Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783

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come under his royal contemplation before my return, I humbly laid myself at his Majesty's feet for such active

employment as he might think me worthy of'. He ended by soliciting Germain's 'patronage in this pursuit'. It is

clear what he had in mind. But Clinton was also in England that winter, irritably trying to clear himself of blame

for the Charleston failure, and had a certain claim to the field command in Canada, though he did not press it. As

late as 24 February, the day after the receipt of Howe's change of plan, the King wrote to tell Lord North that

Germain was about to propose Clinton for the Canadian appointment, and Burgoyne to join Howe; an arrangement

of which he thoroughly approved. Yet on the following day the Cabinet agreed to employ Burgoyne again in

Canada. On that day Germain told William Eden that he despaired of success in Canada if Carleton was not

removed; and since he was to stay, Burgoyne may have seemed to possess just the boldness and vigour needed to

counterbalance the faults which the Secretary of State saw in Carleton. Clinton was a very different character from

Burgoyne; and whatever his weaknesses he would not have let himself be trapped in the Saratoga net.1

The choice of Burgoyne was the worst ministerial error of the campaign: perhaps the only avoidable one. But

whoever was chosen, it might have been better if Carleton had been removed from Canada as Germain desired. It

could have been done, though at the cost of some scandal, for in the previous war Pitt had successively supplanted

Loudon and Abercromby in that very theatre, though Carleton's civil Governorship might have complicated his

removal. The result of the King's refusal to replace him was a strange dual command, with Burgoyne dependent on

Carleton for his base and transport, yet marching independently to place himself under the orders of another

General, while Carleton disowned all responsibility for events beyond the frontier of Canada.

On 28 February Burgoyne sent Germain a long memorandum on the coming campaign from his house in Mayfair.

He assumed, as everyone did, and as he had suggested in the winter of 17756, that the Canadian army ought to

advance southwards in the general direction of General Howe's command.2 The only alternative would have been

to switch the striking force by sea to operate on the Atlantic seaboard. Burgoyne considered this,

1 CO 42/36, f. I; G 1964; Sandwich, I, 285; Willcox, American Rebellion, 65, n. 14; Add. MSS. 34413, f.

267. (25 Feb., Germain to Eden). In the letter of 24 February the King also wrote that Germain 'wants

Cramahe to be recalled, but I have thrown cold water on that.' Cramahe was Lieutenant-Governor of

Quebec. Though Fortescue transcribed the sentence accurately, the name is misread in Donne's edition as

'(Carleton?)' and many historians have followed this reading. Miss E. Price Hill, Registrar of the Royal

Archives, has kindly checked the original for me.

2 CL, Germain, and CO 42/36, f. 23; Fonblanque, 20810, for his earlier plan.

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and suggested that the commander should have latitude to do so. He afterwards made much of the omission of this

latitude from his instructions. But his memorandum pointed out that this course would be wasteful of troops, since

it would tie up a larger garrison in Canada. Nor did he think it would be effective: 'I do not conceive any expedition

from the sea can be so formidable to the enemy, or so effectual to close the war, as an invasion from Canada by

Ticonderoga, this last measure [i.e. the movement by sea] ought not to be thought of, but upon positive conviction

of necessity.'

Carleton had suggested that the main thrust should come from Oswego on Lake Ontario, striking down the

Mohawk towards the Hudson.1 It was the route which Amherst had travelled in reverse in 1760, and was generally

regarded as the easier way.2 But Burgoyne preferred to advance by Lake Champlain, with only a very light

demonstration on the Mohawk. He argued rightly that the enemy were unlikely to fight for the Lake again, and he

expected Ticonderoga to fall in the early summer. From there the line of advance would depend on the object. If he

was to assist Howe, either by joining him or by acting on the Hudson to enable him to use his whole force to the

southward, then it would be necessary to break through the difficult country from Ticonderoga to the Hudson. The

enemy would probably block the road by land and fight for Lake George with a flotilla. But, Burgoyne continued,

if the force now at Rhode Island could remain there a second course might be considered. Instead of making for the

Hudson, the army might turn eastwards from Ticonderoga, and strike straight into the heart of New England to the

Connecticut River. The march of sixty miles through the Green Mountains would be very difficult for artillery and

stores; perhaps more difficult than the route to the Hudson. But on reaching the Connecticut valley he would fortify

a position and post Indians to protect his communications. 'Should the junction between the Canadian and Rhode

Island armies be effected upon the Connecticut, it is not too sanguine an expectation that all the New England

provinces will be reduced by their operations.'

