Henry Clinton (American War of Independence)

Sir Henry Clinton
16 April 1730–23 December 1795 (aged 65)
Portrait attributed to Andrea Soldi, painted circa 1762–1765
Place of birth	Newfoundland
Place of death	London
Allegiance	Great Britain
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1751-1793
Rank	General
Commands held	Commander-in-Chief, North America
Battles/wars	Seven Years' War American War of Independence
Awards	Knight of the Bath
Other work	Member of Parliament

General Sir Henry Clinton KB (16 April 1730 – 23 December 1795) was a British army officer and politician, best known for his service as a general during the American War of Independence, during most of which he was the British Commander-in-Chief in North America. In addition to his military service, due to the influence of the 2nd Duke of Newcastle, he was a Member of Parliament and the Governor of Gibraltar.

He came from a noble family that could trace its lineage to 1066 and had a long history of service to the Crown. The son of an admiral of the fleet, Sir Henry Clinton had two sons who continued the family tradition of high command: General Sir William Henry Clinton (1769–1846), and Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton (1771–1829).

Early life

Clinton was born in Newfoundland, where his father, George Clinton, was serving as commodore-governor.^[1] The younger Clinton grew up mostly in New York, where his father was Royal Governor from 1741^[2] until 1753.^[3] Both George and Henry benefited from the patronage of the Dukes of Newcastle; George's promotion to flag rank and his appointment as Governor of New York were arranged by Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (he was George's brother's brother-in-law), and Henry's career was furthered by the first Duke's successors.^[4]

Seven Years War

When he was around 18, Henry Clinton served in the New York militia. In 1751, Henry went to Britain and began his career in the British Army, rising in rank with commissions purchased by his family. He was commissioned as a captain in the Coldstream Guards, and by 1758 had risen to be a lieutenant colonel in the 1st Foot Guards, which was later renamed the Grenadier Guards. Between 1760 and 1762, late in the Seven Years' War, Clinton distinguished himself as an aide-de-camp to Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, and he was promoted to full colonel in 1762. After the peace, he received the command of a regiment of foot. Clinton was promoted to major general in 1772,^[5] and in the same year he obtained a seat in Parliament through the influence of his cousin Henry Pelham-Clinton, the Duke of Newcastle. He remained a Member of Parliament until 1784, first for Boroughbridge and subsequently for Newark-on-Trent.^[6]

American War of Independence

In March 1775, in response to the need for additional military forces in the restive Thirteen Colonies, King George III dispatched reinforcements to those colonies under Clinton and fellow Major-Generals William Howe and John Burgoyne, to strengthen the British position in Boston. On June 17, with the British Army having been besieged in Boston since April, Clinton was one of the British field commanders in the Battle of Bunker Hill. This assault to drive the rebels from the heights north of Boston was successful, but only at the heavy cost of over 1,000 British casualties.^[7] Fearing that a similar situation would arise to the south of the harbour, upon Dorchester Heights, Clinton strongly advocated that British forces secure them against rebel occupation, but his warnings went unheeded by Howe, the senior officer in Boston. In January 1776, Clinton was sent south with a small fleet and 1,500 men to assess military opportunities in the Carolinas. During his absence, in March, his fears were realized when the Dorchester Heights were occupied and fortified by the rebels, causing the British to retreat to Halifax, Nova Scotia.^[6]

John Trumbull's The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Clinton is in the center background, bareheaded and holding a sword.

