Sir Henry Clinton

[squarian]

I've taken a peek at the event files, but I'm not sure I really know what I'm looking at.

Is there an event which replaces Sir William Howe with Clinton as C-in-C similar to the "Gage Replaced" event? Or for that matter, is Clinton replaced by Cornwallis eventually?

If so, wouldn't Clinton's abilities prove debilitating to the British? Seems to me his faults have been exaggerated. Or is there a new model for him which reduces these penalties?

[lodilefty]

Yes, replaces Howe in 1778

No event for Cornwallis. Was he ever actuall 'CinC for North America"?

Clinton couldn't get along with anybody. Why should he be given any 'good' attributes?

[TheDeadeye]

Cornwallis was never CinC. He was just a Theater Commander of the Southern Campaign. Clinton remained CinC from 1778-1782.

[phantomfeather]

I don't claim to know all about the things during the American Revolution though I have spent some leisure time studying many individual officers on both sides. Between Gage, Howe & Clinton there are some very distinctive difference between the three of them.

Gage was easily the worst of the three & didn't do much of anything to help the British cause. Howe was easily the best of the three but he had a respect for what the colonists were doing. Many times when he had the chance to destroy colonial forces he would inexplicably become immmobile. In fact he & his brother (Adm. Howe) sympathized with the colonials. CLinton is between Gage & Howe; he was an immense improvement over Gage & a significant drop off from Howe. Clinton was unimaginative & quite the plodder. He was sometimes slow, he lacked the imagination to counter the colonists' tactics & was much prone to go into frontal assaults (which is basically the way most, if not all, European armies did.

Cornwallis was perhaps the most brillian (or Carleton) but he never achieved CiC. In fact, just about the only defeats he suffered in his military career were during the Revolution.

[squarian]

Sorry, for Cornwallis I meant to type Carleton, C-in-C after Yorktown.

I'm not saying Clinton was a brilliant general - who could? But at least according to Piers Mackesy, he was "a very capable general in the field" who displayed considerable tactical ability and drive such as in taking the forts guarding the Hudson in 1777. In other words, he made a pretty good division commander.

It seems it was only as C-in-C that his "real weaknesses" became apparent. On the one hand, he was a "difficult colleague" who "was jealous, hot tempered and quick to take offense". Note the key word - the examples Mackesy gives are all in relation either to his superiors (Sir Wm Howe) or his equals (various admirals, Lord George Germaine, Carleton), or other people outside his direct command (Loyalists, commissaries) - not his subordinates.

On the other, according to Mackesy, Clinton's "touchiness was the outward sign of a deep self-distrust" who was "timid in action" as C-in-C. Mackesy notes he tried to dodge his promotion when Howe left, "protesting that the command should not fall on his shoulders".

It seems to me what is being described is the classic victim of the Peter Principle - a man who was promoted beyond his abilities and knew it. He could handle a division or wing pretty well - but he wasn't up to "the political and administrative tasks imposed on him" as C-in-C. And since he knew his own limits, he showed "a great aversion to all business not military", hid behind his staff, and picked fights with his equals (but apparently not often with military subordinates) to hide his political/administrative inability.

My problem is that the two models for Clinton don't seem to portray this man very well. As Lt Gen, the "Dispirited Leader" and "Quickly Angered" traits don't seem to have much basis in the record, and instead of a fairly active and competent leader, any sensible player will park him somewhere safe and use him for nothing more than garrison duty. Maybe drop those traits for the LtGen model?

As C-in-C, he should be less active (strat rating 1 or 2?), drop the "Dispirited Leader", and perhaps keep the Quickly Angered trait less because he really was difficult with his subordinates than because the CP reduction will reflect his aversion to administrative work. Given his testy paper wars with the navy and Germaine, what would really make sense is a reduction in EP while he's in command - is it possible to have an event keyed to his promotion?

My main complaint is that prior to Howe's departure Clinton was given responsible command, but the game inclines a player to ignore him - and it seems to me that for the game to push players to do something unhistorical is contrary to the design philosophy.

The last thing I want is a heated discussion of leader stats like what apparently happened with AACW - hopefully people don't have the same emotional attachment to this era. I just wanted to air these ideas.

