by Ron Chernow
From the rocky terrain of Fort Lee, Washington watched the disaster unfolding across the water. General Howe unleashed the full terror of his arsenal on Fort Washington, and by one P.M. almost all of the terrified American soldiers were squeezed inside the cramped fortress, now turned into a veritable death trap. The enemy then went on a rampage, bayoneting to death any American troops they could capture. As he stood high on the Jersey Palisades and watched through his telescope, George Washington gave way to strong emotions. As Washington Irving, who claimed to have heard the story from eyewitnesses, later wrote, the defeat “was said so completely to have overcome him that he wept with the tenderness of a child.”19
An hour later the Hessian general, Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen, called for the surrender of the doomed fort. By four P.M., 2,837 soldiers, including 230 officers, emptied out and marched down a gauntlet of Hessian soldiers, who kicked and punched them. Even some of the victors found the procession of shabby, unkempt men a heartrending sight. “A great many of them were lads under fifteen and old men, and few had the appearance of soldiers,” wrote Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie, who said that many colleagues guffawed at this sad mimicry of a professional army.20 The American captives were dispatched to the grisly confinement of British prison ships in New York Harbor.
There was no way of putting a face-saving construction on this searing loss: it was a defeat without redeeming features. As David McCullough has summarized the debacle, “In a disastrous campaign for New York in which Washington’s army had suffered one humiliating, costly reverse after another, this, the surrender of Fort Washington on Saturday, November 16, was the most devastating blow of all, an utter catastrophe.”21 The outcome could only have deepened Washington’s nightmarish sense of helplessness. Just as he fretted about expiring enlistments, he had losses of almost three thousand men killed or captured. At the same time, a huge cache of valuable muskets and cannon had fallen into British hands.
The demise of Fort Washington could have scuttled the career of the distraught Nathanael Greene. As he told Knox the next day, “Never did I need the consoling voice of a friend more than now . . . This is a most terrible event; its consequences are justly to be dreaded.”22 It is a remarkable commentary on Washington’s admiration for him that he didn’t scapegoat Greene or drum him out of the ranks. Washington was honest enough to point out that his advice to Greene to evacuate the fort had been “discretionary” and took a portion of the blame on himself.23 On the other hand, he had granted this discretion because Greene was on the scene and presumably better placed to form a judgment. Washington couldn’t account for his own failure to reverse Greene’s decision once he had reviewed the situation firsthand. Drawing on a thin pool of talented officers, Washington was forced by circumstance to tolerate a high rate of failure among his generals. A master politician in the making, he had a knack for spotting and rewarding faithful subordinates who repaid his trust with absolute devotion. He seemed to know implicitly that no loyalty surpassed that of a man forgiven for his faults who vowed never to make them again.
By contrast, General Charles Lee tried to capitalize upon Washington’s tremendous stumble at Fort Washington. He claimed that, enraged upon hearing the news, he tore out a patch of his hair. “The ingenious maneuver of Fort Washington has unhinged the goodly fabric we have been building,” he wrote to General Horatio Gates. “There never was so damned a stroke. Entre nous, a certain great man is damnably deficient.”24 He tried to undermine Washington further by informing Congressman Benjamin Rush that “I foresaw, predicted, all that has happened . . . had I the powers I could do you much good . . . but I am sure you will never give any man the necessary powers.”25 To Washington himself, Lee wrote more tactfully. “Oh, General, why would you be over-persuaded by men of inferior judgment to your own?”26
Even more bad news hung in the offing. On the morning of November 20 word reached Washington in Hackensack that thousands of enemy soldiers, camouflaged by a dark, rainy night, had crossed the Hudson River in a daring raid, landing six miles above Fort Lee. They had nimbly scaled the Palisades, a solid wall of rock and dense greenery, and now marched toward Fort Lee in great numbers. After the fall of Fort Washington, Fort Lee had shed its strategic importance, since it was impossible to thwart British ships from only one side of the Hudson. Having seen the importance of reacting quickly to threats, Washington raced on horseback to Fort Lee, covering six miles in forty-five minutes. Once at the fort, he ordered an immediate evacuation of its two thousand men, sacrificing the bulk of supplies on hand—two hundred cannon, hundreds of tents, and thousands of barrels of flour. The retreating Americans made it across the single bridge spanning the Hackensack River before it could be sabotaged by the enemy. The British cavalry under Charles Cornwallis chose not to chase them. General Howe again wanted to intimidate the rebels rather than to destroy them, and he overrode the judgment of Henry Clinton, who wanted to outflank the insurgents and smother them for good. The Crown seemed to side with Howe, decorating him as a Knight of the Bath, and henceforth he was called Sir William Howe.