Portrait of Sir Henry Clinton

In June, Clinton led an attack on Fort Sullivan near Charleston, South Carolina. It was a humiliating failure, and his campaign in the Carolinas was called off. The attack, made with the co-operation of the Royal Navy, failed because Clinton badly under-estimated the strength of the American forces in Charleston. The naval commander, Sir Peter Parker, engaged in an abortive attack on Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island, which, being far more heavily fortified than anticipated, badly damaged the British squadron. Also present at the battle were Charles Cornwallis.^[6][8]

Clinton and his twenty-five ships rejoined the main fleet to participate in General Howe's August 1776 assault on New York City. Clinton presented arguments for launching an attack up the Hudson River, but these were dismissed by General Howe.Clinton was also responsible for the night flanking on the attack upon Brooklyn, this attack was carried on with success. After the British had established themselves at Gravesend on Long Island, Clinton's new plan of campaign was followed and proved a great tactical success in the Battle of Long Island, for which he was made a lieutenant general and created a Knight of the Order of the Bath.

In December, Howe sent Clinton, in command of 6,000 men, to occupy Newport, Rhode Island, which he soon accomplished.^[6]

Commander in Chief

In May of 1778, after the failure of John Burgoyne's Saratoga Campaign, Clinton replaced Howe as Commander-in-Chief for North America. He assumed command in Philadelphia. France had by this time formally entered the war on the American side, and because of this Clinton was ordered by his government to send 5,000 of his troops to the Caribbean, which forced him to withdraw from Philadelphia. He conducted a skillful retreat from there to New York, fighting a rearguard action against Washington's army at Monmouth on June 28. Having thus concentrated his forces, for a time he pursued a policy of making forays from there. Before the year's end, though, he regained the initiative for the British by sending an expedition south, to strike at Georgia. This force took Savannah in December, and by early 1779 it had gained control of the hinterland.^[6]

General Sir Henry Clinton K.B. Commander-in-Chief of British troops in America. Published between 1770 and 1780.

This campaign in Georgia presumed strong silent Loyalist support that would appear as soon as the British were present in strength. The notion that the South was more likely to be friendly to British forces had been entertained by the American Secretary, George Germain for much of the war to date, a notion fed by Loyalist exiles in London.^[9] While the South on the whole was less receptive to the concept of independence from Britain, which provided the market for most of their plantation goods, the expected wave of public support for the arrival of the British troops never materialised, leaving Clinton and his subordinates isolated. For much of the rest of the war in the South, British commanders attempted to mobilise Loyalist support, but the results were never as helpful as they had hoped.^[8]

By late 1779, having called in troops from Newport, Clinton had assembled a strong force for the next step in this strategy, an invasion of South Carolina. Clinton took personal command of this campaign, and the task force with 14,000 men sailed south from New York at the end of the year. By early 1780, Clinton had brought Charleston under siege. In May, working together with Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot, he forced the surrender of the city, with its garrison of 5,000, in a stunning and serious defeat for the rebel cause. It was during the siege and capture of Charleston that Clinton's inability to co-operate with equal ranking officers started to become more evident. Arbuthnot and Clinton did not work together well, and this feud was to last until the end of the war with disastrous results for the unity of the British high command.^[10][11]

Clinton then returned to New York, leaving 8,000 British troops in the southern theatre under the command of General Cornwallis, his second-in-command.^[12] From New York, he oversaw the campaign in the South, and his correspondence to Cornwallis through the War showed an active interest in the affairs of his southern army.^[13] However, as the campaign progressed, he grew further and further away from his subordinate. As the campaign drew to a close, the correspondence became more and more acrimonious. Part of this may be due to George Germain, whose correspondence with Cornwallis may have convinced the junior officer to start disregarding the orders of his superior and consider himself to be an independent command.^[14]

In 1782, after fighting in the North American theater ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Clinton was replaced as Commander-in-Chief by Sir Guy Carleton, and he returned to England.

Letters from General Sir Henry Clinton during the Revolutionary War can be found in the political papers of his cousin, Henry Pelham-Clinton, in the Newcastle (Clumber) Collection held at Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham.

