Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(22)
Alex sat up straighter. It was unseemly to be excited by the prospect of battle, yet he couldn’t help it. He felt his heart beat as if someone had just dealt him a hand of poker, and a peek discovered he held a brace of aces.
“General Cornwallis sought to evacuate his troops by sea, but the French have managed to thwart the attempt. Some seven thousand British troops are for all intents trapped behind their battlements.”
Alex wanted to yell in triumph, “We have them!” but he contented himself with turning to General Rochambeau and saying, “The American people will learn of the great contributions the French made to their liberation.”
Rochambeau made a funny face at this rather formal pronouncement. “Any enemy of the British navy is a friend of the French,” he said drily.
Alex allowed himself to crack a smile at the count’s witticism.
“We have concluded,” Washington continued, “that the only way to complete a second trench that will allow us a cannon within range of the British position is to take redoubts numbers nine and ten, which protect the main body of their troops in Yorktown.” He indicated the forts’ positions on the map. “The British have fortified them with earthen walls and a timber palisade. Our engineers tell me we could blast through the walls fairly easily, but moving the cannon into position would alert Cornwallis to our intentions. We must prevent his troops from falling back into Yorktown proper, protracting the siege. Therefore, we have concluded that the redoubts will have to be stormed on foot, and the palisades toppled with axes. The forts are not heavily manned. We will suffer casualties, undoubtedly, but we should be able to take them with minimum loss of life. Once the positions have been secured, we will dig our second parallel here, place our cannon within range of Yorktown—”
“And then we will blast the British to hell,” Rochambeau interjected. “Forgive me for interrupting, General,” he said to Washington. “The thought of a British defeat gets my pulse racing.”
Mine too, Alex thought, though that wasn’t quite correct. He had no great animus against the British. He just didn’t think they had any business ruling a country three thousand miles away from their own, a group of colonies that was, moreover, ten times larger than the mother country. It was the thought of battle itself that excited him.
“It has been decided,” Lafayette said now, “that the assault on redoubt nine will be a French column under the able command of our German ally, Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm von Zweibrücken. The assault on redoubt ten will be by the First and Second New York infantry units, and the Fifteenth Connecticut.”
Alex kept his face neutral. “My men have arrived in fine form, General. They are ready for the challenge.”
“Ah yes,” Lafayette said, squirming slightly in his chair. “About that.”
Alex peered at his old friend. “Yes, General?” he said in as formal a voice as he could muster.
“It has been decided that in order to foster a greater spirit of camaraderie between the French and American forces, the First and Second New York and the Fifteenth Connecticut will be commanded by my aide, Major Jean-Joseph Sourbader de Gimat.”
Alex stared at his friend, unable to believe this turn of events. Lafayette knew how important the opportunity to command a battlefield assault was to him. Alex also knew that Lafayette had not awarded command of the assault to Major Gimat in an effort to build “camaraderie” between American and French forces. He had done it for the same reason that Washington had given the command to Alex: because his longtime aide had insisted that he, too, be given a chance for glory before the war was over. On one level, Alex appreciated the loyalty Lafayette was showing to his officer. But as a friend, he felt utterly betrayed.
“I was under the impression,” Alex said tightly to Washington, fighting to keep his voice calm, “that when you asked me to lead the First and Second New York and the Fifteenth Connecticut, it was not just on a march from New York to Virginia.”
Washington’s face showed no reaction to the bitterness in Alex’s words. “General Lafayette makes the case that even after we take the redoubt, the ensuing siege could last some weeks. During that time, American and French forces will be quartering together and often skirmishing with the enemy. It is important that every single soldier fighting for the American cause feels that he is a member of one army and not two, as it were. That there be no unnecessary divisions between people fighting for the cause of freedom and mercenaries fighting merely for a salary.”
“There is not a single American soldier,” Alex said, turning back to Lafayette, “who is unaware that the French grievance against the British is many generations older than our own, and compounded by the two countries being separated by the few miles of the English Channel rather than by the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. We welcome the French here with unqualified affection and, as you so aptly put it, ‘camaraderie.’”
“That may be,” Lafayette said. “But whether the war is won or lost, after it is over the Americans know that our French troops will go back to the far side of the Atlantic, while they will stay here. We need to erase that thought from their minds.”
“And you think that putting four hundred patriotic Americans under the command of an officer whom they have never met and whose motives and, dare I say, abilities are unknown to them is the best way of doing that?” he asked, his voice rising.