were an independent and voluble lot, seldom hesitating to speak their Gallic minds on any and all subjects. Somewhat wistfully in his report to M. de Sartine, d’Estaing compares them with the English, who were “so reserved, adroit and among whom each individual is ceaselessly occupied with the general interest.” Captain Séguier de Terson recounts that shortly after arriving off the Georgia coast M. de Bougainville and the Chevalier de Dampierre attended a dinner given by the Comte de Grasse aboard the Robuste. He tells us that during the meal “On a beaucoup parlé politique.” Always there was “much political talk” it seems. Later Colonels de Noailles and Dillon joined the group and there was a discussion of approaching events. The “Messieurs de la Marine,” reported Séguier de Terson, were agreed that affairs were by no means “à notre avantage.” Admiral d’Estaing had been ordered to return to France with the Toulon squadron. “Without any orders from my court,” he confided to George Washington, he had raised this army and brought it to America. A story was going the rounds in the navy that the real reason he had taken the best Colonial troops and de Grasse’s squadron to Georgia was his fear that if he left them in the West Indies his rival, the Marquis de Bouillé, might reap the glory of retaking Saint Lucie.²

In the French army one did not like the way things were run any better than in the navy. The lack of ammunition for the batteries was proof of “the little order that exists in our army,” said Séguier de Terson, whose early apprehensions were realized. “I fear,” he had written at the beginning of the campaign, “we are going to be poorly cared for.” It was more than the matter of food and of ammunition. “Unhappily,” d’Estaing reported, “drog”—that “American nectar” as he termed it—had to serve as “wine for most officers and all of the soldiers.” The Count must have shuddered as he described the recipe for the American concoction, this “mélange of sugar, water and fermented molasses.”³

The French were at times a backbiting lot. On the morning of September 24th the British Light Infantry under Major Colin Graham made a sortie in force against the newly-opened Allied trenches in order to gain an idea of the strength of the forces which manned them. The French fell into a trap by coming out of the trenches in pursuit. They approached too close to the fortifications and the British cannon “galled them severely.” As a result three officers were killed and nine wounded while eighty-five men were officially listed among the dead and wounded. According to Jean-Rémy de Tarragon, the French found themselves in a dilemma. Colonel O’Dune shouted “‘Forward’ with all his might” while at the same time Colonel de Rouvray ordered “the retreat beaten.” This was hardly a surprise to Captain de Tarragon who early in the campaign had perceived that “M. de Rouvray was no soldier.” He believed that if the French had not “played into their hands by ordering out the six companies” they “would not have lost a man.” Another Frenchman blamed O’Dune. The Colonel was “drunk,” said an officer who asserted that the “excitement caused by the wine carried him beyond the proper limits.”⁴

The mercurial qualities of these Frenchmen contrasted sharply with the more restrained temperament of their English foes. Consider, for example, an anecdote about John Skinner of the Sixteenth Foot, well known later in military annals as Lieutenant General Skinner. The conduct of this Oxford-educated officer on a certain trying occasion after the sortie was in the best British tradition of stout fellowship. The young Lieutenant arrived late that day, it seems, at the mess-tent after duty elsewhere in the lines. His friends were eating and chatting away as he proceeded into a separate compartment of the tent to leave his sword and hat. There he was shocked to see laid out the body of his most intimate friend, who had been killed that morning in the sortie. Skinner joined the company and finished dining without either asking or learning how his companion had died. A British officer could not violate the rule that prohibited any allusion to such subjects.⁵

Drinking on duty seems to have been a vice not altogether unknown among the French. For example, there was the case of Major Thomas Browne, or “de Browne” as he styled himself, of the Dillon Regiment. According to the Vicomte de Noailles, he was “one of the best officers the King had in his service.” D’Estaing himself entertained the “greatest respect,” as he put it, for “all the military qualities” of this veteran campaigner. But he was not long in discovering that the Major possessed a weakness—an “unfortunate fondness for the bottle,” or to use the Count’s own words, “malheureux penchant pour le vin.” A few weeks before at Grenada, Browne had forgotten to withdraw an advanced post prior to the attack with the result that a calamity was narrowly averted at the very outset.

One night while Major Browne was in command of the trenches before Savannah his failing evidenced itself again. To the alarm of the Allied camp a lively fusillade began at the front. Thinking that his lines were under attack, d’Estaing hurried over the intervening two-thirds of a mile with six companies of grenadiers. It was all a mistake. The enemy proved purely a figment of somebody’s imagination. “Without any motive and against no object had all this powder been wasted,” complained the General.⁶ D’Estaing had a long, heart-to-heart talk with Browne, who renounced the habit whenever he should be on duty in the future. Poor, brave Major Browne! So little time left to test the strength of this resolve!

