‘To bring the American Army under strict Discipline’: British Army Foraging Policy in the South,1780–81

After Lieutenant General Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on 19 October 1781, American newspapers loyal to the Continental Congress filled their pages with accounts of General George Washington’s decisive victory. In addition to publishing official military reports, correspondence, and the articles of capitulation, several editors provided space to essayists who heaped scorn on the defeated British commander. ¹

One of the most vitriolic of these pieces appeared in the Freeman’s Journal: or, The North-American Intelligencer, based in Philadelphia, the capital of the young United States. An anonymous pundit imagined the ‘medely of salutations’ that would greet Lord Cornwallis if he dared return to those parts of Virginia that his army had visited before retiring behind the fortifications at Yorktown. The first of these hypothetical imprecations branded the British peer as a heartless killer. Most of the charges levelled at Cornwallis, however, concerned crimes against property:

You burnt my house… . You burnt my barn… .You stole my grain… . You stole my Negroes… . You stole my English horse… . You swept my plantation of every hoofed animal upon it… . You got drunk upon the remains of my old Madeira… . You stole my family plate… . You stole my jewels… . You burnt my tobacco… . You ripped open my beds, and stole the ticking… . You cooked a dinner with a fire made out of my mahogany furniture. ²

Had Cornwallis actually read this attack on his character, he probably would have reacted with indignation instead of shame. Although the earl had permitted his army to live off the land in North Carolina in early 1781, and had then invaded Virginia to destroy resources vital to the Rebel war effort, he strove constantly to restrain the predatory impulses of his soldiers. Along with other senior British commanders stationed in the South, Cornwallis attempted to implement a policy authorized by his commander-in-chief to enable the king’s troops to campaign without unduly distressing the inhabitants. History casts Cornwallis as an aggressive general who strove to draw his opponents into battle, but he also realized that the success of his mission hinged on winning American hearts and minds. ³

Many British soldiers and marines charged with suppressing the American Revolution embarked on their mission inflamed with anger. Even those Redcoats who had initially sympathized with colonial resistance to Parliament’s various tax initiatives considered armed rebellion as unnatural and treasonable, an offence deserving the severest chastisement. ⁴ Captain William Glanville Evelyn of the 4th Regiment of Foot’s light infantry company declared that the English people ‘must permit us to restore to them the dominion of the country by laying it waste, and almost extirpating the present rebellious race’. He yearned to set a torch to ‘Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and all the capital towns on the Continent,’ reducing them to ‘stacks of chimneys’. ⁵

The king’s troops expressed this antipathy with actions as well as words. They demonstrated their contempt for the enemy by adopting aggressive tactics, denying quarter to some of their foes while harshly treating those they spared, and – most commonly of all – by plundering the property of American civilians. ⁶ The latter behaviour manifested itself on the war’s first day, 19 April 1775, when an outnumbered British force fought its way back through the Massachusetts countryside from Concord to Boston. The beleaguered Redcoats equated the irregular tactics adopted by the opposing militia with Indian savagery, which triggered acts of vengeful fury. ⁷ As Lieutenant John Barker, also of the 4th Foot’s light company, confided to his diary:

Our Soldiers… tho’ they shew’d no want of courage, yet were so wild and irregular, that there was no keeping ‘em in any order; … and the plundering was shamefull; many hardly thought of anything else; what was worse they were encouraged by some Officers. ⁸

New England’s Whig leaders positioned their movement on the moral high ground by rushing sensationalistic accounts of British outrages into print, and their version of the war’s outbreak reached London first. ⁹

Such licentiousness ran rampant even when fortune smiled on the king’s regulars. In the second half of 1776, the British chased Washington and his half-trained Continental Army out of Long Island and Manhattan. As the British and their Hessian allies pursued Washington across New Jersey, they subjected that colony to indiscriminate looting, accompanied by instances of murder and rape. Such conduct undermined the basic British strategy, which attempted to reconcile Americans to royal rule after demonstrating that Rebel forces stood no hope of prevailing on the battlefield. British depredations made enemies out of American moderates who had not yet embraced the revolution, alienated numerous Loyalists, and filled many Rebels with a desperate resolution to continue the fight. New Jersey militiamen instigated an insurrection that facilitated Washington’s morale-reviving counterattacks at Trenton, 26 December 1776, and Princeton, 3 January 1777, which ensured the continuation of the war. ¹⁰ Instead of learning from these setbacks, British and German soldiers repeated their rapacious conduct during the indecisive operations in northern New Jersey in the spring of 1777, further undermining hopes for conciliation. ¹¹

When General Sir William Howe, the commander-in-chief of the British Army in North America, launched his amphibious offensive against the Rebel capital at Philadelphia later that year, he tried to curb his soldiers’ rapacious tendencies. Southeastern Pennsylvania reputedly contained a large Loyalist population, and Howe wanted his forces hailed as liberators and not regarded as a barbaric horde. ¹² The damage, however, had already been done. The appearance of Howe’s fleet off Elk Ferry, Maryland, in late August set off a panic among local civilians. Lieutenant William John Hale of the 45th Foot’s grenadier company, one of the first British officers to go ashore, observed: ‘The country was desolate of inhabitants, the men called to strengthen Washington, the women fled to avoid barbarities, which they imagined must be the natural attendants of a British Army.’ ¹³