For Washington, it came as yet another in a never-ending series of setbacks, a cascading series of colossal defeats. Finding it hard to resist total despair, he wrote, “I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motion of things.”27 Yet despite the calamities at Forts Washington and Lee, the British had done Washington an inadvertent favor. They had shown him the futility of trying to defend heavily fortified positions along the seaboard and forced him out into the countryside, where he had mobility and where the British Army, deprived of the Royal Navy, operated at a disadvantage. For political reasons, Washington hadn’t been able to countermand the congressional decision to defend New York City and the Hudson River, but now that he had done so and suffered predictable defeats, he would have more freedom to pick and choose his targets. With his drastically diminished army and depleted supplies, it was no longer a question of standing and confronting the British with their vastly superior troops and firepower.
WASHINGTON AND HIS BEDRAGGLED TROOPS began a dreary retreat across the flat, open terrain of New Jersey, their recent humiliation fresh in their memories. The British gloated over their string of stunning victories, the young Lord Rawdon boasting that the American army “is broken all to pieces, and the spirit of their leaders . . . is also broken.” His smug verdict: “It is well nigh over with them.”28 The retreating army wore a defeated look as they shuffled slowly through villages. “They marched two abreast,” said one inhabitant, “looked ragged, some without a shoe to their feet, and most of them wrapped in their blankets.”29 Washington’s sole concern was saving his army. He knew that his men were “very much broken and dispirited,” and with many enlistments ending December 1, he anticipated a catastrophic erosion of soldiers.30 On that date, as Washington feared, 2,000 militia from New Jersey and Maryland drifted away, leaving him with only about 3,800 men in a state crawling with Tories. Around the same time Lord Howe issued a proclamation offering pardons to those who swore allegiance to the king, and thousands of discouraged Americans took up the offer.
During the retreat Washington rode in the perilous rear position, supervising the destruction of bridges to stall the enemy. “I saw him . . . at the head of a small band, or rather in its rear, for he was always near the enemy, and his countenance and manner made an impression on me which I can never efface,” wrote James Monroe, then an eighteen-year-old lieutenant. “A deportment so firm, so dignified, but yet so modest and composed, I have never seen in any other person.”31 Thomas Paine also praised the New Jersey retreat as one of Washington’s finest hours of quiet courage. “There is a natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude,” he wrote, saying that God had endowed Washington “with uninterrupted health and given him a mind that can even flourish upon care.”32 One of the few bright spots occurred at the Raritan River near New Brunswick. On the afternoon of December 1, Briti
sh soldiers appeared and threatened to cut off American troops as they crossed the river. Once again Captain Alexander Hamilton and his artillery company provided steady cover to the retreating men, while an admiring Washington observed his future aide and treasury secretary from the riverbank.
Washington’s career had few moments of misplaced trust, but one occurred during this lonely, vulnerable time. He had confided to Joseph Reed that he needed someone with whom he could “live in unbounded confidence” and Reed himself had appeared to be that privileged person.33 In June Reed was named adjutant general in order to retain him in Washington’s service. Unfortunately, Reed harbored growing doubts about Washington’s ability—doubts only strengthened by his boss’s failure to override Nathanael Greene at Fort Washington. Reed decided to voice those doubts to Charles Lee, a man of atrocious judgment who was never circumspect in covering his tracks.
