Battle of Chesapeake Bay
September, 1781
And how the English could have easily won the war back in '76 on day one!
September, 1781
And how the English could have easily won the war back in '76 on day one!
(part of chapter 4 of the book Elijah, Eliseus and the NEWEST Testament )
With regards to the Werewolves of London …
At the start of the war a one Admiral Barrington of the British Navy tried to convince the rest of the English that the war with the colonies could easily be won in just a few months time by simply sending a SINGLE British fleet down to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and preventing any further shipping in or out. The colonies would be then divided; cut almost in half, and a third of it's rivers bottled up. A commercial stranglehold. And with New York harbor already in British hands the war would have been over with very quickly. And probably without a single shot being fired!
But the Crown and it's Admiralty simply ignored the poor fellow and insisted on taking Philadelphia instead. This involved stationing a massive fleet in New York harbor to serve as nothing more than a supply depot - rendering it otherwise useless - for their infantry which was to march across New Jersey in quest of this otherwise unimportant, but by it's own estimation accredited, Pennsylvania outpost. It was to have had a crushing 'symbolic' effect on the rebels. But as it turns out none of the rebels even - cared. And to this day nothing's changed.
All of this so far has been dutifully documented by military historians and so this is nothing new. But also …
A Virginia estate owner, realizing at the outbreak of events that the obvious winning strategy might by some strange quirk of fate be accidentally adopted by the normally astute but in this case completely inept English and that this would have made everything he owned easy pickings for the new occupying 'peace keepers' ordered his staff to, just in case, hastily construct a secret underground vault. Unfortunately his 'staff' then all mysteriously disappeared for security reasons!
Anyway, it's still there. So what's in it?
And sure enough in '81 the winning strategy actually did almost succeed by sheer happenstance when a British fleet commanded by a one Admiral Graves was dispatched from New York to re-supply Cornwallis who was trapped on the bay's western shore. If they had succeeded in reaching him they would have immediately seen the merits of just planting themselves there for good and they then would have still EASILY won. There was still time.
But by chance they were met right at the bay's entrance by a French fleet commanded by an Admiral de Grasse which was itself just leaving and headed for open sea. A very short (short because it was fortuitously very late in the day) battle ensued. It was a draw, because there wasn't enough time for either side to be decisive. And yet this was, as it turns out, and as most historians agree, the most decisive battle of the war (and not a so-called American involved) because the two fleets were then forced to wait three days before they could tussle again due to a THREE DAY DEAD CALM which auspiciously and suddenly blanketed the seas. None of the ships could move.
Both fleets helplessly drifted 100 miles southward. And when the winds finally returned the French were the first to react and they won the race back to the bay's entrance where, lo and behold, a second French fleet commanded by an Admiral de Barras was just arriving!
“Timing is everything!” – Providence
The British Admiral, outnumbered now 2 to 1, high tailed it back to New York, supplies and all.
THE WAR WAS OVER !!!