Eager to re-assure ‘the peaceable Inhabitants’ of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, Howe issued a proclamation on 27 August aimed at allaying any apprehensions over the presence of his army. Howe announced that:

he hath issued the strictest Orders to the Troops for the Preservation of Regularity and Good Discipline, and he has signified that the most exemplary Punishment shall be Inflicted upon Those who shall dare to plunder the Property, or molest the Persons of any of his Majesty’s Well-disposed subjects. ¹⁴

Howe’s appeals to his troops fell largely on deaf ears. Yearning for fresh food after weeks crammed aboard transports on a diet of salt meat and worm-eaten biscuits, Redcoats and Hessians foraged at every opportunity. Some officers boasted of their men’s abilities as freebooters. ‘The 52^nd Light Infantry were famous providers,’ recalled Lieutenant Martin Hunter, who served with that company in the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion:

They were good hands at Grab. Grab was a favourite expression among the Light Infantry, and meant any plunder taken by force; a Lob when you got it without any opposition, and I am very certain there never was a more expert set than the Light Infantry at grab, lob, or gutting a house.

Shocked by an enlisted man who chopped off a woman’s fingers to steal her rings, Lieutenant and Captain the Honourable Richard Fitzpatrick of the grenadier company, Brigade of Guards, predicted:

I really think the return of this army to England is to be dreaded by the peaceable inhabitants, and will occasion a prodigious increase of business for Sir J. Fielding [co-founder of London’s first professional police force] and Jack Ketch [the hangman]. I am sure the . . . latter can never find more deserving objects for its exercise. ¹⁵

Howe’s headquarters issued a stream of directives intended to keep all the troops under control. One order dated 26 August stated: ‘Commanding Officers are to have the Rolls of their respective Corps immediately called, to examine the Men’s Knapsacks and Haversacks and Report to Head Quarters every man in possession of Plunder of any kind.’ The commander-in-chief also prescribed several means to prevent troops from straying from their commands to forage, loot, or desert. On 29 August, Howe decreed:

The Provost Martial is hereby ordered and Authorized to execute upon the Spot all Soldiers and followers of the Army, Straggling beyond the out posts, or detected in Plundering or devastation of any kind contrary to the repeated Orders on that head. ¹⁶

Major Carl Leopold Baurmeister, a Hessian staff officer, wrote of Howe hanging one marauder and having ‘six others . . . flogged within an inch of their lives’ at the outset of the Philadelphia Campaign, but the general and his officers usually proved reluctant to impose capital punishment on men driven by hunger to steal and whom they knew would be difficult to replace. Soldiers charged with plundering were normally acquitted or received lighter sentences for lesser crimes. When the commander-in-chief finally hanged a British grenadier and light infantryman on 15 September, a disgusted Scottish officer commented: ‘the 1^st Examples made, tho often threaten’d & many deserved it.’ ¹⁷ Word of Howe’s inability to shield Americans under British control from the ravages of war spread to Great Britain, occasioning this caustic comment from Lady Sarah Lennox:

I am not much pleased with my friend Sir Wm Howe neither, for tho’ a most humane man himself he has not contrived to keep strict discipline in his army, & I hear of horrible cruelties among them… . Oh! What a dreadful thing it is! It makes one’s blood run cold to think of it. ¹⁸

Howe’s reputation suffered even greater damage when it became apparent that his capture of Philadelphia had not broken the back of the American rebellion. Sensing that the war could not be won, Howe obtained permission to resign and sailed for home on 25 May 1778. His successor, General Sir Henry Clinton, had been his second-in-command and also an inveterate critic of the former commander-in-chief. Sometime after Clinton evacuated Philadelphia and concentrated the forces left to him at New York, he tasked two of his aides-de-camp, Major Patrick Ferguson and Captain John André, with formulating independent plans to enable British armies to operate without alienating the American population. ¹⁹

The Articles of War, which enumerated the British Army’s regulations, authorized the death penalty for any officer or enlisted man who left ‘his Post or Colours to go in Search of Plunder’. Throughout the eighteenth century, treatises intended to complete the education of British officers routinely warned against the deleterious effects of looting and other depredations. As Robert Heath advised his readers in 1759:

NOT to Murder or Steal, is a Precept as binding in the Field, or Winter Quarters as it is in Camp or the City. Marauders are a Disgrace to the Camp and military Procession. . . . The Rapes and Violences of Soldiers, rebound on their indulging Commanders. Licentious Armies, spread a Plague, instead of giving Protection. ²⁰

While Ferguson and André evinced a basic understanding of martial law, recent military operations permeated their mutual frame of reference. Both officers had participated in the Philadelphia Campaign and each agreed that the king’s troops introduced a reign of terror to any area they penetrated. ‘At present’, Ferguson admitted,

…most of the houses are thoroughly & indiscriminately plundered, the beds cut up, the furniture & windows broke to pieces, the men rob’d of their watches, shoe buckles, & money, whilst their wives & daughters have their pockets and cloth[e]s torn from their bodies; and the Father or Husband who does not survey all this with a placid countenance is beat, or branded with the name of traitor or rebel.