On November 21 Washington sent an urgent, confidential letter to Lee, exhorting him to bring his brigades from New York to help defend New Jersey, a task beyond the scanty powers of his own shrinking force. He was particularly worried that Howe might try to grab Philadelphia. In sending this letter, Joseph Reed had the temerity to slip into the dispatch satchel a secret note of his own to Lee. This blunt message suggested that Washington’s personal staff had lost faith in him and viewed him as a vacillating leader. “I do not mean to flatter nor praise you at the expense of any other,” wrote Reed, “but I confess I do think that it is entirely owing to you that this army and the liberties of America . . . are not totally cut off.” He then delivered a damaging assessment of Washington: “Oh! General—an indecisive mind is one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall an army.” In an act of outright treachery against Washington, Reed suggested to Lee that “as soon as the season will admit, I think yourself and some others should go to Congress and form the plan of the new army.”34
At the end of November, Washington was busily at work in New Brunswick when he tore open a sealed letter that Charles Lee had sent to Reed, who was then conferring in Burlington with Governor William Livingston of New Jersey. The letter shocked him on two accounts. The impertinent Lee revealed that he was disobeying Washington’s order to bring his army to New Jersey and instead was sending two thousand men assigned to General Heath, then protecting the Hudson Highlands. In one line Lee echoed Reed’s secret letter, stating that he agreed with Reed about “that fatal indecision of mind which in war is a much greater disqualification than stupidity or even want of personal courage; accident may put a decisive blunder in the right, but eternal defeat and miscarriage must attend the man of the best parts if cursed with indecision.”35 Washington realized that Lee was quoting Reed.
On November 30 Washington, deeply injured, penned a note to Joseph Reed that was a masterpiece of subtle accusation. He included a copy of Lee’s letter and wrote:Dear Sir: The enclosed was put into my hands by an express from the White Plains. Having no idea of its being a private letter, much less suspecting the tendency of the correspondence, I opened it, as I had done all other letters to you . . . upon the business of your office . . . This, as it is the truth, must be my excuse for seeing the contents of a letter which neither inclination or intention would have prompted me to. I thank you for the trouble and fatigue you have undergone in your journey to Burlington and sincerely wish that your labors may be crowned with the desired success. My best respects to Mrs. Reed.36
Washington knew perfectly how to wield silence as a weapon. The letter was conspicuous for what it omitted, not for what it said, allowing Reed to imagine Washington’s wrath rather than experience it, leaving him in a torment of uncertainty. The refusal to berate Reed only shamed him more. By not fulminating against Reed, Washington concealed what he knew about his machinations with Lee, a cunning device he employed many times in his career. And his response showed how highly he regarded the gentlemanly code of honor. Before anything else, he wanted to account for having opened and read the letter, lest it seem a wanton violation of privacy. It was a mark of Washington’s psychological subtlety that he sent a note of apology to a man who owed him an apology. Finally, by alluding to Reed’s taxing journey and sending regards to Mrs. Reed, Washington stressed that he wouldn’t stoop to anger in the face of provocation.