[lodilefty]

The game is so easy to mod, this could be a good opportunity.

To review:

Clinton ratings and abilities [same both ranks]:

Strategic = 3
Offense = 2
Defense = 4

Skirmisher
This unit possesses skirmishers which impede enemy reaction. +1 Initiative bonus in battle to the whole unit.


Dispirited Leader
This commander is absolutely not charismatic for his men, or is a defeatist -5 Maximum Cohesion to the stack if the commander, -25% to the Cohesion recovery rate.

Quick Angered
This general is quickly angered and is often having arguments with his subordinates -4 Command Points to the stack he commands.

My [admitted limited] knowledge of Clinton is that he was a spoiled complainer. Spent most of the time before he was CinC sniping and second guessing Gage or Howe. After promotion, he had to deal with all the people he had already alienated.

Maybe a case can be made for removing dispirited leader, if documented research can be presented that the troops liked him

Skirmisher is a good thing.

Quick Angered describes his relationships with officers very well.

He strikes me as the AWI version of George McClellan


We are NOT going to change ay leader ratings, and only will change abilities with good data....

but mods are wonderful!

Carleton is interesting, but pretty late in the War [and Game]. Will consider it....

[squarian]

Thanks, Lodi - I'll poke around my uni library next week and see what I can produce - there's a bio on him I'll try to dig up: W. Willcox, Portrait of a General: Sir H C in the War of Indep (1964). But here are some preliminary thoughts.

First, Clinton was bound to get some pretty bad press because a) he lost the war and b) the late 18th c. British officer corps was highly politicized. Some of his fiercest critics whose quips have most shaped his historical reputation belonged to opposing political factions back home, like "the vitriolic Col Charles Stuart" (son of Lord Bute, George III's first PM, and unlike Clinton's cousin the Duke of Newcastle not a supporter of North's ministry), whose opinion that Clinton was "fool enough to command an army when he is incapable of commanding a troop of horse" gets quoted over and over.

Clinton certainly snarked back and was especially critical of Howe, but he wasn't constitutionally incapable of getting along with others - in the Seven Years War he impressed Brunswick enough that he made him his ADC. And Mackesy points out that Clinton might have had good reason to snipe at Howe. At Kip's Bay in 1776 Clinton "commanded the first wave" of the British assault which swept the rebels from their prepared positions. But rather than exploit the opportunity Howe ordered him to hold and later "he felt that a chance had perhaps been missed" to destroy Washington's army in detail. A year later, after he managed to seize the Hudson forts in 1777 Howe ordered him to bail out, "giving him no latitude beyond a few days' delay", which effectively left Burgoyne to twist in the wind.

On his popularity with the troops, Mackesy , p. 213 quotes one Maj. Wemyss saying Clinton was "an honourable and respectable officer of the German school" before going on to list his leadership failures as C-in-C, and Mackesy adds in a note that Clinton spoke German and "was liked by his German troops". A less direct reference comes from Clinton himself on the morning of Kip's Bay, where he seems to be concerned and aware of his troops' morale: "my advice has ever been to avoid even the possibility of a check...We live by victory" (Mackesy, 90). I can't conclusively prove that his men returned the sentiment, but they would at least have known that he led from the front: in the Seven Years' War he "saw heavy fighting on more than one occasion and displayed personal bravery in battle near Friedberg, where he received a painful wound" (Higginbotham, War of Am Indep, 69).

I agree with you about Skirmisher and Quick Angered - though as I said before I think his record prior to being made C-in-C doesn't justify the latter. I understand the deal with changing stats, that's fine. It's just the Dispirited Leader which seems extra-harsh. Before he becomes C-in-C, he gets 4 CPs - 4 for Quick Angered = 0. So if you try to use him historically, with a detached force of say 6 bns, he's at 30% penalty plus the cohesion hits for the trait. Who would do that? But historically he led several independent detached commands.

[squarian]

Maj. Gen. William Phillips writing to the Duke of Newcastle, a few days after Bunker Hill (quoted in Wilcox, Portrait, 52-3 - italics mine):

"Clinton had [coolness, judgement, firmness in decision and activity in execution] at the the affair of Bunker Hill...General Clinton gained universal applause on the spot, and all his military friends have approved...He stands high in the esteem and view of friends and military brethern...A very distinguished officer told me this day that he should be happy to serve under Clinton."

