While reading background on the siege and victory at Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781, I came across the following passage written by historian Jerome Greene.
“The officer was then quickly escorted to Washington’s headquarters in a nearby house, where he delivered Cornwallis’s message: “I propose a Cessation of Hostilities for 24 hours, & that two Officers may be appointed by each side, to meet at Mr. Moore’s house to settle terms for the Surrender of the Posts of York & Gloucester.” One can only imagine the emotions coursing through Washington’s body as he read these words.”
That last line is what really struck me.
Every image we have of George Washington depicts a stoic expression staring back out of us. Historians have a few instances from a long life of the Washington behind the marble, behind the self-imposed restraint, that he crafted for posterity.
However, he was human, he did have a fiery temper and he was a passionate person. One of the reasons he strove so hard to mask those emotions, to keep them in check, to keep perspective, and to persevere.
Those competing inclinations would have been bubbling at the surface on October 17, 1781, when that written communication was handed to him outside Yorktown, Virginia. What that moment must have been like, for Washington, for the French and American forces, and for all those fighting in favor of American independence.
Jerome Greene wondered about it. I am curious about it. Are you?
19th century print of the Battle of Harlem Heights. The image shows the Americans attacking the British right flank.
After the Battle of Long Island, American forces evacuated to Manhattan Island. But with the British in command of the waters around New York, they easily could land their forces anywhere along Manhattan Island. On September 15th, the British crossed the East River north of New York City and landed at Kip’s Bay, easily pushing aside the American forces there. American forces in New York City were nearly cut off, but quickly retreated up Manhattan Island to Harlem Heights and began to dig in. On the morning of the next day, British troops arrived in front of the American lines at Harlem Heights. Washington expected an attack and decided to take the initiative.
Washington ordered a small party of 150 men called “The Knowlton Rangers” under the command of Lt. Col. Thomas Knowlton to move out and reconnoiter the British position. Knowlton quickly recognized the British were not planning a major assault but his force had brought about the attention of the British light infantry, soon the Knowlton Rangers were outnumbered and quickly retreated back to the American lines. When Knowlton reached safety, the British light infantry paused, placing them out in front of their main lines. Washington seized the opportunity and ordered an assault on their rear by Knowlton’s men and a reinforcement of 200 Virginia riflemen from the Third Virginia under Major Leitch.
Though the American attack was supposed to be in the rear of the British light infantry, but because of confusing terrain and attacking too soon, the flanking column instead hit the British in their flank. The effect still had an adverse effect on the British light infantry as they began to fall back. The Americans fought with determination and bravery. Knowlton went down mortally wounded. Colonel Griffith wrote of Leitch “He conducted himself on this occasion in a manner that does him the greatest honor, and so did all of his party.” Washington wrote the next day that “The General most heartily thanks the troop commanded yesterday by Major Leitch, who first advanced upon the enemy, and the officer who so resolutely supported them.”
At the head of the attacking column both Knowlton and Leitch led their men forward to attach the British flank. Early in the attack both men went down wounded. Knowlton died on the battlefield, Leitch took three musket balls to the abdomen and was carried off the field. At first most reported his condition as improving and he was thought to survive his ordeal. Washington wrote “Majr Leitch of Weedons Regiment (Third Virginia) had three balls through his side, and behaved exceedingly well – he is in fair way of recovery.”
Soon the British began to retreat back to their main line. Washington then ordered an attack along his line and the British light infantry fell back to the main line in confusion. Soon the entire British line began to give way. After about a 90 minute fight, Washington learned that more British forces were arriving on the field and ordered his men back to the main line. Though not a major victory, the American army had finally stood up to the British and even for a moment, pushed them off the field in combat. The British suffered 14 killed and an estimated 154 wounded, with the Americans suffering 30 killed and 100 wounded.
Though most believed that Leitch was recovering from his wounds, by September 20th Gen. Horatio Gates wrote “Major Leitch of Maryland was wounded and despaired of.” As his condition worsened, there was little for regimental surgeon David Griffith could do but to try to ease Leitch’s pain. Griffith wrote to Leitch family friend Richard Henderson on October 3rd that “[I] disagreeable duty of informing Mrs. Leitch through you, of the death of her husband is imposed upon me. He expired yesterday morning at Hackinsack Bridge where he had been removed for his better accommodation…But on the 28th Sept he was seized by lock’d jaw – with spasms about his neck and throat so violent as to baffle every effort to minister to him by medicine.” It seems the death of Leitch was a tough and unexpected blow to his fellow officers in the Third Virginia Regiment.