These proposals show that Burgoyne recognised from the beginning that Howe's main force might turn southwards

into Pennsylvania instead of striking up the Hudson to meet him. They suggest, indeed, that he knew of Howe's

revised plan to do exactly this which had arrived four days earlier and was under consideration. One ambiguous

sentence in Burgoyne's plan might suggest that he depended on Howe's initial co-operation. It runs:

These ideas are formed upon the supposition that it be the sole purpose of the Canadian army to effect a

junction with General Howe, or after co-operating so far as to

1 Sackville, II, 222.

2 E.g. by Clinton (Willcox, American Rebellion, 70, n. 25).

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get possession of Albany and open the communication to New York, to remain upon the Hudson's River,

and thereby enable that general to act with his whole force to the southward.

This might be taken to mean that even if Howe intended to operate in Pennsylvania, he must first clear the lower

Hudson and help Burgoyne to establish himself at Albany. But it does not mean that Howe had to employ his

whole force on the Hudson, or meet him at Albany: and both then and later Howe intended to favour Burgoyne's

advance in some degree with a detachment. Nor did the prospect of operating without Howe's support alarm

Burgoyne. He believed till his campaign was far advanced that with or without Howe's help he could subdue New

England.

For these operations Burgoyne said that 8,000 regular rank and file would be needed, with 1,000 Indians or more,

and 2,000 Canadians including hatchet men and other workmen; and he had already written in his observations on

Carleton's paper that 3,000 troops should be left in Canada, for reasons which included the control of the corvées

on which the supply of the army would depend. His own suggestions were shown by the King to a military

authority, who doubted whether, allowing for sickness, more than 7,000 effectives could be provided for the

advance. Burgoyne had also named in astonishing detail the units he wanted for his own advance, those for the

Mohawk, and those which should be left in Canada. Such detailed requisitions scarcely flattered Carleton, but the

King's military adviser agreed that they were proper, and that it was important that the exact numbers to be left

should be laid down by the Ministry.1

In broad outline Burgoyne's suggestions were accepted; and to make sure that he had his way they were drawn up

as an instruction for Carleton.2 Burgoyne was to 'force his way to Albany', seconded by a diversion on the

Mohawk, and place himself under Howe's command. But till Howe's orders were received, he was to act as his

judgment and the situation required, never losing sight of the junction with Howe as the main object. It was not

suggested that the advance to Albany would be seconded by Howe himself. The two alternatives Burgoyne had

suggested were omitted: the Connecticut River plan because Howe had already cancelled the striking force which

he had intended to base on Rhode Island; and the movement of the army by sea because, as Burgoyne had pointed

out, it would be wasteful of troops. The merits of the Connecticut plan will be examined in due course. But if

Burgoyne had had permission to join Howe by sea, he would not have done

1 Burgoyne's memorandum, loc. cit.; G 19967. Fonblanque omits the requisition of units from his version

of Burgoyne's memorandum. The King's notes and comments on G 19967 are in Fonblanque, 4867.

2 Sackville, II, 603.

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so, for though he had fewer men than he had asked for, we shall see that he set forth from Ticonderoga without a

doubt of success.

In every other respect Burgoyne had his way. The military business of the American Department was then in the

hands of Mr D'Oyly, one of the Under-Secretaries, who had been Deputy Secretary at War and was a close friend

of General Howe. He and Burgoyne drafted Carleton's instructions together; and, according to Knox, Burgoyne

went in to the King and got his consent to his having the command and everything as he wished.1 Even his

suggested distribution of the units in Canada was exactly incorporated in the instructions for Carleton. The

Commander-in-Chief in Canada, who had once been intended to take Howe under his command if the two armies

joined on the Upper Hudson,2 found himself deprived of all latitude in the disposal of his army: even the brigading

of Burgoyne's force was prescribed. Coupled with an offensive reference to the abandonment of Crown Point, it

was enough to wring from the quick tempered Carleton a demand for recall; and perhaps it was intended to. But

there had been no dictation to the commander of the advance. To the last detail, the organisation and the plan were

Burgoyne's.

