Henry Clinton

An established military officer, General Henry Clinton arrived in British-occupied Boston in 1776 as the British Army's third-in-command. Following the failures of previous British Commanders-in-Chiefs, Howe assumed the position in 1778. With France's entry in the war and alliance with the United States of America, Clinton faced an increasingly global, imperial war and had fewer men left to face the rebellious colonists. Despite having early successes in the southern campaign, Clinton ultimately oversaw the British defeat in America.

Military Pedigree

Clinton possessed significant military experience before the start of the American Revolution. He grew up partially in the American colonies, where his father served as the royal governor of New York. Through his father's family, Clinton was related to the seat of the Earls of Lincoln, opening the doors to an illustrious military career. He joined the army at fifteen, and, at the age of twenty-one, he received an officer's commission into the elite infantry regiment of the Coldstream Guards.

Clinton served in Canada during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740 - 48). In the Seven Years' War, he served with his regiment in Germany under General John Manners, the marquess of Granby, who commanded British forces sent to reinforce the prince of Brunswick. Clinton was seriously wounded at the Battle of Freiberg on October 29, 1762, causing him pain thereafter. Together with Howe and George Germain, later the Secretary of State for America in Lord North's cabinet during the American Revolution, Clinton became a protégé of Field Marshal Sir John Louis Ligonier, a man credited for being the mastermind of British victory in the Seven Years' War. 

In 1767, Clinton married Harriet Carter. Together they had five children, four of whom reached adulthood. Tragically, Harriet died shortly after the birth of their fifth child.

In 1772, Clinton received promotion to the rank of major general. The death of his wife that year likely triggered his decision to travel. In 1774, he crossed Europe to Vienna and the Balkans to observe the Russo-Turkish War in Bulgaria. At the time of his appointment as third in command in the American colonies in 1775, he was an experienced officer and a veteran of warfare who had studied under some of the greatest military commanders of the era.

Clinton's personality, however, proved a barrier to forming effective relationships with fellow senior officers in the American war. Clinton's long list of character faults included hypersensitivity, shyness, jealousy, and anger. On the other hand, he was the most intellecutal of the British generals in the American colonies. He read widely on military history. He was a cautious commander, preferring to gain victories at the cost of few casualties. As a subordinate commander, he favored flanking maneuvers over frontal assaults. This preference can be seen in his attempt to alter General Thomas Gage's proposed plan of attack at Bunker Hill and his successful flanking march on the American army on Long Island. Following the removal of General Gage in September 1775, Clinton became second in command to General William Howe. Their relations were quickly strained, leading Howe to send Clinton on separate missions, starting with an expedition to the south with a fleet under Commodore Sir Peter Parker. 

1776 Southern Expedition

The Southern Expedition aimed to support loyalists in North Carolina. In addition to Clinton's forces, troops from Ireland, commanded by Charles Lord Cornwallis, were supposed to supposed to join the fight as reinforcements. However, the plans seemed doomed from the start. Upon his fleet's arrival in North Carolina, Clinton learned of the defeat of loyalists at Moores Creek Bridge. Debating on a new target, Clinton favored establishing a naval base along the coast of Virginia to disrupt American supply lines. Admiral Parker, on the other hand, favored attacking Charleston, South Carolina, and establishing a base on Sullivan's Island. Admiral Parker's plans prevailed, and the fleet sailed south.

This new expedition proved an abject failure. Susceptible to sea-sickness, General Clinton landed with over 2,000 soldiers on Long Island, adjacent to Sullivan's Island. His refusal to lodge aboard the Bristol, Parker's flagship, prevented close coordination and added communication difficulties to an already poor working relationship. The British believed Breach Inlet, the body of water between Sullivan's Island and Long Island, to be eighteen inches deep. In fact, it was several feet deep, which prevented the infantry from assisting Parker's fleet in capturing the South Carolinians' palmetto-log fortification. The Battle of Sullivan's Island, fought on June 28, 1776, ended in American victory, embarassing the might of the Royal Navy. Clinton and Parker blamed each other for the defeat. It was the last major British offensive in the south for another three years.

