[
513]
and the best part of the
American army to the
Chesapeake.
While hostile divisions and angry jealousies increased between the two
chief British officers in the
United States, on the
American side all things conspired happily together.
De Barras, who commanded the French squadron at
Newport, wrote as to his intentions: ‘
M. de Grasse is my junior; yet, as soon as he is within reach, I will go to sea to put myself under his orders.’
The same spirit insured unanimity in the mixed council of war.
The rendezvous was given to
de Grasse in
Chesapeake Bay; and, at the instance of
Washington, he was to bring with him as many land troops as could be spared from the
West Indies.
Clinton was so certain in his own mind that the siege of New York was the great object of
Washington, that, although the force under his command, including militia, was nearly eighteen thousand, he suffered the
Hudson river to be crossed on the
twenty-third and twenty-fourth of August without seizing the opportunity to give annoyance.
Von Wurmb, a Hessian colonel, who had command at
King's bridge, again and again reported that the allied armies were obviously preparing to move against Cornwallis; but the general insisted that the appearances were but a stratagem.
On the second
of September, it first broke on his mind that
Washington was moving southward.
In the allied camp all was joy. The love of freedom penetrated not the French officers only, but inflamed the soldiers.
Every one of them was proud of being a defender of the young republic.
The new principles entered into their souls, and became a part of their nature.
On the fifth of September,