Later career

In 1783, he attempted to clear his name by publishing a Narrative of the Campaign of 1781 in North America which was met with outrage by Lord Cornwallis. In addition to writing his narrative, he resumed his seat in Parliament until 1784.^[15]

Not much is known about what Sir Henry did from 1784 until he was re-elected to Parliament in 1790 for Launceston, a pocket borough controlled by his cousin Newcastle. Three years later, in October 1793, Clinton was promoted to full general. The following July he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar, but he died at Portland Place before he was able to assume that post.^[16]

Legacy

Sir Henry Clinton held the command in America for four years, ending in disaster and defeat; his name was forever to be linked with the downfall of British control of the colonies. Historians have since shifted more blame onto Cornwallis.^[6] Clinton published a Narrative of the war, in an attempt to clear his reputation. He was, wrote Major Wemyss who served under him, "an honourable and respectable officer of the German school; having served under Prince Ferdinand of Prussia and the Duke of Brunswick. Vain, open to flattery; and from a great aversion to all business not military, too often misled by aides and favourites." Colonel Sir Charles Stuart vitriolically called him "fool enough to command an army when he is incapable of commanding a troop of horse." Mackesy argues that he was "a very capable general in the field."^[17] Wemyss pointed out Clinton's real weaknesses: his interests were narrow, and he was crippled by self-distrust. In a station where political and administrative questions crowded in on the commander, he was ignorant of the realities of American opinion and exaggerated the value of loyalists. He was a difficult colleague, for he was jealous, hot tempered, and quick to take dislikes and to notice slights. At the beginning of 1778 he had been bespattering Howe with abuse; and his command was marked by endless quarrels with the admirals on the station.^[17]

See also

• List of Governors General of Canada
• Commander-in-Chief, North America
• Philipsburg Proclamation

Notes

References

• Bicheno, Hugh (April 2003). Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War. Harper Collins. ISBN 0007156251. 
• Borick, Carl P. (February 2003). A Gallant Defense: The Siege of Charleston, 1780. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1570034877. 
• Gruber, Ira D. ‘Clinton, Sir Henry (1730–1795)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, January 2008, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5681. Retrieved 24 June 2008
• Harvey, Robert (May 2002). A Few Bloody Noses: The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution. Overlook Hardcover. ISBN 1-58-567273-4. 
• Hibbert, Christopher (April 2002). Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through British Eyes. W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-39-332293-9. 
• Mackesy, Piers (1992). War for America: 1775-1783. University of Nebraska Press.  online edition
• McEvedy, C. (1988). The Penguin Atlas of North American History to 1870. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-051128-8. 
• Willcox, William (1964). Portrait of a General. Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence.. Knopf. 
• Wyatt, F. (January 1959). "Sir Henry Clinton: a Psychological Exploration in History". William and Mary Quarterly 16 (1): 3. doi:10.2307/1918848. 

Further reading

• Buchanan, John (February 1997). The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution and the Carolinas. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 047116402X. 
• Clement, R. (January-March, 1979). "The World Turned Upside down At the Surrender of Yorktown". Journal of American Folklore 92 (363): 66–67. 
• Ferling, John (October 1988). The World Turned Upside Down: The American Victory in the War of Independence. Greenwood Press. ISBN 031325527X. 
• Hyma, Albert (1957). Sir Henry Clinton and the American Revolution. Hyma. 
• McCullough, David (2005). 1776. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-2671-2. 
• Newcomb, Benjamin H., ‘Clinton, George (1686–1761)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68518. Retrieved 24 June 2008. subscription or library membership required
• Peckham, Howard (1967). The War for Independence, A Military History. University of Chicago Press. 
• Weintraub, Stanley (January 2005). Iron Tears, Rebellion in America 1775-1783. Free Press. ISBN 0-74-322687-9. 

External links

• Biography of Henry Clinton, with links to online catalogues, from Manuscripts and Special Collections at The University of Nottingham
• Archival material relating to Henry Clinton (American War of Independence) listed at the UK National Register of Archives
• 'Conflict': e-learning resource from Manuscripts and Special Collections at The University of Nottingham, including digitised images of some of Henry Clinton's letters