It remained only to inform Howe of the plan for Canada. It contained nothing which he had not expected; but the

resurgence of the Americans after Trenton threw open to debate the wisdom of his abandoning Burgoyne to his

own devices. Germain had instantly divined on the news of Trenton that it was not the loss of men which mattered,

but the effect on French and American opinion.3 Howe, too, had been concerned at the probable effect, and feared

that instead of the present winter seeing the end of the rebellion, another whole season's campaigning would be

necessary. Nevertheless he was still convinced that the rebels were at the end of their tether, and were buoyed up

only by hopes of help from France. If that door were shut, he wrote a week after Trenton, he believed it would put

an end to the rebellion when British reinforcements arrived in the spring; 'such is the present eagerness of the

inhabitants . . . for peace and pardon'. This seems to have remained the general impression in America. 'The back

of the snake is broken', declared a letter from New York on 3 January. Even when the full effects of Trenton had

been unrolled in an irritating skirmishing war, the impression survived. The critical and pessimistic Colonel Stuart

was confident that the struggle would soon be over. 'In spite of all our blunders, fortune declares in our favour . . .

there is a strong appearance of its being at an end before the autumn'.4

1 Knox, 277.

2 Howe's Orderly Book, 300.

3 Add. MSS. 34413, f. 267.

4 Sackville, II, 535; Add. MSS. 34413, ff. 1525; Wortley, 109.

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When, therefore, a letter written by Howe in the middle of January demanded 20,000 reinforcements, it was

puzzling to know what to make of it. Howe said nothing concrete about his difficulties increasing, but merely

wrote that it would now once more be necessary to defeat Washington in battle, and enlarged his original demand,

pointing out that without such a reinforcement his operations against both Philadelphia and New England would be

cramped. The implication was that the stroke against Philadelphia would now be neither as swift nor as

immediately decisive as Howe had hoped in the triumphant week before Trenton. General Clinton was in London,

and he later claimed that he had suggested the propriety of ordering Howe to co-operate with Burgoyne by using

his whole force on the Hudson. But Clinton's fear for Burgoyne rose solely from the possibility that Washington

would leave Howe undisturbed to take Philadelphia, and turn his own force against Burgoyne. This in fact was

never to happen; and it was in any case reasonable to assume that Howe would take the necessary measures to

prevent it. When Germain replied to Howe's despatches on 3 March, a few days after the receipt of Burgoyne's

proposals for Canada, he made no comment on the demand for 20,000 men, but warned him that he might be

disappointed of fresh German units, and that his reinforcement might therefore be reduced to 5,500. As to Howe's

proposal to switch his main effort to the southward, Germain called his reasons 'solid and decisive', and gave it his

approval.1

Thus, while Burgoyne's proposals for Canada were being translated into instructions for Carleton, Germain gave

his approval to Howe's invasion of Pennsylvania. The plan for Canada was launched in the full understanding that

though Howe's army would eventually co-operate with Burgoyne's on the Hudson, it could not support his advance

to Albany in strength. Carleton's instructions were signed on 26 March, in time for Burgoyne to take them to

Quebec; and a copy was sent to Howe which he acknowledged before his departure for Philadelphia. But a legend

was launched by Shelburne that through the idleness of Germain and the carelessness of his office, Howe was

never informed of Burgoyne's intentions. Knox, however, left a note which explains the truth. When Howe's friend

D'Oyly had drafted the despatch for Carleton, Germain came down to the office to sign it on his way to Stoneland.

Knox pointed out that there was no

1 CO 5/94, f. 100; Willcox, American Rebellion, 601; Sackville, II, 58. The figure 5,500 is reached by

deducting the Germans of whom the Ministry had been disappointed from the original total. Germain

warned Howe that his forces (i.e. fresh regiments) might be only 2,500 strong (2,100 Germans and 400

Highlanders). The phrase has misled some historians into the belief that only 2,500 reinforcements were

promised; but Germain's figure specifically excluded recruits.

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letter to Howe. Germain started, and D'Oyly stared, but said he would write a few lines in a moment. 'So', said the

impatient Germain, 'my poor horses must stand in the street all the time, and I shan't be to my time anywhere.'

