With Americans of Past and Present Days. J. J. Jusserand
barely covered graves, arms and legs of blacks and whites scattered here and there, most of the houses riddled with shot and devoid of window panes. … We found Lord Cornwallis in his house. His attitude evinced the nobility of his soul, his magnanimity and firmness of character. He seemed to say: I have nothing to reproach myself with, I have done my duty and defended myself to the utmost." This impression of Lord Cornwallis was general.
As to Closen's description of the town, now so quiet and almost asleep, by the blue water, amid her sand-dunes, once more torn and blood-stained during the Civil War, resting at the foot of the great marble memorial raised a hundred years later by Congress,[49] it is confirmed by Abbé Robin, who notices, too, "the quantity of human limbs which infected the air," but also, being an abbé, the number of books scattered among the ruins, many being works of piety and theological controversy, and with them "the works of the famous Pope, and translations of Montaigne's Essays, of Gil Blas, and of the Essay on Women by Monsieur Thomas," that stern essay, so popular then in America, in which society ladies were invited to fill their soul with those "sentiments of nature which are born in retreat and grow in silence."
Nothing better puts in its true light the dominant characteristic of the French sentiment throughout the war than what happened on this solemn occasion, and more shows how, with their new-born enthusiasm for philanthropy and liberty, the French were pro-Americans much more than anti-English. No trace of a triumphant attitude toward a vanquished enemy appeared in anything they did or said. Even in the surrendering, the fact remained apparent that this was not a war of hatred. "The English," writes Abbé Robin, "laid down their arms at the place selected. Care was taken not to admit sightseers, so as to diminish their humiliation." Henry Lee (Light-horse Harry), who was present, describes in the same spirit the march past: "Universal silence was observed amidst the vast concourse, and the utmost decency prevailed, exhibiting in demeanor an awful sense of the vicissitudes of human life, mingled with commiseration for the unhappy."[50]
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