New York & Rhode Island Campaigns

On returning to join Howe in August 1776, Clinton boosted his reputation by distinguishing himself in the conquest of New York. At the battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776), Howe followed his suggested plan of attack, resulting in one of the great British victories of the war. Clinton personally led the encirclement of the left wing of the Continental Army. However, General Howe did not continue to follow Clinton's suggestions. Howe ignored Clinton's advice to pursue Washington's army and not to spread British garrisons too thinly across New Jersey, which later proved disastrous.

Despite some setbacks, Clinton still managed to make some military gains. In December 1776, Clinton captured Newport, Rhode Island, a desirable harbor for the Royal Navy's operations along the American coast. 

Following his success at Newport, Clinton received permission to return to England. While in England, he defended his actions at Charleston and sought to resign from serving under General Howe. King George III refused Clinton permission to resign and ordered him to return and serve under Howe. To soften the blow, King George III awarded Clinton a knighthood and membership in the Order of Bath. Although unhappy to return to the war, Sir Henry Clinton hoped that he might replace General John Burgoyne when the two armies united at Albany, severing the rebellious colonies along the Hudson River.

Commander-in-Chief, North America (1778 - 1782)

This dream never came to fruition. Upon his return, Howe assigned Clinton to command in New York as Howe took the majority of his army on a campaign to capture Philadelphia. Howe's choice did not prove successful, and his decision to not have additional forces sent to Burgoyne likely contributed to Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga. Howe's military decisions meant his days as Commander-in-Chief were numbered.

After a winter occupying Philadelphia, the British army returned to New York. During this time, Lord North's cabinet recalled Howe. Due to few alternatives, Clinton assumed the role as Commander-in-Chief. However, Lord North advised against appointing Clinton and voiced his concern of promoting a general who complained constantly and had previously wanted to resign. 

Clinton's gift for strategy came into play as Commander-in-Chief. He grasped the realities of the war and understood the difficulties facing the British. Clinton presciently feared a scenario in which the British would lack naval superiority and become vulnerable to the French. He also voiced concerns that without winning the hearts and minds of the Americans, British military efforts would be in vain. He saw little value in taking territory only to eventually abandon it, dissapointing local loyalists and leaving them exposed to reprisals. Clinton also mourned the loss of thousands of his troops, as over 5,000 troops were redirected to the Caribbean. He doubted whether Great Britain would ever have the resources to replace them.

Despite the significant drop in manpower, Clinton received orders from Lord North's cabinet to wage a new campaign in the southern colonies. This supported a theory that loyalist support would augment the fewer regular soldiers available. In December 1778, Clinton complied by sending one thousand troops to attack Georgia. Under the command of Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell, the army captured Savannah. Campbell boasted that he had "ripped one star and one stripe from the rebel flag of America."¹ The success caused Clinton's superiors in Great Britain to favor expanding the campaign and target South Carolina. Clinton recognized that concentrated efforts in the south would diminish his hopes to defeat Washington's army around New York.

British Southern Campaign & Arnold's Treason

After the British successfully defended Savannah against a combined Franco-American siege in the fall of 1779, Clinton began a major offensive against South Carolina. In late December 1779, Clinton embarked for Charleston. His force consisted of 8,700 soliders and 5,000 sailors, together with ninety transports and ten warships under the command of Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot.

A stormy voyage delayed the arrival of Clinton's force to the shores of South Carolina. Landing first at Simmons Island, known today as Seabrook Island, the British approached Charleston over land from the south. The Royal Navy sailed up into the Cooper and Ashley Rivers, contributing their naval artillery fire to the siege. The British bottled up the Continental Army, commanded by Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, on the peninsula of Charleston. Rather than evacuating the city and keeping the army intact to oppose the British, Lincoln felt pressured by civilian authorities to defend the city. After a three-month siege, the Continental Army surrendered on May 12, 1780. Ultimately, it was a tremendous victory for Clinton, particularly given his failed attack on Sullivan's Island in 1776. The Continental Army suffered its largest loss, with over 3,000 soldiers taken prisoner. 