Too often, an equally candid André pointed out, such outrages befell ‘a harmless peasant, a decrepid Father of a Family, a Widow or some other person as little an Object for severity’. ²¹

Though keen to conform to Sir Henry’s instructions, the two aides acknowledged that he had set them a daunting task. ‘An attempt at once to bring the American Army under strict Discipline with regard to marauding must defeat itself and would probably be attended by a serious discontent and desertion,’ Ferguson admitted. ‘Besides it is necessary for the comfort, refreshment, & encouragement of the troops in the field, that they be allowed to help themselves in some degree.’ André also believed that ‘it may not be possible to entirely suppress the irregularities of the Soldiery, especially in an Army where unfortunately the habit of plundering is arrived at so scandalous a pitch’. Nevertheless, the pair saw the wisdom in combating what Ferguson called ‘the ravages every where wantonly committed without regard to sex or age, friend or traitor, and the consequent alienation of every thinking mind from the Royal Cause’. The adverse effects that freebooting had on a British army’s ability to recruit American allies loomed large in the thinking of both officers. ²²

Neither Ferguson nor André believed that most British plundering stemmed from sheer malice or a criminal desire for monetary gain. They identified the main motive as the voracious hunger that afflicted men engaged in strenuous military operations. The pair considered foraging of that kind a far lesser sin than what André labelled ‘plunder for proffit’. Ferguson declared that ‘every Officer of common humanity would exert himself with pleasure to hang the rascal that rifl’d Women and Children, but no man will be instrumental in occasioning the execution of a Soldier for killing a Hog or Sheep’. ²³

As officers, however, they abhorred unauthorized foraging as a threat to the twin pillars vital to any army – good order and discipline. Soldiers who grew accustomed to quitting their ranks or sneaking out of camp in search of food might soon be tempted to disregard other inconvenient orders. Individuals or small groups of foragers also ran the risk of being ambushed, killed, or captured by bands of hostile militia who shadowed invading forces. ²⁴

Tolerating such misbehaviour also deprived many soldiers of what they most craved – fresh food. During any march, the more mobile troops who screened the army’s advance and flanks – light dragoons and light infantry – reached un-plundered areas first, where they enjoyed rich pickings. ‘At present two or three of the Light Corps are surfeited & their camp putrid with carrion,’ Ferguson quipped, ‘whilst the rest of the troops… are confined to musty biscuit and salt Pork.’ Soldiers belonging to other commands under looser discipline would snap up whatever the cavalry and light infantry missed, leaving well-regulated units to go without. ²⁵

During the Philadelphia Campaign, Howe had tried to ensure a fair division of fresh provisions by offering soldiers one dollar for each head of cattle delivered to his commissary general, plus a half-dollar bonus for the trouble any soldier took in gathering and driving those beasts. This system failed, however, to provide the troops with sufficient incentives to abandon their wanton ways. The premium they received came nowhere near the actual value of the cattle herded into the commissary’s pens, and sometimes they received no payment at all for their pains. In addition, André added, ‘The issues of fresh provisions were however not so ample and so frequent as the Quantity driven might have afforded.’ Officers and men muttered darkly about corruption in the commissary department. Furthermore, the army’s practice of stopping a substantial amount of each soldier’s pay to cover the cost of his rations – even when it issued him food that he had collected himself – compounded his feelings of victimization. ‘The Man in the rear to whom the Combattant was first to give and from whom he was afterwards to purchase his own Spoils appeared in the odious light of a Vulture fattening on his blood,’ André explained. ‘Three dollars which a Regiment received in lieu of three Bullocks was no Compensation to 500 Men for the loss of a good dinner.’ Some light troops played the system by retaining enough livestock to eat their fill and fattening their purses by handing over the surplus to the commissary. ²⁶

The army appeared mired in a seemingly insoluble dilemma. ‘Whether the Commissary could not supply [fresh provisions],’ André exclaimed, ‘or whether the Soldier plundered because the Commissary did not supply him I shall not decide.’ To make matters worse, British commissaries would not provide reimbursement to Loyalists whose stolen cattle went unlisted in their ledgers. ²⁷

While Ferguson did not hesitate to acknowledge the rank and file’s excesses, he ascribed the worst depredations to company musicians, runaway slaves, and white camp followers. ‘Women, Officers servants, Drummers and Negroes… distress and maltreat the inhabitants infinitely more than the whole army,’ he explained, ‘at the same time that they engross, waste and destroy at the expence of the good Soldier… as much small stock &c^a as would not only supply the Officers, but feed half the troops.’ ²⁸ Other British officers echoed Ferguson’s opinion. ²⁹

To break this fruitless cycle of brigandage, resentment, and retaliation, André recommended that the commander of each British field army appoint a special commissary ‘for the purpose of purchasing Cattle from loyal Inhabitants’ to ensure that the troops were ‘supplied with fresh provisions as often as possible’. Furthermore, he urged the appointment of a ‘Commissary of Captured Cattle’ to receive animals taken from Rebel civilians. ³⁰

Hoping to win the rank and file’s support for this system, André devised several cash incentives. As before, all soldiers who delivered cattle to the commissary would be paid one dollar per head. Detachments that seized cattle belonging to the Continental Army or under other dangerous circumstances would receive the full market value of those animals. André also advocated that the troops receive a partial refund from their ration stoppages on the days the army issued them fresh provisions. The commissary general would keep an account of the money owed to successful foragers. At the end of a campaign, he would hand over the appropriate sum to trustees acting on behalf of the enlisted men, who would place it in ‘a fund for the relief of widows and children of Soldiers of this Army’. ³¹