In a note to this quotation, Wilcox says "the distinguished officer" Phillips refers to was "almost unquestionably Cornwallis, with whom Phillips had a long talk at about this time".

[squarian]

On Clinton's first independent command in America, in charge of a 900-man detachment which occupied Charlestown Neck in late 1775:

"Camp life was Spartan...Clinton shared the lot of his soldiers...For himself he did not mind, but he was unhappy about the troops" (citing Clinton's letters to his sisters-in-law)

[squarian]

A memorandum in Clinton's papers written during his Southern expedition also seems to suggest a concern for the troops unusual among British officers at the time. Among five points for the improvement of the army, his second argues for officers to pay more attention to their men, noting that "officers neglected the day-to-day affairs of their regiments; the men saw them only on parade, lost confidence in them, came to believe they could get on much better without them, and took to airing their own opinions and arguing with their superiors" (Wilcox, 80).

[squarian]

Wilcox's verdict (523-4):

"His best came out clearly while he was second in command, when he could plan without qualms about his reponsibility. As a designer [of operational plans] he then showed himself more competent than his chief; he produced a tactical masterpiece on Long Island, and gave strategic advice which compares favorably with any general on either side. When he assumed the command his talents were less in evidence, by and large, because his uneasiness grew as the support he received from home and from his colleagues diminished, and as the strains of office cracked his fragile self-assurance. But he could still win victories, and at his worst he never made the blunders that Howe and Cornwallis made. His failing was of a different sort, inaction rather than mistaken action....A general, to be great, needs a robust and integrated egoism. In its place Clinton had doubts"

[squarian]

To summarize - in reality, Clinton as a subordinate commander was generally an able and sometimes very good commander who led from the front, showed an unusual degree of concern for his soldiers, and was capable of pulling off real tactical masterstrokes. Clinton as CinC was not a total disaster, but he had some serious flaws.

There is no way to know how popular he was with the rank and file troops - 18th century British soldiers didn't write down their thoughts, or if they did those letters didn't survive. What we do know from several sources is that prior to becoming CinC he enjoyed the admiration of his fellow officers, and his own writing indicates some serious thought about the welfare of his men.

There might not be a case for altering 3* Clinton - his leadership in his one field battle as CinC (Monmouth) doesn't seem to warrant the crippling combined effect of dispirited & quickly angered, but a case could be made for keeping his traits as is.

But 2* Clinton is unusable in an independent role and best tucked away somewhere safe, like maybe Pensacola or better yet Hudsons Bay. For 2* Clinton, there certainly seems to me a good case for junking the dispirited trait - he just wasn't that bad before he became CinC.

[lodilefty]

I'm convinced!

How about:

Modified abilities for Sir Henry Clinton [both ranks: Skirmisher -> Superior Tactician, 2 Star only: Dispirited Leader -> Brave]

[mmccot]

Don't forget the spy network - Good stuff at the University of Michigan> Library and Archives> Clements Library> Exhibits> Spy letters of the American Revolution.
Clinton saved a lot of correspondence;copied everything.They have a trunk full of duplicate correspondence that he carried with him.The guy was paranoid. Slow mover too. But he did know what was cooking.

[squarian]

I'm convinced!

How about:

Sure - sounds reasonable. I think it would also add something to game balance: tick tick tick, the French are coming and Clinton's gonna melt, better do something soon.

[lodilefty]

Don't forget the spy network - Good stuff at the University of Michigan> Library and Archives> Clements Library> Exhibits> Spy letters of the American Revolution.
Clinton saved a lot of correspondence;copied everything.They have a trunk full of duplicate correspondence that he carried with him.The guy was paranoid. Slow mover too. But he did know what was cooking.

Both sides get spy units in the game.....

[hhchanglong41]

[font=ˎ̥][font=?v懱]rere[/font][font=?v懱]sssa[/font][font=?v懱]rae[/font][font=?v懱]bmw[/font][font=?v懱]gggt[/font][/font]