1781 - Political Events

Political Events

The American Revolution ends October 19 with the surrender of General Cornwallis, but the British will not evacuate Savannah until July of next year, will hold Charleston until December, and will retain New York until November 1783. The Americans win their War of Independence only after some bloody encounters.

Spanish forces under Don Eugenio Pourre in Michigan take Fort St. Joseph from the British in January.

British forces plunder and burn Richmond, Virginia, January 5 with help from Benedict Arnold.

The Battle of the Cowpens in North Carolina January 17 ends in victory for 800 Continental infantrymen, dragoons, and militiamen commanded by wagoneer Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan, now 44, who distinguished himself at Saratoga in 1777. His men defeat 1,000 British light cavalry dragoons and infantrymen under the command of Sir Banastre Tarleton, 27, killing 110, wounding 200, and capturing 550, while losing only 12 killed, 60 wounded. Following on the heels of last year's Battle of Kings Mountain, Morgan's success persuades many patriots that they can defeat Britain's southern strategy.

New Jersey troops mutiny January 20; Pennsylvania troops at Morristown have broken camp with demands for back pay, and General Washington fears that his entire army may dissolve. He orders General Robert Howe at West Point to quell the uprising and execute its ringleaders; a court martial organized by Howe sentences three men to be shot by 12 of their fellow mutineers, two are executed, one is pardoned, and Washington writes to a congressional committee January 27 that "it now becomes proper to justice" to address the soldiers' grievances.

General Nathaniel Greene reaches Virginia February 13 after a 2-week retreat from North Carolina in which he has eluded British pursuers.

The colonies adopt Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union March 1 as delegates from Maryland add their signatures to the document after New York and Virginia have ceded their western land claims to the newly emerging republic (see 1777). Virginia's Thomas Jefferson has said in relinquishing his state's claims to western lands, "The lands . . . will remain to be occupied by Americans and whether these lands be counted in the members of this or that of the United States will be thought a matter of little moment" (see Constitution, 1787).

The United States in Congress Assembled convenes March 2; most Americans still call it the Continental Congress.

The Battle of Guilford Court House in North Carolina March 15 ends with the British proclaiming victory, but General Greene has cut them off from their supplies, obliging them to forage for food, and their pillaging so alienates the locals that they force the invaders and their Loyalist supporters to leave North Carolina for Virginia. General Greene turns back and retakes South Carolina and Georgia, wearing down the British with hit-and-run tactics before being defeated April 25 at Hobkirk's Hill, South Carolina.

Spanish forces take West Florida from the British, who surrender Pensacola to Governor Galvez May 9 (see 1779; 1782).

Admiral George Rodney sails into the harbor of the St. Eustatius capital Oranjestad, sacks the town, and seizes 250 ships of all nationalities, taking arms and provisions intended for the American rebels (see 1762; 1779). His able second in command is Rear Admiral Samuel Hood, 56, but Rodney's action brings denunciations in Parliament from Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox, 32, who sympathize with the American cause, and angry British merchants strip Rodney in prize courts of much of the £4 million in loot that he has seized.

French and Spanish naval forces take Tobago as François Joseph Paul, comte de Grasse, defeats the British commander Admiral Hood and captures the island of Tobago in January. Now 58, de Grasse joined the French Navy in 1740 after 6 years' commanding galleys for the Knights of Malta. He is given the rank of admiral in reward for his victory, but Admiral Hood defends St. Eustatius, Demerara, Saint Kitts, Nevis, and Monserrat, defeating de Grasse near Dominica April 9 and 12 (see 1782).

General Washington and the comte de Rochambeau meet at Wethersfield, Connecticut, the night of May 21 and agree to ask Admiral de Grasse to come north for a combined land-and-sea operation.

The isolated British garrison at South Carolina's Fort Ninety-Six repulses General Greene June 18; he has besieged the fort since May, and although his final assault is not successful it helps make clear that the British strength in the southern hinterlands is too dispersed to be effective.

General Cornwallis repulses General Lafayette July 6 at Jamestown Ford, Virginia, but is forced to retire August 1 to what he considers defensible positions at Yorktown and Gloucester Point on the York River. His ill-provisioned men are exhausted from days of marching through mosquito-infested swamps, but the Royal Navy still commands the American coast and Cornwallis calculates that in his new position he can be supplied by sea. He has advanced into Virginia without the authority of the British commander in chief in North America, Sir Henry Clinton, believing in error that his action would consolidate his hold on the Southern colonies.

General Washington and General Rochambeau begin a march to the south August 19 with about 10,000 men, having united their forces July 5 at White Plains, New York. News has reached them August 14 that Admiral de Grasse with his French fleet was headed for the Chesapeake Bay. Washington leaves a 3,000-man force behind to deceive the British at New York, the rest of the Franco-American army gains the west side of the Hudson by August 26, and 3 days later it begins a quick march toward Philadelphia. Rochambeau loans Washington $20,000 in hard money to pay his troops a month's salary.

A French fleet from the Caribbean arrives in the Chesapeake Bay August 30 with 24 ships of the line under the command of Admiral de Grasse, who within a few days offloads heavy cannon and disembarks 3,200 troops that join forces with General Lafayette, but he warns that he can stay for only two weeks because the hurricane season is approaching. A Royal Navy fleet with 19 ships of the line arrives from New York under the command of Rear Admiral Thomas Graves, now 55, whose flagship is the 74-gun H.M.S. Bedford, but Graves takes so long following the rigid protocol of getting his ponderous ships into position to fire broadsides that de Grasse is able to get his own ships out to sea. Firing at the British spars and rigging, de Grasse sinks only one ship of the Royal Navy in the 2-hour Battle of the Capes off the Virginia coast September 5, but he cripples the rest of Graves's fleet.