Ferguson argued that the British should treat the American populace with greater liberality, which would win an increasing number of friends for the king. All owners of confiscated cattle – except for Rebel officials or persons ‘otherways notorious’ would receive certificates entitling them to immediate compensation at the rate sanctioned by the Continental Army. The British would also present these people with promissory notes for a second payment at the same amount provided they did nothing to support the rebellion over the next 12 months. In addition, Americans doing business with British forces could expect payment in reliable currency backed by gold as opposed to Continental paper dollars, which suffered from soaring inflation throughout the war. Such methods, Ferguson claimed, would ‘give the inhabitants an interest in our success, in behaving well & in throwing their cattle our way, rather than in that of the rebel Commissaries’. ³²

Ferguson’s conciliatory inclinations extended only so far. He considered the homes and property of all Continental civil and military officials, anyone connected with privateering, and those profiting from the impoverishment of Loyalists as eligible for plunder, provided the troops acted under orders and the loot obtained was evenly divided among all the men belonging to their regiment. ‘By this means’, he asserted, ‘the soldier would at times be gratified by a just booty without hurting discipline, and… the grand engine of reduction, operate more effectually than any victories to bring the rebels to submission.’ ³³

While André hoped to reform Britain’s American Army by appealing to the rank and file’s self-interest, Ferguson never lost sight of the need for coercion to ensure compliance with any new arrangements. ‘Should an example or two be at first necessary,’ he reasoned,

…humanity as well as policy would justify the sacrifice of the lives of two or three villains to prevent the greater loss of Men kill’d or taken marauding: not to reckon the loss of character & of discipline to the British Army.

Ferguson proposed posting one ‘safeguard’ at every house along the line of march to protect that dwelling until the army passed. This soldier would be authorized ‘to maim whoever disputed his authority and to make prisoners of every Woman, Negro or follower of the Army who approach’d the house’. Safeguards would compel the inhabitants to bring water, fruit, and milk to the roadside to refresh passing British troops, along with poultry, cheese, butter, and other edibles. This show of hospitality would put the safeguards’ comrades in a good humour and the army would reward cooperating civilians with fair compensation for their losses. At the same time, a detachment of light dragoons assigned to the provost martial would range about the periphery of the column to intercept any straggling soldiers, and ‘to maim all Negroes & strip all Women offending’. At the end of the day’s march, prisoners would face immediate trial and punishment. ³⁴

As seasoned veterans, Ferguson and André realized that change was impossible without the backing of the British and Hessian officer corps. Ferguson urged that company commanders be liable to arrest if they did not conscientiously monitor the whereabouts and behaviour of their men. To reduce petty thievery, no soldier or camp follower should enter a house unaccompanied by an officer. Officers were to command all foraging parties sent in search of cattle, and even ‘rooting parties’ that gathered fruit, vegetables, potatoes, and yams – and the occasional turkey, goose, or chicken. Nothing should be taken without an officer’s permission and he would have to answer for any irregularities committed by his men. Once an area came under British control, furthermore, foraging would cease altogether and local civilians were to be encouraged to haul their produce to market for sale to the occupying force. ³⁵

Clinton penned no response to Ferguson and André’s papers, but cryptic notes scratched on the back of André’s manuscript indicate that copies went to Lord Cornwallis, his second-in-command, and subsequently Benedict Arnold – following the latter’s defection from the Continental Army and appointment as a British brigadier general. ³⁶

Clinton kept André’s recommendations in mind when he conducted the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, which culminated in that city’s surrender on 12 May 1780. ³⁷ His army landed on Simmons Island southwest of Charleston on 11 February, and the following day headquarters distributed orders that could have been written by André himself, who was now a major and the commander-in-chief’s deputy adjutant general. Clinton followed the customary exhortation to his officers to prevent marauding with this pledge: ‘Orders are given to Collect Cattle as Speedily as possible and his Excellency Promises that the Soldiers shall receive fresh meat as often as the Country will admit of it and in a Large’er proportion of the Commisary’s usual Rations.^’38

Two days later, Clinton named two officers to be commissaries of captures and the sergeant major of the 7th Foot (Royal Fusiliers) assistant commissary of captured cattle. He further directed that whenever fresh meat was issued the ration should be a generous one-and-a-half pounds per man, which was 50 percent more than the usual daily allotment. On days that the troops fed on captured provisions, any stoppages (aside from bread) would go to a charitable fund to benefit the soldiery. Clinton subsequently named a committee headed by a major, three regimental paymasters, and an assistant commissary general to determine how to dispose of the money owed to the lower ranks from captured rations. The implementation of the new system brightened the mood of the army. ³⁹

Clinton’s higher-ranking subordinates did their best to prevent their commands from engaging in lawless conduct. Major General Alexander Leslie decreed that every foraging and rooting party had to be led by an officer, ‘who is to be answerable for the Regular behavior of his men’. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Abercromby, the commander of an elite light infantry brigade, addressed the same warning to his officers and promised that soldiers found guilty of marauding ‘will be punished with the utmost Severity’. ⁴⁰ On 3 March, a general court martial found three grenadiers from the 37th Foot guilty of leaving camp, without orders, to plunder a house. The court sentenced the trio to a thousand lashes each. Private Harry McDonough, a Loyalist light dragoon from the British Legion, went on trial in mid-April for his life for indulging in both rape and plunder. ⁴¹