D'Oyly then said that Germain should go on, and he would write to Howe himself enclosing a copy of Carleton's

instructions; 'and with this', Knox recalled, 'his Lordship was satisfied, as it enabled him to keep his time, for he

could never bear delay or disappointment'. D'Oyly sat down and wrote to Howe; but he kept no copy for the file,

and if Howe had not acknowledged it, it would have been impossible for the American Department to prove that

he had ever seen Burgoyne's instructions.1

Supplies and Reinforcements

The operations were now in the hands of the generals. It remained for Germain only to see that they received the

men and supplies which they needed. In the course of the summer Howe received a thirty per cent reinforcement

of 6,100 men. Carleton had asked for 4,000 reinforcements in addition to recruits, and these Germain at first hoped

to give him. But after Trenton, on the failure of the Northern Department to obtain troops from Würtemberg to

replace Howe's lost Hessians, Germain was unable to allocate anything approaching 4,000 men to Canada. Only

1,600 recruits and reinforcements were despatched to Quebec.2

In the matter of supplies, Germain had determined that the late deliveries of 1776 should not be repeated. 'The

Admiralty may want a little enforcing', the commentator on Burgoyne's plan had shrewdly predicted; and the first

half of the year was a continual struggle against Admiralty delays. By 11 January Germain had prevailed so

successfully over the War Office and Board of Ordnance that the camp equipment for Howe was ready for

shipping in the Thames, and the first contingent of recruits was assembled at Chatham. But the Navy Board had

still to be overcome. The Secretary at War discovered that the transports for the equipment were quite unfit to

defend themselves against attack. Their safety would thus depend wholly on keeping in convoy; and without naval

officers or seamen to control the masters it was improbable that they would do so in this stormy season. Germain

must have sighed for the powerful armed victuallers run by the Treasury. He ordered the Admiralty peremptorily to

take measures for the transports' safety, and arranged for parties of recruits to sail with them for their defence. Soon

afterwards a storeship hired by the Navy Board for the Quebec run was found to be inadequately defended, and

1 Knox, 277.

2 Sackville, II, 222; G 1938; Add. MSS. 34413, ff. 202, 267; CO 5/253, ff. 2567.

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was ordered to sail in convoy with extra seamen and a large detachment of troops.

Pressed by the Secretary of State, the Admiralty got the equipment and recruits for Howe away in the middle of

March, followed by a German contingent from Dort in the middle of April. But there were the usual maddening

delays. Howe's clothing issue for 1776 had been intercepted by the rebels, and it was vital that the new supply

should reach him safe and soon. The Admiralty was ordered to load the clothing in a warship capable of protecting

herself, to be ready to sail by 10 March. 'Very extraordinary delays' ensued, for which Germain conveyed the royal

dissatisfaction to the Admiralty. Finally at the end of April he learnt that even then not all the clothing was on

board. Twenty tons of stowage space had been occupied by a huge machine for carrying landing craft. He ordered

the Admiralty to enquire why the captain had embarked it.

Such was the detailed supervision which made the war machine revolve. There was more trouble over the clothing

for Canada. Again the Secretary at War objected to the weakness of the transport, and the Navy Board professed

itself unable to find a better. Germain himself found a ship with a respectable armament, ordered fifty soldiers to

sail with her, and required the Admiralty to supply a naval officer to fight the ship if she were attacked. The Board

objected, and was sharply overruled. Germain's tone to the Admiralty was peremptory, but necessary. It was

certainly not sharper than the Elder Pitt's; nor did he bypass the Board of Admiralty to deal directly with the Navy

Board as Pitt had done. But Pitt had been dealing with a professional First Lord. Sandwich the politician had the

means to show his resentment.1

From these experiences Germain learnt that if he waited the outcome of the present campaign to judge the

requirements for the next, the difficulties of organising shipments would never be overcome in time for the start of

operations in the field. He therefore resolved to make every preparation for the campaign of 1778 so early that the

troops could take the field without delay. As early as August 1777 he issued his instructions to the Admiralty to

have transports capable of beating off rebel cruisers ready in December to load camp equipment, stores and tents

for America, and to assemble them at Spithead under convoy and ready to sail by 1 February.2

The provisioning system, in contrast to the Navy Board shipping, was now on a reliable footing. These supplies at

least were free of the treacly complacency of naval administration. Though the contractors' deliveries of bad flour

continued to distress the commanders and the Ministry, the exertions

1 Précis of American Department's measures to supply the forces, CO 5/254, ff. 5883.

2Ibid. ff. 889.