Where Major Leitch’s remains are today is a mystery. Captain John Chilton wrote on
Commemorative Plaque showing the wounding of Knowlton and Leitch
October 4, 1776 that “the brave Major Leitch who died of his wounds received the 16th was interred yesterday by the side of Major Henly.” We know the general area of the American camps in the fall of 1776, but this burial location is long lost to history. In 1897, historian Henry Johnston wrote in his account of the Battle of Harlem Heights that Knowlton and Leitch are probably buried somewhere “on St. Nicholas Avenue, between 135th St and 145th St.” in New York City. Of course the land has changed a lot since then and whatever remains were left were destroyed by modern development.
Today the area of the Harlem Heights battlefield is now under the campus of Columbia University in New York City. Today there is a simple plaque on the wall on the eastside of Broadway north of 117th Street. This plaque commemorates the Battle of Harlem Heights and depicts Major Andrew Leitch as well as Lt. Col. Thomas Knowlton (who was mortally wounded in the same attack as Leitch). Near here is where Leitch was mortally wounded turning the flank of the British line.
The search for Andrew Leitch continues. His contribution to the American Revolution is well documented through the letters of George Washington and others. When he moved to Dumfries, VA and where he lived is still unknown. We do know that he was influential enough to be elected to Prince William County’s Committee of Correspondence in 1774 and involved in the efforts to raise men and funds for local companies of troops. Continued research in his widow’s pension cases as well as researching contemporary archives may turn up new information. For now, he is honored with a plaque in New York City and a small park here in Virginia. My hope is that this story will end with an appropriate understanding and remembrance of a man who gave his life for our nation’s independence.
Entry in George Washington’s Papers for March 16, 1775: “Went to Dumfries to review the Independent Company there, Dined and Lodged with Mr. Leitch…”
For Further Reading:
Johnson, Henry. The Battle of Harlem Heights. New York: Macmillan Company, 1897.
Peters, Joan. The Third Virginia Regiment of Foot, 1776-1778, Volumes 1-2. Westminster (MD): Heritage Books, 2008.
Emerging Revolutionary War is pleased to share the following information from our friends at Campaign 1776 managed by the Civil War Trust.
“As many of you may know, this winter marks the 241st anniversary of the American victories at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. The Continental Army’s triumphs in the Ten Crucial Days campaign proved instrumental to rekindling Patriot morale and keeping the cause for American independence alive in the wake of early defeats.Continue reading “From Campaign 1776: Ten Crucial Days”→
The stacks of books reflect Knox’s role as a bookseller before the war.
If you have not made a trip to the new American Revolution Museum at Yorktown (the former Yorktown Victory Center) then you are missing out. Not only does the museum great exhibits on the causes of the war and the events leading up to Yorktown (with great technology), there is a changing exhibit gallery that allows for short term exhibits. The first exhibit opened in June and features the lives of four prominent Revolutionaries after the American Revolution. Continue reading “AfterWARd, the new exhibit at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown. A visit with Curator Kate Gruber”→
With British soldiers pouring into the fort, Colonel Ledyard ordered a ceasefire, and prepared to surrender Fort Griswold to the victorious British. However, the British disregarded the ceasefire and continuing pouring fire into the American garrison, killing or wounding nearly all of the fort’s defenders. “I believe there was not less than five or six hundred men of the enemy on the parade in the fort,” claimed American soldier Rufus Avery. “They killed and wounded nearly every man in the fort as quick as they could.”
Maj. Stephen Bromfield, the ranking British officer after Montgomery fell, called out, “Who commands this fort?” Ledyard stepped forward and responded, “I did, sir, but you do now.” Another American, Jonathan Rathbun, watched Bromfield run Ledyard through the heart and lungs with Ledyard’s own sword:
“…the wretch who murdered him [Ledyard], exclaimed, as he came near, “Who commands this fort?” Ledyard handsomely replied, “I did, but you do now,” at the same
moment handing him his sword, which the unfeeling villain buried in his breast! Oh, the
hellish spite and madness of a man that will murder a reasonable and noble-hearted officer, in the act of submitting and surrendering!”
After turning coat, Benedict Arnold received a commission as a brigadier general in the British army as part of the deal that he made in order to betray his country.
In August 1781, George Washington decided to shift forces in order to attack the army of Lt. Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis in Virginia. Washington began pulling troops from the New York area. Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief in America, realized on September 2 that Washington’s tactics had deceived him, leaving him unable to mobilize quickly enough to help Cornwallis. Further, there was still a significant force of Continentals facing him in front of New York, and Clinton did not feel that he could detach troops to reinforce Cornwallis as a result.