Not only did Clinton and his subordinates punish marauding soldiers, but they also strove to control a burgeoning number of new allies who sought protection under the British flag. Long before the Charleston campaign, American slaves had come to equate the sight of a red regimental coat with freedom. As soon as Clinton commenced operations in South Carolina, his troops found themselves engulfed by a wave of black freedom seekers. Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, Clinton’s cavalry commander, testified

…that all the negroes, men, women, and children, upon the approach of any detachment of the King’s troops, thought themselves absolved from all respect to their American masters, and entirely released from servitude: Influenced by this idea, they quitted the plantations, and followed the army. ⁴²

Rather than permit this swelling mass of fugitives to subsist by pillaging, Clinton and his subordinates provided them with more orderly means of survival. British commanders transmitted runaway slaves or those seized from Rebel estates to the commissary of captures for distribution as labourers in the army’s public departments, which kept many out of trouble. Three hundred and seventeen blacks were working for the quartermaster general, engineers, commissary general, commissary of captures, Royal Artillery, provost martial, and the army’s general hospital by 17 May. Others found employment as servants for various officers or as manual labourers for different regiments. Clinton sent the remainder to work on plantations abandoned by recalcitrant Rebels. ⁴³

Clinton sailed from Charleston for his main base at New York on 5 June 1780, leaving Lord Cornwallis with 5,278 regulars to complete the pacification of South Carolina, followed by the conquest of North Carolina and the invasion of Virginia. ⁴⁴ A string of setbacks ultimately convinced Cornwallis that South Carolina could never be secure unless he first occupied North Carolina. As the earl finalized his plans to head north, he gave serious thought to shielding the civilian populace from the consequences of leading 3,224 troops into its midst. North Carolina contained a considerable number of Loyalists, and he wanted them to flock to his army, not flee from it. ⁴⁵

Eschewing Clinton’s emphasis on self-interest, Cornwallis appealed to his officers’ sense of duty. On 28 January 1781, he announced:

As the Object of our march is to Assist & Support those Loyalist’s in North Carolina, who have ever been distinguish’d by their Fidelity to their king and their Attachment to Great Britain. It is needless to point out to the Officers the Necessity of preserving those Oppress’d People from Suffring Violence by the Hands from whom they are taught to look for protection.

In the weeks that followed, Cornwallis repeatedly called on all ranks to follow their nobler instincts. ⁴⁶

Tarleton’s crushing defeat at Cowpens on 17 January 1781 deprived Cornwallis of many of his light infantry. To render his army mobile enough to overtake the opposing Continental force under Major General Nathanael Greene, the earl destroyed most of his wheeled transport, along with the baggage and supplies it carried. This decision forced his men to live off the countryside for more than two months. It also resulted in lengthy interruptions in the daily liquor ration that the earl deemed essential to the troops’ morale. With characteristic optimism, Cornwallis tried buttressing his followers’ spirits with rhetoric:

Lord Cornwallis has so Often experience’d the Zeal & good Will of the Troops that he has not the Smallest doubt that the Off^rs. & Soldiers will most Cheerfully Submit to the Ill Conveniences Which must Naturally attend a War so remote from Water Carriage & the Magazines of the Army. ⁴⁷

Unfortunately, Cornwallis’s route led through what one of his sergeants called ‘a country thinly inhabited’ that afforded too few opportunities for successful foraging. Hunger stalked the British, Hessian, and Loyalist soldiers nearly every step of the way, and soon the army was haemorrhaging men who broke ranks or sneaked out of camp in search of something to fill their bellies. Not all of them returned. Some turned deserter, while others were taken prisoner. ⁴⁸

Mounting civilian complaints prompted Cornwallis to emit a torrent of orders that denounced housebreaking, plunder, vandalism, and arson, and these directives were read repeatedly at the head of each regiment. The earl especially appealed to his brigade and regimental commanders ‘to put a Stop to this Licentiousness, which must Inevitably bring Disgrace & Ruin on his Majesty’s Service’. He also assured his troops, ‘All possible means are taken to collect the Brandy & Whiskey in the Country & to issue it to the Soldiers.’ Finally, he declared to his subordinates that their devotion to king and country obligated them to forswear marauding lest they squander the results of any battlefield victories by driving the civilian populace into the hands of the Rebels. ⁴⁹

Exasperated by the blasé attitude some British officers exhibited toward depredations, the earl addressed them in a harsh tone on 6 February:

Any Off^r. Who looks on with Indifference & does not do his Utmost to prevent the Shamefull Marauding Which has of late prevailed in the Army Will be Consider’d in a more Criminal light than the persons who Commit those Scandalous Crimes, which must bring disgrace & Ruin on his Majesty’s Arms.