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by which the Treasury had collected and armed a fleet of powerful victuallers were bearing fruit. In June 1777

Howe sent the Treasury his warmest thanks for providing him with every necessity.1 When provisions ran short

again at New York in the following year, the fault lay not in London but in America.2

1 Abergavenny, 16.

2 See below, pp. 2224

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Chapter VI

Philadelphia and Saratoga

Howe and Burgoyne

When Howe withdrew from New Jersey into a shallow bridgehead after Trenton, he did not relinquish his intention

to make Philadelphia his first objective. But the survival of Washington's force after its flight across the Delaware

removed the immediate prospect that the rebellion in the Middle Colonies would collapse. The Continental army

had lived to fight again. Though it virtually disbanded itself when enlistments expired at the end of the year, the

cadre survived on which to build afresh. Not that the American prospects were good: so far from it that when the

captive Lee invited peace delegates from Congress to visit him in prison in February, Washington and opinion in

the army was in favour of complying, and it was Congress which rejected the opening. Nevertheless Howe knew

that he still needed the victory which he had missed on Long Island. Only the destruction of the enemy's army in

battle would end the war.

This was the reasoning behind his huge demand for reinforcements in the middle of January.1 But an enemy who

moved fast and did not intend to fight was not easy to bring to action. Howe complained of the slowness of his

Germans, who were 'much attached to their baggage, which they have in amazing quantities in the field'. At the

end of January he reinforced Cornwallis with troops from Rhode Island so that he could move as soon as the

weather improved. Washington had taken up a strong flank position to the north-west at Morristown, from which

he harassed the British bridge-head at Brunswick and Amboy. There he could maintain his communications with

the Hudson and New England, and threaten the British rear if they marched on Philadelphia. His new army was

still in the making, and in March he had only 3,000 men of whom two-thirds were militia. 'If Howe does not take

advantage of our weak state', he wrote on 12 April, 'he is very unfit for his trust.' Howe's intelligence, however,

gave the enemy at least 8,000 men. The Morristown position was strong and difficult to approach; and he had

decided that the cost in men of several weeks' winter campaigning in the open would be too severe for an army

which could not replace them that year. By the beginning of April he had learnt that his demand for reinforcements

would not be met. In the light of hardening

1 CO 5/94, f. 100 (Howe's of 20 Jan. see above, p. 117).

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enemy resistance he decided that if he could not get an advantageous battle with Washington, he must modify his

plans.1

Philadelphia remained his goal. But Washington's presence on his flank ruled out a direct advance across New

Jersey. To bridge and cross the Delaware, with ninety miles of exposed communications in his rear, was not in

Howe's view a feasible operation until Washington was defeated. On 2 April he put his new plan into a despatch

for Germain. Instead of thrusting overland to Philadelphia, he would invade Pennsylvania by sea. With a bridge-

head in the Chesapeake, his communications with New York would be secured by his brother's fleet.

The cost would be heavy. To find the necessary force, Howe warned Germain that he would probably have to

abandon New Jersey. The evacuation in the presence of the enemy would probably delay the opening of the

offensive; and from this, and the weakness of his force, he now saw no hope of ending the war in the present

campaign.2

This despatch reached the American Department on 8 May.3 Howe's pessimism was disappointing, but Germain

did not share it. Daily intelligence of the rebels' difficulty in raising troops reassured him; and accounts from all

quarters supported Howe's belief that a loyalist defence force could be raised in Pennsylvania so that the army

could maintain the offensive. In only a minor degree did Howe's new plan affect the operations of Burgoyne. He

had dropped the active force of 3,000 men on the Hudson, which had been intended to cover New Jersey and

favour in some degree Burgoyne's advance; but he intended a force of 3,000 Provincials to act on the Hudson or in

Connecticut. Howe enclosed a copy of a letter which he was sending by frigate to Canada, warning Carleton that

he would be unable to support the advance from Canada at the beginning of the campaign, but hoped to provide a

force to break through the fortified Highlands when Burgoyne reached Albany. He told Carleton that he regarded

the advance on Albany as of the utmost importance to his own operations, and that an officer on his way to Canada

for exchange would give him his reasons, which were too delicate to commit to paper. The numerous loyalists in

the area, he said, were an assurance that the more rebellious parts of New York would be easily reduced. Thus,

though Howe had not received his copy of Burgoyne's instructions when he wrote the despatch, he had no doubt

what they would be. He saw no difficulty in the thrust from Canada, and regarded it as vital to his own plans; and

his intention to aid Burgoyne, not in his initial advance to Albany, but in maintaining himself there, was in

harmony with the general plan of the Ministry.

1 CO 5/94, ff. 100, 121; Fortescue, III, 211; Anderson, 2367.

2 Sackville, II, 656.

3 Not 18th as in Sackville.

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