Instead, Clinton decided to launch a raid into Connecticut in the hope of forcing Washington to respond. Clinton intended that this be a raid, but he also recognized that New London could be used as a permanent base of operations into the interior of New England. Clinton appointed Arnold to command the raid because he was from Connecticut and knew the terrain.
Arnold commanded about 1,700 British solders, divided into two battalions. Lt. Col. Edmund Eyre commanded a battalion consisting of the 40th and 54th Regiments of Foot and Cortland Skinner’s New Jersey Volunteers, a Loyalist unit. Arnold himself commanded the other battalion, made up of the 38th Regiment of Foot and various Loyalist units, including the Loyal American Regiment and Arnold’s American Legion. Arnold also had about 100 Hessian Jägers, and three six-pound guns. This was a formidable force anchored by the three Regular regiments. Continue reading “The Battle of Groton Heights, September 6, 1781: The Fort Griswold Massacre”→
Daughter’s of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) Monument, Eutaw Springs Battlefield (author collection)
In many ways, the battle of Eutaw Springs was a disappointment for both commanders. Greene’s troops at one point broke through the British lines, but they recovered, and the Americans failed to drive them off the field. Stewart, in a letter to Cornwallis, wrote that there were two things he would regret the rest of his life: the loss of an early morning supply gathering party and his lack of cavalry. Having them, he felt, would have enabled him to decisively defeat Greene. Probably both commanders, and many of their officers, reflected upon these events and second guessed themselves for the rest of their days. Although both armies fought well at Eutaw Springs, a clear cut victory eluded both of them. Continue reading “After Eutaw Springs”→
During the spring and summer of 1754, conflict over colonial possessions in North America erupted in western Pennsylvania. England’s military influence was ousted from the Ohio River Valley, and before the year was over the Captain-General of His Majesty’s Forces, the Duke of Cumberland, planned to dispatch regular troops to the colonies. Major General Edward Braddock, along with a thousand men of the 44th and 48th Regiments of Foot, was ordered to Virginia to organize a four-pronged summer offensive against the French at the Forks of the Ohio River, in Nova Scotia, the Great Lakes region, and along Lake Champlain. The two British regiments with Braddock had served primarily in Ireland, and possessed minimal experience in combat (Colonel Sir Peter Halkett’s 44th Regiment was lightly engaged at Culloden in 1746). Historian David Preston described the experience carried to North America by the senior and junior officers of Braddock’s expeditionary force:
While there was a growing sense of professionalism in the mid-eighteenth-century British Army, most younger officers had formed whatever expertise they possessed through studying manuals, guidebooks, and historical works by ancient and modern authors such as Thucydides, Caesar, Vegetius, and Humphrey Bland, whose Treatise of Military Discipline, first published in 1727, was the unofficial guide to basic drill and maneuver for young officers. The officers’ own lack of formal training, along with their mechanistic daily regimens, prevented them from achieving competency much beyond the level of basic training that they were expected to perfect in their soldiers. While some senior officers had tasted battle, the first test of combat leadership for many of the junior officers or subalterns came on the banks of the Monongahela.[1]
Despite the lack of battlefield experience, King George II, the Duke of Cumberland, and Braddock were confident that the “professionalism” of the regular troops would be enough to oust French forces (Troupes de la Marine, Canadian militia, and Native American auxiliaries from the Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes) from Fort Duquesne.
The first break from Vegetius’s influence and British army doctrine in the Age of Enlightenment occurred before the campaigns of 1755 even commenced. The 44th and 48th Regiments of Foot were understrength and carried with them to North America roughly 500 men each. To raise their numbers to full battalion strength – 700 men – the units were augmented with colonial levies from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Already lacking in experience, the addition of colonial militiamen (militias were the largest recruiting pools in the colonies) did nothing but delegitimize the “professionalism” of the two regiments. The levies, who previously only drilled once every few months or so with their respective militias, were expected to conduct themselves like British regular soldiers.