He went so far as to hint that unless the officers stopped their men from creating havoc, he would be forced to resort to capital punishment. The earl personally assisted some aggrieved civilians in identifying two Loyalist cavalrymen guilty of robbery and rape, who he promptly executed. To deter the lower ranks from sneaking into a Moravian town to scavenge for liquor, Cornwallis threatened on 9 February to have his commissaries cease requisitioning alcohol to substitute for the daily rum ration. ⁵⁰

Brigadier General Charles O’Hara of the Brigade of Guards tried every means in his power to enforce his commander’s orders. He scheduled frequent roll calls to intimidate would-be stragglers and marauders. He subjected his Guardsmen to knapsack inspections. Judging soldiers’ wives ‘to be the Source of the most infamous plundering’, O’Hara ordered inventories listing the amount of clothing owned by each female. If a subsequent inspection uncovered an unauthorized acquisition, the woman’s contraband property would be burned in front of her company. O’Hara further required women to witness the summary punishment of convicted Guardsmen. A pleased Cornwallis praised the dutiful Irishman: ‘His whole attention is paid to the care of his Brigade, which under his Auspices, is become the Pattern of good Order, attention, & Subordination, to the rest of the Army.’ ⁵¹

Judging from the detailed records kept by Moravian settlers in the North Carolina piedmont, Cornwallis prevented the greater part of his army from deteriorating into an unbearable presence. The earl sent light dragoons ahead to give communities advance notice of his needs, and his commissaries conducted requisitioning in a businesslike fashion, dispensing certificates for what they took. At Bethabara (modern Winston-Salem), Cornwallis posted strong guards around the town tavern and ‘still-house’, and forbade his passing troops from breaking ranks to spare the inhabitants needless trouble. The Moravians found Cornwallis and his officers invariably courteous. Some of the latter even apologized for depriving civilians of their property. While individual Redcoats, officers’ servants, and camp followers turned predator, they did not despoil or terrorize the Moravians nearly as much as Rebel citizen soldiers, whose conduct prompted one pastor to speak of the ‘mob violence of a released hungry militia’. ⁵²

Cornwallis also devised regulations to prevent the increasing numbers of fugitive slaves drawn to his column from becoming a scourge to their former masters and other civilians. He placed strict limits on how many black servants each officer could employ and held the latter accountable for the former’s conduct. Slaves attached to the army were to have their clothing marked ‘with the Number of the Reg^t. or the Initial Letters of the Department that Employs them’. Unmarked blacks would not be permitted to accompany the army on the march. He later required runaways to carry tickets bearing their new masters’ names and the signatures of commanders to whose units they belonged. Months before Cornwallis launched his offensive, he instructed his deputy provost martial ‘to Execute on the Spot any Negro Who is found quitting the Line of March in search of plunder’, and he prescribed the same penalty after he learned on 5 February that some armed blacks following his army were fanning out to rob white civilians. While Cornwallis granted liberty to freedom-seeking blacks, he did not tolerate violent excess. ⁵³

General Greene, the commander of the Continental Army’s Southern Department, eventually offered Cornwallis battle at Guilford Courthouse on 15 March 1781. The British prevailed after a bitter fight, but the results amounted to a strategic defeat. Of the 1,924 British officers and men engaged, 506 were killed or wounded and 26 went missing. Cornwallis had also lost 100 officers and men killed or wounded to erratic militia harassment during his march across North Carolina. ⁵⁴ Rather than risk his crippled, famished, and exhausted army on an overland march back to South Carolina, he decided to strike at Greene’s primary base of supplies in Virginia. ⁵⁵

Earlier in the year, Clinton had dispatched two small amphibious British armies to Virginia to assist Cornwallis by menacing the enemy’s logistical structure. Brigadier General Benedict Arnold sailed from Sandy Hook with nearly 1,800 troops on 21 December 1780, rapidly ascended the James River and captured the state capital on 5 January 1781. He then descended the James to establish a fortified naval base at Portsmouth. Leading a second contingent of 2,000 men, Major General William Phillips appeared off the mouth of the Chesapeake at the end of March, and took command of the combined British force. Phillips raided up the James River in the second half of April, capturing Petersburg and destroying the Virginia State Navy before typhoid fever killed him on 13 May. ⁵⁶

Arnold’s troops had embarked at New York with instructions summarizing John André’s foraging policy. Officers leading detachments to seize cavalry horses, cattle, and other provisions from Virginia’s inhabitants were ‘to give Certificates of the same to the Owners Specifying the number, age, colour size & Quality of the former and Quantity of the Cattle’ before delivering their captures to the quartermaster general’s and commissary general’s departments. Loyal subjects could apply to those officials for reimbursement for their requisitioned property. Cattle taken from Virginians in arms against the crown would earn the troops the same cash incentives that they had received during the Siege of Charleston. When Arnold took control of Richmond, he issued a proclamation inviting the owners of items of potential value to the Rebel war effort – such as tobacco, rum, wine, sugar, molasses, sail cloth, and coffee – to voluntarily deliver such goods to him for payment at half their market value. The ever-conscientious Lieutenant Colonel Abercromby, who arrived at Portsmouth with General Phillips, warned his light infantry brigade that Sir Henry Clinton had made a solemn promise to protect the inhabitants of that part of Virginia. He exhorted his elite soldiers to set a good example to the rest of the army and vowed to impose heavy penalties on any man committing depredations. ⁵⁷

Phillips was probably Sir Henry Clinton’s closest friend, and he scrupulously observed the latter’s foraging policy in Virginia. ⁵⁸ Before he advanced up the James, he had these orders read to his force on 18 April 1781:

Maj^r Gen Phillips flatters himself that during the present expedition he shall never have cause to complain of any ill behavior of the Troops when moveing thro’ the country, and he hopes he shall not have any Occasion to enforce the Authority invested in him of punishing with great Severity persons offending against his positive orders as well as against the Laws which Govern Armys. There is not to bee any moroding, or Plundering the Inhabitants of the country, and their property is to be protected, even those who may have [carried] Arms against his Majesty’s Troops are not to Suffer in their property unless thought necessary, when proper Officers will be ordered to see it executed. Such inhabitants as may be found at their respecting dwellings are to be suffered to remain quiet and unmolested. ⁵⁹

