The French Admiral

AFTERWORD

The incident concerning the gruesome fate of the infant and mother really did happen during the Virginia campaign, though not at that time and place; Washington and Rochambeau's troops discovered the scene on their march down from Head Of Elk, Maryland. I ran across it in Barbara Tuchman's book, The First Salute, which provided me with much pertinent information about Yorktown.

The Revolution was not the clean, glorious endeavor so familiar from history books and post-office murals; it was a bloody civil war, as bitter as any armed conflict between neighbors, though never approaching the cruelties of the French Revolution.

David Fanning, 'Bloody Bill' Cunningham, and the local commander of Wilmington's garrison, Major Craig, were real people on the Loyalist side during the Revolution, and their memories are still hateful for their depredations as irregular partisans and oppressive occupiers, held in as much contempt as Quantrill's raiders or the James boys during the Civil War.

While the sentiments of the time forbade harm to be inflicted by direct action upon non-combatants, harm was inflicted to civilians nonetheless on both sides, first by the less-disciplined irregular militias and partisan rangers, then later by regular troops. And the fate of the Loyalists and their property after our Rebels had won is still a subject as closed as the fate of the Creek and Cherokee in the American version of history. I do not wish to give the impression, since my events happened in the South, that this was solely a problem limited to the Carolinas; Northern Rebels and Loyalists suffered just as much.

The British did indeed muddle their way to defeat time after time, and one begins to wonder if they ever had mixed feelings about fighting their blood-cousins in the first place. There were few examples of military genius on either side until the impartial French arrived.

The actions of Graves and Hood at the Battle of the Chesapeake and Graves' failure to relieve Cornwallis's army were the final nails in the coffin for British hopes of victory. As one historian wrote, Graves didn't really lose a single ship in the battle (although HM Terrible had to be sunk later); he didn't lose the battle, so much as called it a draw and broke it off; what he lost was America. Hood went on to great success against de Grasse, and with Adm. Sir George Bridges Rodney, won undying fame at the Saintes a year later. His hanging back at the Chesapeake has never been satisfactorily explained.

The contributions of Adm. Paul Comte de Grasse, the unseen eminence in this novel, Gen. Rochambeau, Adm. de Barras (dilatory as he was up in Newport), Gen. St. Simon and his superb artillery trains, and the regiments Touraine, Gatenois, Saintonge, Royal Deux-Ponts, and Soissons are also glossed over, and only Lafayette is given the honor due them all. But, had it not been for direct French intervention in 1781 and material and monetary support in 1778, we would still be subjects of Great Britain.

Unlike the history taught about the Revolution, mostly written by north-east educated historians, the war did not revolve around New York and the upper colonies; most of it was fought in the South, and there are many patriots who should be famous, who did more to capture our freedom than Washington or his New York State generals.

I wish to apologize to those who thought the Pennsylvania (or Kentucky) rifle won the Revolution; opposed to common myth, the piece was a light hunting rifle, stripped down to the basics, slow to load and fire due to the rifling in the barrel, which made ramming home a grease-patched ball difficult. The militia and minutemen who faced up to British regulars did not lay them out in windrows, but usually got themselves tromped and skewered by more rapid smooth-bore musket fire and fixed bayonets, just as the Chiswick brothers described. The Continental Army and the various state militias became a force to be feared in the field, equipped with French muskets and bayonets, captured British arms, or those few American-built copies of European muskets. Much money was spent and little was received from contractors who promised the moon, much like military budgets today.

My apologies to anyone whose ancestors really lived on Jenkins Neck, which only appears as described geographically and in the map; the Hayley plantation never existed except in my imagination.

I'd like to acknowledge a debt to Mrs. Diane Cobb Cashman and her lovely book, Cape Fear Adventure, An Illustrated History of Wilmington, about my favorite seaport town which figured in The French Admiral. Lastly, thanks to Jimmy Buffett for just about everything he ever wrote or recorded, which figured prominently in late-night sessions.

Dewey Lambdin

September 12, 1989

Percy Priest Lake

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Lambdin, a self-proclaimed 'Navy brat,' has been a director, writer, and producer in television and advertising in Tennessee. He spends his free time on his beloved sloop, Wind Dancer.