Beschreibung:

WASHINGTON, GEORGE, President . Letter signed ("G: Washington") as Commander-in-Chief, Continental Army, to Major [Benjamin] Tallmadge, text in the hand of Washington's aide, Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., Head Quarters, New Windsor, 24 June 1781. One page, folio, edges untrimmed, carefully reinforced from the verso at central horizontal fold without loss, the paper and ink in very good condition, verso docketed by Tallmadge showing receipt on 25 June. WAITING FOR ROCHAMBEAU: WASHINGTON TO HIS SPY-MASTER "I have duly received your Favor of the 19th instant, with its Inclosure. Be so good as to write me p[e]r the Chain of Expresses immediately on the Receipt of this, and inform me when the Count de Rochambeau leaves Hartford; by what Rout he intends to come on and when he may be expected at my Head Quarters, which he will find at Peekskill...." A letter written at a moment of great uncertainty. Lieutenant General Rochambeau was Commander of the some 5,500 French troops sent to aid the American cause; he and his men, on French Naval vessels, arrived off Newport, Rhode Island in July 1780 and were immediately blockaded by a British flotilla. By May 1781, Admiral de Grasse and another French naval force were on their way to America, but their destination remained a tantalizing secret. Washington and Rochambeau held an important conference on May 21-22 near Hartford, Connecticut to map out a strategy, in spite of the uncertainty of de Grasse's future role. They formulated "the Wethersfield Plan," which called for a joint American-French attempt to retake New York from the British. Even if it failed, it might divert enemy forces from the sorely pressed American troops under Greene and Lafayette in the South. Cornwallis, against orders, marched from the Carolinas into Virginia, increasing pressure on that already ravaged state. Unfortunately, on June 9, a copy of the Wethersfield Plan fell into the hands of General Clinton, forcing the virtual abandonment of the New York campaign as originally conceived. On 9 June, the French infantry disembarked from their vessels at Newport and began the march southward to effect a junction with Washington's army in the Hudson Highlands (a movement that Washington's biographer, D.S. Freeman, terms "The Great Concentration"). By June 24, the date of the present letter, Washington had concentrated his forces and headquarters at Peekskill, on the north side of the Hudson, in anticipation of joint military operations in early July. For the next month, Washington and Rochambeau's combined forces mounted probing attacks on the British defenses around New York. These acheived little and Washington finally came to the reluctant conclusion that only extended seige operations had any chance of success against that stronghold. In early July Washington had received news that Cornwallis and his army were dug in at Yorktown, Virginia and showed no immediate signs of moving from that narrow peninsula. Then, in early August, Washington learned that the French flotilla under Admiral de Grasse, 29 ships plus some 3,000 soldiers, were sailing not to New England, but to the Chesapeake. The stage was thus set for the "Great Concentration," the daring march from the Hudson to Virginia, and the strategic masterstroke of the Yorktown siege, which effectively brought the armed struggle for American independence to a successful conclusion. Benjamin Tallmadge Jr. (1754-1835) graduated from Yale, and from 1776 served with the Connecticut militia at Long Island, White Plains, Brandywine, Germantown and other early battles of the war and was commended by Congress and his Commander-in-Chief for a successful raid on Fort St. George, Long Island, 22 November 1780. His principal responsibility, though, during this period, was the discreet management of Washington's secret service, particularly the network of spies and informants throughout British-held New York, Staten Island and Long Island. Tallmadge was stationed at North Castle