Following his success at Charleston, Clinton moved to pacify the rest of South Carolina. On June 3, he issued a proclamation that required Americans to take a declaration of loyalty and be willing to take up arms in support of Britain. This proclamation contradicted earlier guarantees of pardons and paroles for prisoners of war. Instead of prompting submission, Clinton's proclamations backfired and served to ignite patriot resistance. Partisan militia bands under leaders like Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion grew in size, leaving the Carolinas a hornet's nest as Clinton left to return to New York. He left Lord Cornwallis in command of British forces in the south, with Charleston serving as British headquarters in the Carolinas through 1782.

Upon Clinton's return to New York, he received bad news. His plan to surprise Washington's army in their encampment at Morristown, New Jersey, had been ruined by a premature attack launched by General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, a Hessian officer left in command of New York. British hopes to end the war in a single decisive battle proved elusive

While despairing for additional reinforcements, Clinton worked on a secret plan in 1780. The American general, Benedict Arnold, appeared ready to betray the patriot cause. The betrayal and British plan to break the deadlock revolved around capturing West Point. Clinton's adjutant general, Major John André, supervised the British intelligence and spy network. Although they tried to cover their tracks, Continental forces eventually captured André after a meeting with Arnold. Wearing civilian attire, André had plans of West Point in his boot. André was tried, convicted, and hanged as a spy. Clinton, saddened by the loss of André, kept his promise to Arnold and commissioned him a brigadier general in a loyalist regiment. Clinton's hopes that Arnold's treason would spur others to betray the American cause were never realized.

With the collapse of his plans to capture West Point, Clinton reluctantly accepted the shifting focus of the war to the south. He continued to send reinforcments to Cornwallis. Clinton, however, grew incredibly frustrated at the support shown for Cornwallis by the home government. The two generals had very different conceptions of strategy. Clinton thought it an error to advance until all resistance had been eliminated in Georgia and South Carolina, while Cornwallis believed it was necessary to advance northward to defeat enemy forces and cut off the source of supplies for the Continental forces further south. Given the geographic distance and length of time between correspondence, Cornwallis acted fairly independently of Clinton and fatefully invaded North Carolina and later Virginia. His forces, already suffering from the attrition of long campaigns, were stretched thin and vulnerable to the arrival of a French fleet. Yorktown, Virginia, proved to be the location of the climactic battle of the American Revolution. Due to the significant losses, Clinton found himself replaced in 1782 by Sir Guy Carleton.

Postwar Life

During the postwar years, Clinton defended his actions as Commander-in-Chief and attempted to shift the blame for British defeat in the war to Lord Cornwallis during his postwar years. He continued to claim he was used as an excuse for losing the American War for Independence:

All, all shrink from the subject, had not circumstances made me in some degree the scapegoat, I perhaps - who may also have had my share of blunders - might have found myself in the same disposition. I admit there has been blame. I admit also I may have had my share. God knows there is enough for us all.²

Clinton's military career essentially ended with the American Revolution. While his rivals received significant promotions and honors, Clinton was only offered an Irish peerage, an unattractive title as it did not confer the right to sit in the House of Lords. Clinton tried to secure a parliamentary inquiry to clear his name, but he failed. Clinton advocated for the interests of loyalists after the war and supported their claims for compensation. In his retirement, Clinton traveled throughout Europe and spent time with his children. In his later years, Clinton's career had new life. In 1790, he returned to Parliament as member for Launceston, and he was promoted to full general the next year. In 1794, he received the governorship of Gibraltar, but he was too ill to ever accept the offer. Clinton died in London in 1795. 

Footnotes

1. Smithsonian Institution, The American Revolution: A Visual History (New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), 210.
2. Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire (United States: Yale University Press, 2013) .

Sources

Bacas, Andrew. "Sir Henry Clinton." George Washington's Mount Vernon. Accessed March 2025.

Clinton, Sir Henry. The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton's Narrative of His Campaigns, 1775-1872, with an appendix of original documents. Edited by William B. Willcox. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1971.

Moultrie, William. Memoirs of the American Revolution. New York: David Longworth, 1802.

O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire. United States: Yale University Press, 2013.

Van Doren, Carl. Secret History of the American Revolution. Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1941.

Willcox, William B. "Sir Henry Clinton: Paralysis of Command." George Washington’s Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership. Edited by George A. Billias. Volume II. New York: De Capo Press, reprint 1994, 73-102.