Benedict Arnold helps British forces plunder and burn New London, Connecticut, September 6.

The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina September 8 ends with General Greene retreating and the British retiring to Charleston. General Greene has abandoned his pursuit of Cornwallis and attacked Lieut. Col. Alexander Stewart with 400 more men than Stewart's 2,000, but he loses 138 killed, 375 wounded, and 41 missing, whereas Stewart loses 85 killed, 351 wounded, 257 missing. American soldiers pursuing the British come across sick and dying blacks and suspect that the former slaves were sent out deliberately to spread smallpox; it will later turn out that General Alexander Leslie of the British Army wrote to General Cornwallis July 13 saying, "Above 700 Negroes are come down the River in the Small Pox. I shall distribute them about the Rebell Plantations."

A new French squadron with siege guns from Newport, Rhode Island, arrives in the Chesapeake Bay September 10 under the command of the 26-year-old Paul-François-Jean Nicolas, comte de Barras, and Admiral Graves is unable to stop the French from landing men and supplies; he heads back to New York; Generals Washington and Rochambeau meet with Admiral de Grasse aboard the Ville de Paris at Hampton Roads September 18, and 16,100 Allied troops lay siege to Yorktown beginning September 28, a siege made possible by the success of Admiral de Grasse at sea. Bombardment of Yorktown begins October 14; General Cornwallis has made his headquarters in the home of Thomas Nelson, Jr., who signed the Declaration of Independence, and at Nelson's insistence General Washington fires on the house, destroying it. Cornwallis orders about 1,000 of his men to attempt an escape across the York River October 16.

General Cornwallis surrenders with 7,000 troops at Yorktown October 19 after a 3-week siege; the British Army and Royal Navy at New York have argued too long over the issue of whether or not to send reinforcements to Cornwallis, and on October 13, when the fleet was supposed to sail, a thunderstorm sent such strong gusts of wind across New York Harbor that one ship of the line snapped her anchor cable and was driven into another, damaging both. Brig. Gen. Henry Knox, now 31, has directed the Continental artillery to deadly effect at Yorktown; a crucial attack by the First Rhode Island Regiment during the siege has won respect for the blacks who comprise three-fourths of its number (roughly one out of every five men in the Continental Army is black). Colonel Alexander Hamilton has impetuously resigned from General Washington's staff and led a 400-man nighttime assault on a key British redoubt while French infantrymen seized another redoubt nearby. The Americans at Yorktown have lost 20 killed, 56 wounded, the French 52 killed, 134 wounded, and the British 156 killed, 326 wounded; the British lay down their arms. Sir Henry Clinton arrives with 7,000 reinforcements October 24, finds that he has come too late, and returns to New York October 28 to 30. Henry Knox is promoted to major general November 15.

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When General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the Americans (with French help) had won their War of Independence.

Alexander Hamilton moves to Albany to study law and publishes newspaper essays advocating a strong federal government; he will be admitted to the bar next year and elected to Congress. The New York colony has seen 228 engagements during the war, second only to New Jersey's 238.

General James Abercrombie, British Army, dies at Stirling in Stirlingshire between April 23 and 28 at age 74; Admiral Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, at Sunbury, Middlesex, October 17 at age 71.

The British release Henry Laurens on parole December 31 (see 1780). He will be exchanged next year for General Cornwallis.

Russia's Catherine the Great signs a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor Josef II promising him the entire eastern half of the Balkans. She seeks to drive the Ottoman Turks out of Europe and establish her 2-year-old grandson, Constantine, as head of a new Greek empire.

British forces take Dutch settlements on the west coast of Sumatra.

The rajah Chaith Singh of Banaras revolts against British East India Company rule (see 1775); Company troops under the command of General Sir Eyre Coote, now 55, defeat Haidar Ali July 1 at Porto Novo in the Carnatic, saving South India for the British (see 1780). General Coote gains another victory at Pollilur and routs Mysore forces at Sholingur in August, but the effort exhausts Coote, who gives up his command and moves to Calcutta (see 1782).

Chinese imperial forces under the command of Qianlong suppress a Muslim revolt in Gansu Province.

Spanish colonial authorities in Peru capture the insurgent leader Tupac Amaru II and his family in March (see 1780); taken to Cuzco, he is forced to witness the execution of his wife and sons, whereupon he is mutilated, drawn and quartered, and beheaded May 18 at age 40 (approximate). Tupac has made poorly armed attacks on Cuzco and twice laid siege to La Paz, reducing that city's white population in 109 days to eating rats and boiled shoe leather; "I will return, and I will be millions," he is reported to have said before his death, and although the Spanish crush his native army the revolution he led will continue until the Spanish government issues a general pardon for the insurgents (see 1820).

Spanish colonial authorities at Bogotá agree June 4 to meet the demands of the Communero rebels in the viceroyalty of New Granada (see 1780). A combined force of artisans, peasants, and some Creole leaders have marched on the capital to present their list of demands, using as their slogan, "Long live the king, and down with bad government" ("Viva el rey y muera el mal gobierno!"). The main rebel force disperses and heads for home, whereupon the Spanish viceroy brings up troops from the coast and declares the concessions invalid; some of the Creoles inform on the other Communeros, the Spaniards take prisoners and execute some rebel leaders, and the Roman Catholic clergy threatens divine retribution against peasants harboring rebellious sympathies (see 1782).