Upon receiving the letter, Reed tendered his resignation to Congress, but Washington got him to revoke it. Washington did not ask for a direct response to his letter; nor did he request a talk. Instead he resumed a civil, if guarded, relationship with Reed. The two exchanged many letters without referring to the episode, as Washington waited for the younger man to broach the subject. On March 8, 1777, Reed finally referred to the incident and told Washington that he had tried futilely to retrieve his original letter to Charles Lee. Disingenuously, he said there was nothing in the letter “inconsistent with that respect and affection which I have and ever shall bear to your person and character.”37 Reed made further efforts to repair the relationship, but Washington didn’t bury the hatchet until June 11, 1777, when he sent Reed a conciliatory letter. He wasn’t a man who rushed to forgive, but he didn’t hold grudges either. He told Reed that it wasn’t the criticism of his behavior that had stung him so much as the devious method: “True it is I felt myself hurt by a certain letter, which appear[e]d at that time to be the echo of one from you . . . I was hurt, not because I thought my judgment wrong[e]d by the expressions contained in it, but because the same sentiments were not communicated immediately to myself.” Washington signed the letter “Your obedient and affectionate” George Washington.38
Washington never revealed to Lee his knowledge of the secret correspondence, and Lee’s behavior toward Washington grew ever more imperious. Headquartered in Peekskill, New York, he admitted to Washington in late November that he had ignored his orders to proceed to New Jersey: “I cou[l]d wish you wou[l]d bind me as little as possible . . . from a persuasion that detach[e]d generals cannot have too great latitude.”39 Instead of sternly reprimanding Lee, Washington entreated him to bring his five thousand men to New Jersey, but Lee kept ignoring his requests in an infuriatingly cavalier manner. Washington at last had no choice but to lead his dwindling army across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. He also began a low-key campaign to discredit Lee in the eyes of Congress—his political style always hinged on fine gradations—telling John Hancock in early December, “I have not heard a word from General Lee since the 26th last month, which surprises me not a little, as I have dispatched daily expresses to him desiring to know when I might look for him.”40 At last Lee and his men crossed the Hudson and began moving south through New Jersey, albeit at a glacial speed.
On the morning of December 13, General Charles Lee received a well-merited rebuke to his overweening vanity. He had spent the night at an inn near Basking Ridge, New Jersey, enjoying the company of a woman of easy virtue. In an elementary error, he chose a spot for this tryst three miles from the safety of his army. Colonel William Harcourt, a British cavalry officer heading a team of seventy British dragoons, learned of Lee’s whereabouts from local Tories and surrounded the inn. Lee had just composed his acerbic letter about Washington to General Gates when he spied British horsemen outside the window and gasped, “For God’s sake, what shall I do?”41 The widow who owned the inn tried to conceal Lee above a fireplace as bullets ripped through the windows. After twenty-two-year-old Banastre Tarleton, later known for bloodthirsty tactics in the South, threatened to burn down the inn, Lee surrendered in slippers and a filthy shirt to the derisory cheers of his captors and a mocking trumpet blast. To make his degradation complete, the British didn’t allow him to don a coat or a hat in the wintry weather. After all of his abrasive lectures to Washington, Charles Lee hadn’t known how to protect himself, and his embarrassing capture proved the punch line of a grim joke. He would spend sixteen months in British captivity.
Whatever his misgivings about Charles Lee, Washington had no time for schadenfreude and could only regret the loss of an experienced general. It
angered him that the capture was “the effect of folly and imprudence,” as he privately told his brother Samuel, but he was in no mood for settling old scores.42 Perhaps one side of him was relieved at the removal of a long-standing irritant. “I feel much for his misfortune,” Washington wrote to a Massachusetts legislator, “and am sensible that in his captivity, our country has lost a warm friend and an able officer.”43 One again marvels at Washington’s perfect pitch. He may sometimes have been indecisive as a military leader, as Joseph Reed had alleged, but he always displayed consummate skills as a politician.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Crossing
WASHINGTON WAS NOT SURPRISED that thousands of New Jersey residents rushed to take the loyalty oath offered by the British and scrapped the cause of independence as a foolish pipe dream. Expecting a hefty influx of New Jersey militia, he had entertained hopes of making a brave stand against the British at Hackensack or New Brunswick. “But in this I was cruelly disappointed,” he informed Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull. “The inhabitants of this state, either from fear or disaffection, almost to a man, refused to turn out.”1 He was down to a beleaguered rump army, a raggedy band of a few thousand men. During the trek across New Jersey, they had worn out their shoes and crafted makeshift footwear by slaughtering cattle, skinning their hides, and wrapping crude sections around their bare feet.