Along with the colonists augmented into the regiments of foot, the task of capturing the various French strongholds in Nova Scotia and along Lakes Champlain and Ontario that summer was given to non-regular troops. To subdue the French garrisons, small armies of colonial provincial soldiers were recruited in New England, New Jersey, and New York. Braddock’s army, too, was supplemented with provincials from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The expeditionary force ordered to bag Fort Saint-Frédéric (Crown Point) along Lake Champlain was composed of 3,000 provincial troops with only one British regular, Captain William Eyre of the 44th Regiment of Foot, serving among them.[2] Again, these provincial regiments were entirely green (other than some veterans of various frontier services and the Louisbourg Expedition of 1745) and made up of levies and volunteers drawn predominantly from local militias. Also, attached to these armies were Native American auxiliaries, whose style of warfare was completely foreign to regular troops and far from professional. Service against and alongside these “savages” was the first exposure to irregular warfare in North America that His Majesty’s soldiers would receive. Vegetius believed that heavy reliance on auxiliaries, in this case Native Americans, colonial provincials, and colonial troops on the British military establishment, was detrimental to the performance and survival of professional units and overall cohesion.[3]
For the most part, the colonial provincials held their own on the battlefield against French forces, more so than the British regulars did early in the French and Indian War. They obtained victories in Nova Scotia, along the southern shore of Lake George in New York, and diligently defended the frontier against French and Indian raids. However, the colonists could never truly mesh with the regulars from Great Britain. British officers held them in contempt. “The Americans,” Brigadier General James Wolfe declared, “are in general the dirtiest most contemptible cowardly dogs that you can conceive. There is no depending on them in action. They fall down dead in their own dirt and desert by battalions, officers and all. Such rascals as those are rather an encumbrance than any real strength to an army.”[4]
Officers serving in North America and British authorities in London, like William Pitt, began to recognize the importance in 1758 of separating from the seemingly arrogant professionalism that the British Army had so dearly held on to. The conflict being fought in the colonies was not a conventional European war. Even as a world war was being waged elsewhere around the globe, it became evident that something needed to change if His Majesty King George II was to claim North America as his own. William Pitt, Leader of the House of Commons and Secretary of State for the Southern Department, put forth and instituted an agenda that shifted the sole focus on winning with professional soldiers in North America to building a substantial military force consisting of a majority of colonists. He ordered 20,000 colonists to be levied or recruited into provincial units. The crown would supply them the required arms, ammunition, tents, and provisions, and would reimburse the colonial assemblies for the costs of raising, clothing and paying the men. In response to this proposal, the colonies mustered over 23,000 troops for the upcoming 1758 campaigns.[5] These men complimented the 20,000 British regulars dispatched to the colonies that year. At close glance, the measure instituted by Pitt’s administration resembled France’s levée en masse in 1793 on a smaller scale.[6] This was an early example of the departure from Vegetius’s classical reliance on professional soldiers in favor of larger armies consisting of men serving shorter terms of enlistment. Discipline for these men was mild and their training was limited. “Men,” one of Vegetius’s general maxims read, “must be sufficiently tried before they are led against the enemy.”[7] Quality was displaced by quantity. This was not the only aspect of the British Army that was transforming in the wilderness of North America. The nature of the conflict was forcing a change in the way the war was being waged as well.
Edward Braddock’s expeditionary force of regulars and provincials crossed the Monongahela River on the morning of July 9, 1755 and precipitated a departure from Vegetius and Humphrey Bland’s strategic, operational, and tactical influence. Less than ten miles outside of Fort Duquesne, the 1,400-man column engaged and was easily defeated by a smaller force of Canadians and Indians fighting in an irregular manner. Braddock’s Defeat signaled an end to England’s classical style of linear warfare – it had officially met its match and was countered. Vegetius and Bland’s disciplined closed-rank formations had faltered. Vegetius wrote that, “The nature of the ground is often of more consequence than courage.”[8] However, this referred to terrain and its effect on the seven linear formations that Vegetius had presented. General engagements in Europe did not take place in thick vegetation. Maneuvering, let alone fighting, in closed-ranks was nearly impossible to accomplish smoothly in North America. As Braddock’s army had learned along the banks of the Monongahela, His Majesty’s Forces needed to adapt to the current conditions and nature of warfare in the colonies. To do so, officers needed to adjust tactically and borrow from the colonists and their Native American auxiliaries who were accustomed to loose formations and irregular warfare. Adapting meant completely altering preconceived tactical doctrine.
The Wounding of Edward Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela, July 9, 1755
No other classical text had more of an influence on princes and young officers of the 18th century than Flavius Vegetius’s De Re Militari. For centuries, the ancient Roman manual on the art of war inspired men to professionalize the militaries of Europe. Standing armies were formed to fight for King and Country. Officers whipped their men into shape, drilling and disciplining by the book. As conflicts erupted throughout the world, the British armies took to the field waging war over royal successions. They emerged as a dominant force on the European continent. Vegetius continued to influence the conduct of His Majesty’s Forces and it appeared as if his principles were to become a mainstay in British military doctrine. Then, as the second half of the 18th century began, tension between England and France over colonial possessions in North America boiled over. By the spring of 1754, armed conflict had ignited an undeclared war in western Pennsylvania. Less than a year later two royal regiments (the 44th and 48th Regiments of Foot) had left Ireland and disembarked in the colony of Virginia.[1] In North America they were confronted by a different way of war – an unconventional one. Would Vegetius’s principles and the doctrine he influenced continue to remain true? Or could only a departure from his art and science of war prepare England’s forces to combat the new threat? War does not change, but warfare does, and Vegetius’s classical influence began to fall out of favor.