D’Estaing was peculiarly fitted for office work, which he found “a recreation,” according to an observer in San Domingo. A vast amount of paper work went on under him. Yet things remained disorganized. Sometimes the situation wore a comic opera aspect as when the French landed on Tybee Island to take the little fort at the mouth of the Savannah. General d’Estaing believed it was occupied by the enemy. After proceeding some distance toward the fort the Count looked back and to his surprise saw but a handful of soldiers following him. Much irritated, he complained to his Adjutant General. M. de Fontanges replied that no orders had been given to him to bring along more troops. D’Estaing seems to have forgotten that the men were in the landing craft. He had neglected to send orders to disembark and, according to de Tarragon, they had passed a miserable night. Major Thomas Pinckney, who had gone ashore with the Count’s staff, witnessed the incident. “This extraordinary occurrence,’’ said the South Carolinian (no admirer of d’Estaing) showed “something of the manner of the proceeding of the commander-in-chief of the expedition, and of the footing on which he stood with the officers under his command.”⁷ The “peu d’ordre” observed by Séguier de Terson in General d’Estaing’s army was equally true of Admiral d’Estaing’s fleet. “One is not able to see anything more beautiful than this squadron,” wrote that officer, adding, however, that it sailed “always without any order.”

Things did not go smoothly between the Allies. There had been a minor diplomatic crisis when the Americans learned that d’Estaing had summoned the British to surrender in the name of the King of France, something they did not learn until the Count sent Lincoln a copy of the correspondence. Not a word about the Continental Congress! General Lincoln was much put out—“mécontent,” to use the expression of Count d’Estaing who might well have inquired how the British could surrender to an army that had not yet arrived. Lincoln says that he “remonstrated” with the French on the subject and that “the matter was soon settled.”⁸ But the tom-toms of English propaganda continued to thump the controversy for some time.

The French were little impressed by the grave New Englander who commanded the Americans—a rara avis among soldiers who neither cursed nor drank. The Count frequently complained about General Lincoln. His pen became a stiletto whenever he referred to the American commander, who possessed, he said, “no opinions of his own.” “Although very positive in his proposals [he] was entirely cold-blooded and extremely indifferent in carrying them out,” d’Estaing informed M. de Sartine. To be sure, he was a brave man. “Il ne craint point les coups de canons” [“He is not afraid of cannon fire.”], the Count conceded after making a reconnaissance tour with the rebel leader who still limped from a wound received at Bemis’s Heights. But d’Estaing hastened to qualify this tribute to Lincoln’s courage in the face of English cannon. “I wish he had preferred those of Beaufort,” he wrote in his Notes with what must have been a sigh. “This junction accomplished, this misfortune arrived, this fatal and decisive mistake committed—I never ceased to repeat to General Lincoln the dim outlook I had as to our operation,” the Count informed M. de Sartine. But the Americans “never stopped begging, even demanding, our perseverance,” d’Estaing added by way of explanation of why the French stayed on after Maitland’s arrival.

Benjamin Lincoln was a patient soul. “In his character,” wrote an army surgeon of the day, “is united the patient philosopher and pious Christian.” According to his friend Governor John Brooks of Massachusetts, Lincoln possessed “great benignity of disposition” and though he may have “often disappointed others, he seldom offended them.” Such virtues stood the American commander in good stead at Savannah, for Monsieur le Comte, the sharpest tongued of men, must have sorely tried him at times during these weeks. Among his complaints was the fare at General Lincoln’s table. The American chefs had no flour and when the Count dined with the “Insurgents” he was served only what he described as “a massive cake of rice and corn cooked under the ashes on an iron platter.” “Southern generals could never be placed in the de luxe class,” reported d’Estaing whose Continental palate was not at all tempted by such delicacies as hoe-cake. “I absolutely forbade my two brother commanders [Noailles and Dillon?] to put themselves for more than a year on General Lincoln’s diet,” he quipped to M. de Sartine. “It would have been bad enough,” he added, “for young courtiers to be reduced to such a diet but it would have been infinitely worse if for an indefinite time it should have become the diet of all the troops.”

Little love was lost between the French and Americans. The Charlestown press might report during the Siege that the “most perfect unanimity and concord subsisted between the officers and men of both armies.” D’Estaing might send word to John Laurens when the French fleet arrived off Georgia that “Esteem, friendship and confidence are sure presages” of success. Colonel Laurens might tell the Count that his “presence at this particular moment is like that of a guardian angel. You are going to destroy the common enemy and spread joy and gratitude in every heart.”⁹ But actually there was little esteem or mutual confidence among the Allies. There was to be still less, it might be added, of anything in the way of success.