These precautions had some effect. The Quaker Robert Pleasants of Curles Neck Plantation near Richmond reported that senior British ‘officers declar’d they did not mean to destroy private property, & disavow the plundering of the Soldiers, yet I believe it is a[l]most impossible wholly to prevent it’. The only property that Pleasants mentioned losing, however, consisted of two slaves – who probably joined the invaders voluntarily – and a fine horse, which made a useful addition to Arnold’s cavalry. He also listed slaves and horses as the major losses sustained by his neighbours. Pleasants confided to two correspondents that any unauthorized plundering derived from ‘the Assistance if not the instigation of the Negroes’. In the aftermath of Phillips’ waterborne thrust to Petersburg, the Reverend John Carroll, a Roman Catholic priest destined to become his church’s first American bishop, conceded that British ‘soldiers were not expressly allowed to plunder’. ⁶⁰

Cornwallis united with the different elements of Arnold’s army between 18 and 20 May 1781 and took personal charge of operations in the Chesapeake Bay area. The arrival of reinforcements from New York a few days later gave him a combined force of roughly 8,000 effectives, which would enable him to pursue Clinton’s raiding strategy on a grander scale than ever before. ⁶¹ As the earl stood poised to unleash this host on Virginia, he again beseeched his officers and men

to reflect that the great object of His Majesty’s Forces in this Country is to protect & secure His Majesty’s loyal & faithful Subjects and to encourage & Assist them in Arming & opposing the Tyranny & Oppression of the Rebels: He therefore recommends it to them in the Strongest Manner to treat with kindness all those who have sought protection in the British Army. ⁶²

As Cornwallis traversed the Virginia countryside through that spring and into the summer, he had his aides write a succession of directives to counter misconduct, regulate the swarms of runaway slaves seeking British protection, and facilitate the orderly acquisition of horses for his cavalry and mounted infantry. ⁶³ On 5 June he again warned, ‘All private foraging is again forbid & the outposts are not to suffer any foraging party to pass without a Commissioned Officer.’ ⁶⁴ The earl demonstrated his seriousness on 3 June by executing two Loyalist light dragoons from the Queen’s Rangers for rape. Six days later, he summoned a captain from each brigade and a subaltern and 20 enlisted men from each battalion to witness the executions of a private from the 23^rd Foot (Royal Welch Fusiliers) and two from the 76^th Foot (MacDonald’s Highlanders) for desertion. ⁶⁵ He even posted a proclamation encouraging paroled Virginia Rebels ‘to seize, & Bring to head Quarters all stragglers from the British Army, particularly those whom they may detect in committing depredations & Robberies in the Country, that they may be punished’. ⁶⁶

Several of Cornwallis’s key subordinates energetically backed their commander’s efforts to undermine Virginia’s economic ability to buttress the rebel war effort without sullying the British Army’s honour. ‘Any Soldier absent from Camp without leave in writing from the Officer Commanding his Company will be punished as a Maroader,’ Major George Hewett cautioned the 43rd Foot. He also cracked down on a favourite soldier trick – using eager-to-please, black refugees for illicit purposes: ‘Any Man found Guilty of sending the Negroes … plundering or Maroding the smallest Article from the Houses of the Inhabitants will be severely punished.’ To simplify supervisory duties, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Dundas prohibited the three regiments constituting his brigade from dispatching their own foraging parties into the countryside. As of 31 May, Dundas sent out one foraging party at a time drawn from the entire brigade and ‘under the Care of An officer’. Lieutenant Colonel Abercromby required all fit light infantry officers to sleep in camp, where they could better monitor their men, rather than in nearby houses. Abercromby’s 2nd Battalion stipulated that company orderly sergeants immediately provide their adjutant with the names of all soldiers found absent at roll calls. Charles Stedman, Cornwallis’s American-born commissary, distributed certificates to co-operative civilians for confiscated cattle, as did officers commanding foraging parties. ⁶⁷

When all is said and done, did all these admonitions, threats, and punishments make any difference to British efforts to pacify the Southern colonies? In South Carolina, Continental authorities provided just enough support to enable a coterie of determined partisan leaders to keep the embers of resistance from being completely snuffed out. Sir Henry Clinton fanned those embers into an inferno with his refusal to permit ex-Rebels to sit out the war as neutrals, setting off an internecine civil war in which both sides resorted to atrocities and despoliation. Exploiting the chaos, Continental forces eventually reclaimed the countryside from their foes. Cornwallis abandoned any idea of conquering North Carolina after his pyrrhic victory at Guilford Courthouse and transferred his operations to Virginia. Judging from the repeated orders that the earl had to issue against it, he never completely stamped out plundering by his army. Nonetheless, the offences Cornwallis’s men committed never attained a level of frequency and ferocity sufficient to arouse the same kind of militia uprising that rocked British authority in New Jersey during the winter of 1776–77. The evidence indicates, moreover, that the earl made inroads against marauding after he reached Virginia. ⁶⁸