This two-part essay will demonstrate that Vegetius’s military influence on the British Army officially began to diminish during the French and Indian and American Revolutionary Wars (1754-1783). To do so, this essay will analyze Vegetius’s initial influence on England’s military thinkers and officers during the Age of Enlightenment. It will then examine why the departure from this classical military theory and science was necessary and how it transformed the way that the British Army approached war at the moral and physical levels. It will then summarize and conclude.
Flavius Vegetius Renatus was a high-ranking official in the Roman Empire during the 4th century. It is quite possible that he served in some sort of financial position for the court which would have given him insight into military matters.[2] He was not a soldier, and he approached the art of war as a historian. When compiling his most famous work on Roman military institutions he desired to write a treatise, “for public use, [regarding] the instructions and observations of our old historians of military affairs, or those who wrote expressly concerning them … to exhibit in some order the peculiar customs and usages of the ancients….”[3] Vegetius began writing in the late 4th century during a time of decline for the Roman military. He had hoped that the Emperor would accept his work as a set of mere suggestions, or precedents demonstrated by the “ancients.” While it had not been used widely by his contemporaries, his treatise, On Roman Military Matters (De Re Militari), became a crucial piece of military thought and theory in Europe centuries later.
Flavius Vegetius’s field manual, On Roman Military Matters, written around 386 A.D., offered its readers a glimpse into the discipline and organization, and weapons and tactics utilized by the Roman Legions.[4] Through the medieval period in Europe, Vegetius’s book on the art of war served as an essential part of any prince’s military education. According to Dr. Charles S. Oliviero of Norwich University, “Until Clausewitz’s Vom Kriege appeared in 1832 to guide those who would understand the nature of Napoleonic warfare, no single writer in the West was more influential than Roman historian and writer Flavius Vegetius Renatus.”[5]On Roman Military Matters laid the groundwork for maintaining a professional standing army through discipline, organization, training, and administration. It also provided 26 chapters on strategy, tactics, and the principles of war, which were widely read and implemented by rulers and officers. The various tactical movements listed greatly influenced linear formations and battlefield maneuvering, which evolved to accommodate new weapons technology as time went on. Following the Renaissance, his influence widely reemerged in the 18th century at the onset of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe.
The Age of Enlightenment brought on a period in Europe known as the Military Enlightenment as well. According to historian John Lynn, “The Military Enlightenment followed the program of the broader Enlightenment, which sought to pattern study and knowledge after the natural sciences. By doing so it hoped to provide simple but fundamental, almost Newtonian, empirical truths, even in the realms of human psychology and conduct. Science seemed basic to all understanding.”[6] Military thinkers and officers turned to classical texts for direction in organization and tactics. Operating in compact linear formations, the geometric nature of a 18th century battlefield was perceived to be scientific. The commanding officer was required to possess a certain type of genius, but nearly everything on a battlefield could be measured and predicted. Antoine-Henri Jomini carried this belief into the 19th century, but before his famous theories presented in The Art of War were published, European officers turned to earlier works in order to better understand the principles of war and warfare.
It was believed by many military reformers in Europe that Vegetius offered these tactical principles. “Vegetius,” John Lynn described, “… inspired such military advances as battalion organization, firing by countermarch, and marching in step. This process was a later phase of that earlier intellectual phenomenon, the Renaissance.”[7] Book III of On Roman Military Matters offered guidance in tactics for linear style formations (seven possible tactical formations to be exact). The closed ranks that the Roman Legions maneuvered in were meant to instill discipline by not allowing any room for men to turn and run or fall out of order. Again, these formations influenced a geometrical view of the battlefield. From afar a battlefield would resemble a series of thick and thin lines moving back and forth against each other. These lines could be turned at various angles and degrees to meet threats coming from any direction. It became easier for officers to control and command their men if they could remain in a tight-packed linear formation. This was not a simple task, but with properly educated men at the helm, and disciplined troops on the ground, it became more easily quantifiable and predictable. In the 18th century, war and warfare were viewed as a profession in their own right.
Battle of Fontenoy, 1745, a classic example of a linear engagement
Instead, Clinton decided to launch a raid into Connecticut in the hope of forcing Washington to respond. Clinton intended that this be a raid, but he also recognized that New London could be used as a permanent base of operations into the interior of New England. Clinton appointed Arnold to command the raid because he was from Connecticut and knew the terrain.