The Americans were “so much despised by the french as not to be allowed to go into their Camp,” asserted Colonel John Harris Cruger.¹⁰ One may readily discount such a statement as Tory propaganda and up to a point it undeniably was. There was, however, a part truth in Cruger’s remark. According to the Order Book of Major John Faucheraud Grimké of the Continental Army, there were certain limits beyond which American troops could not stray without a written permit. When they went into the French area without a pass they were promptly arrested. Evidently a number of Americans suffered this fate as General Lincoln formally notified his troops that in the event any violation of his order as to going off limits without a permit resulted in an American soldier being “taken up & confined in the French Camp, he must not expect his Interposition to get him Liberated.”

A strange quirk of fate had thrown together as companions in arms the jeunesse dorée of Old France and upcountry settlers like young Sam Davis (father-to-be of a certain Jefferson) who had come down to Savannah with his rifle and his horse. Only the thin bond of mutual interests of the moment bound France and America. A not untypical viewpoint in d’Estaing’s squadron was that held by the author of the Journal d’un officier de la marine. “The Americans,” he said, “are easily deceived, indolent in character, suspicious; they always imagine that they see whatever they fear and do not take the trouble to examine the reasons which make them believe it.”¹¹ A cadet on the Guerrier probably expressed a prevailing sentiment among the French concerning the campaign when he described it as an “ill-conceived enterprise without anything in it for France.”

Relations were strained by the criminations and recriminations over the failure to prevent the junction of the Beaufort troops. D’Estaing blamed it all on the Americans, accusing General Lincoln (in his Notes) of having brought his army to Georgia, instead of containing the British at Beaufort, because of his selfish desire to be in on the capture of Savannah. He reported to his Ministry that on the part of the Americans there were “altercations, reproaches and false accusations which did not even begin to hide so glaring a mistake.” Warm words had passed. Fontanges seems to have expressed himself in strong language on one occasion. D’Estaing describes the scene in his Notes. “Colonel Laurens, a superlatively brave officer who had fought a pistol duel with one of his generals because he had spoken in derogatory terms of his friend, General Washington, took no offence,” wrote the Count, “at what Fontanges said.” “It must be,” suggested d’Estaing sarcastically, “that his conscience reproached him somewhat, imparting a gentleness not natural.” What was Colonel Laurens (himself of Huguenot stock) to do? With Franco-American relations as touch and go as they were, was he expected to fight a duel with the chief of staff of his French allies?

Fontanges’ nerves were on ragged edge. He was nearly in tears because his commander (“for whose glory I would give my life when the occasion arises”) at first blamed everything on his inattention—“a dreadful thing to me,” he confessed to M. Plombard, considering all the pains taken in connection with his mission to Charlestown. Had not the Adjutant General carried with him twenty-two pages of carefully prepared questions, requests, and points of agreement in respect to the joint operations against Savannah?

The French were unimpressed by the people, the troops and the generals they saw during the expedition to Georgia. Colonel von Stedingk informed the King of Sweden that the rebels were “so badly armed, so badly clothed, and I must say so badly commanded, that we could never turn them to much account.” “It seemed,” he said, “as if the Americans in general were tired of the war. Their troops were reduced almost to a band of deserters and adventurers from every country.”¹² They played a feeble role at Savannah, reported another French officer who explained that “Their General, by his character, was not able to make them play any other.” He admitted, however, that the Americans had showed “the greatest will” and that “their regular troops, which one should well distinguish from their militia, have conducted themselves in a superior manner at all times.”¹³

Colonel de Noailles sympathized so much with the un-militaristic Americans that he was tempted to leave the French service and follow the example of the Marquis de Lafayette. “He has found their military qualities quite different from those of the Prussian troops,” wrote d’Estaing in a sarcastic reference to his Allies. “Forgetfulness, lack of frankness, petty jealousy, incredible ignorance of their own country” were characteristics of American generals, the Count was to inform M. de Sartine.

Apparently there was only one person in America that Monsieur d’Estaing really admired. When the French fleet was at Boston John Hancock had presented him with a full-length portrait of General Washington. Never, wrote Lafayette at the time, had he seen “a man so glad at possessing his sweetheart’s picture.” The Vice-Admiral hung the portrait in a conspicuous place on the Languedoc and it was wreathed in laurel.

October had come and the maples in the swamps were blood red. The Siege, now two and a half weeks old, was about to enter a new phase. The French batteries were finally in readiness. “The town would immediately surrender,” predicted a Charlestown gazette, “or be laid in ruins in a few hours.”