The area surrounding Portsmouth, which served as the main British base in Virginia during the first seven months of 1781, witnessed noteworthy progress in the restoration of royal rule. Lieutenant Colonel Matthew von Fuchs, then Portsmouth’s commandant, noted one half-hearted effort by Rebel militia to surprise a picket post half a mile outside his lines on May 7. ‘They fired a few shots,’ he related, ‘and then ran back to Smithfield without doing any harm.’ The unit diary of the Hessian Fusilier Regiment Erbprinz recorded no attacks on its lines, outposts, and patrols from April 1, the day it joined the Portsmouth garrison, until its evacuation four months later. ⁶⁹ During much of that time, local farmers conducted a brisk trade with the occupying forces. ‘We had no shortage of provisions here at New Portsmouth because the inhabitants brought them, mostly fresh and plentiful, into camp,’ claimed Corporal Johann Conrad Döhla of an Ansbach-Bayreuth regiment stationed in the town. The resulting commercial prosperity influenced the political sentiments of many Virginians living within easy reach of Portsmouth and Norfolk. As Corporal Döhla described the local inhabitants in his diary on 13 July: ‘Toward us they were rather complaisant and showed more respect than in other provinces. Especially, the Virginia females showed greater affection for the Germans.’ Two weeks earlier, Josiah Parker, an acting colonel in the Virginia militia, informed Governor Thomas Nelson, Jr.: ‘Princess Anne & Norfolk [counties], and all Nancemond below Suffolk has taken protection from the Enemy, and are very dangerous enemies.’ Parker highlighted the area’s altered political climate by reporting that five local Loyalists had ambushed and mortally wounded a Virginia officer trying to instigate a guerrilla campaign in their neighbourhood. ⁷⁰

Other factors accounted for the failure of the largest, richest, and most populous state among the rebellious thirteen to effectively resist the British invaders. Arnold, Phillips, and Cornwallis brought war to the doorsteps of a people grown weary from six years of sacrifice. The concentration of a large and seemingly permanent land force with ample naval support in the heart of the Old Dominion further undermined Rebel morale. On top of that, the enemy’s mobility, his ability to strike any target he fancied, and the multitudes of slaves who fled to the British paralysed the militia and contributed to a growing sense of defeatism. ⁷¹

Cornwallis took steps to replicate the state of affairs around Portsmouth after he transferred his base to Yorktown. Upon occupying that river port, the earl posted convalescent soldiers as safeguards at every house. On 8 August 1781, he invited the inhabitants of Elizabeth City, York, and Warwick Counties ‘to bring to Market the Provisions that they can spare, for which they will be paid reasonable Prices in Ready Money’. Cornwallis and his officers followed up by directing the outposts and pickets covering Yorktown’s approaches to refrain from meddling with civilians carrying produce for sale. ⁷²

Just as Cornwallis’s Virginia experiment began making headway, it came to an abrupt close. Bombarded by contradictory orders and petty criticisms from Sir Henry Clinton, the earl withdrew his field army from an ideal position on the Williamsburg Neck and consolidated it with the Portsmouth garrison at Yorktown. Unwittingly, Cornwallis had placed his forces in a trap. A French fleet appeared off Chesapeake Bay at the end of August, severing the earl’s lifeline to the sea. George Washington seized this opportunity, pulled out of his lines around New York, and reached Virginia with a strong Franco-American army before Clinton could react. The allied forces appeared before Yorktown and subjected its garrison to an expertly managed siege that forced Cornwallis to surrender on 19 October 1781. With that defeat, Great Britain lost the will to recover its North American colonies, and the subject of sustainable, non-inflammatory foraging became moot. ⁷³

Recent scholarship faults George III’s generals for resorting to combat as their primary tool to quell the rebellion. ⁷⁴ In the eyes of many historians, Lord Cornwallis epitomized that approach. Stung by the defeat at Cowpens, he launched a reckless attempt to exterminate Nathanael Greene’s ramshackle army, which condemned his troops to a ruinous winter pursuit and an assault on an enemy occupying a strong defensive position. ⁷⁵

Cornwallis undoubtedly relished battle, but he also realised that the colonies would not remain within the British Empire unless their inhabitants willed it. He disagreed with Sir Henry Clinton’s decision that former South Carolina Rebels who had consented to live as peaceful neutrals be compelled to bear arms for the crown. While the South supposedly lay at the earl’s feet in late June 1780, he drafted these sage remarks at Charleston:

Nothing can in my opinion be so prejudicial to the affairs of Great Britain as a want of discrimination. You will certainly lose your friends by it, and as certainly not gain over your enemies. There is but one way of inducing the violent rebels to become our friends, and that is by convincing them it is in their interest to do so. ⁷⁶

This explains why Cornwallis warned his officers in both North Carolina and Virginia that the king’s troops could not afford to play the part of haughty conquerors. Unless his army treated loyal, neutral, and even disaffected American civilians with reasonable self-restraint, Cornwallis knew that ‘the Blood of the Brave & deserving Soldiers will be shed in vain & it will not be even in the power of Victory to give Success’. ⁷⁷ He hardly resembled the heartless barbarian depicted by the enemy propaganda that opened this article.

In Virginia, Cornwallis briefly came close to realizing the dream of provisioning his army without impoverishing co-operative civilians. Virginia’s abundance guaranteed the king’s troops a stable supply of fresh food, and the promise of British gold induced a growing number of farmers to do business with the invaders. At Portsmouth, and then at Yorktown, the marketplace supplanted confiscation as the means for sustaining the earl’s army. Whether Cornwallis could have built on this foundation to extend his control over a substantial portion of Virginia is a matter of conjecture. The fact remains, however, that he had made a start.