Back then to Fort Lee the Commander-in-Chief rode to determine whether to make an effort to bring the garrison across the river or to let Magaw fight it out with the British. Shortly before dawn of the sixteenth Washington started across North River with Putnam, Greene and Mercer in order to decide, finally and positively, what should be done. Almost at the instant the Generals took their places in the boat the sound of firing became audible from a part of the ridge where some skirmishing had occurred November 11. When Washington and his companions climbed to the crest, they learned that the enemy had passed easily the first line across the King’s Bridge Road on the southern side of Mount Washington. The second and stronger line was being assailed. Washington was told, also, that British columns had been moving on other approaches, as if they were reconnoitering. Colonel Magaw had made his dispositions, which appeared to be proper.
Down the heights and back across the river Washington and his party went—to listen, wonder, and—presently—despair. The sound of the firing soon indicated that the British were closing from the south and were within the range of small arms. Stiff resistance was being offered on the northern face of the earthworks. Fighting of indeterminable scope was in progress to the east. Gradually the firing converged; ere long Washington had to conclude that the troops were being driven into the fort itself. If it was possible, the garrison ought to be withdrawn to the Jersey shore; but evacuation could not be undertaken till night. Someone must contrive to get into Fort Washington with a message to Magaw that if he held out till darkness, the Commander-in-Chief would see that the men were brought safely to New Jersey. A young officer was found who was willing to cross the river; the message was dispatched. A little later the tortured Commander-in-Chief sent another volunteer to see if affairs were as desperate as they appeared. At length the officer who had taken the first message to Magaw succeeded in getting back to Fort Lee with intelligence to depress the stoutest heart: Colonel Magaw sent his thanks to the General but had to report that he had gone so far with negotiations for surrender that he could not in honor break them off.
Later, the second man who had crossed the river returned to report. He, too, had the worst to tell. The only terms the British would allow were those of immediate and absolute surrender as prisoners of war. While Washington listened to that calamitous news he knew he had to deduct from the rolls of his small Army the men who might at that very hour be marching to some foul prison. They numbered, he thought, about two thousand—many of whom, as he sadly wrote Congress, “have been trained with more than common attention.” Actually, the total was 2818 officers and men. These were lost, altogether lost!
The details of what had happened to Magaw’s men and the actual terms of surrender were not yet known on the Jersey side of North River, but criticism did not wait on fact. Those who were wise after the event or were secretly jealous of Greene made him their scapegoat and indirectly assailed Washington.
Washington realized that the disaster of the sixteenth was not to be the end of adversity. Tired as he was, he saw that when Fort Washington was lost, Fort Lee was worthless and, if held, might be another trap. As soon as it was threatened, it must be evacuated. This would sharpen criticism and would deepen public disappointment. Better that than a second Fort Washington. When he went again to Hackensack to resume preparations for withdrawal southward he was appalled to find there scarcely any of the New Jersey militia on whose support he had relied. Although the state was apt to be invaded and property plundered, it appeared as if Jerseymen either were cowed by British victories or at heart not sympathetic with the American cause.
It scarcely seemed possible that so tremendous a change had come within the ten days since Washington left White Plains, but this now was the frightful prospect: By the end of November Washington would not have more than two thousand fit soldiers of the Continental establishment with whom to oppose Howe in the region west of the Hudson. “Oppose” was his own verb: he knew it was a mockery, but he scarcely could afford to say so to any of those about him, not even to Reed, whom he loved and trusted. The one person to whom the agonized commander could unburden himself was his always prudent confidant, his brother John Augustine. So, at Hackensack on the nineteenth, Washington finished a letter started at White Plains, November 6.
Indignantly he wrote: “. . . all the year since, I have been pressing [Congress] to delay no time in engaging men upon such terms as would assure success, telling them that the longer it was delayed the more difficult it would grow; but the measure was not set about till it was too late to be effected, and then in such a manner as to bid adieu to every hope of getting an Army from which any services are to be expected; the different States without regard to the merits or qualifications of an officer, quarreling about the appointments, and nominating such as are not fit to be shoe blacks from the local attachments of this or that member of Assembly.” He could not stop even when he had put some of his junior officers lower than shoe blacks: “I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motions of things, and I solemnly protest that a pecuniary record of £20,000 a year would not induce me to undergo what I do; and, after all, perhaps, to lose my character, as it is impossible under such a variety of distressing circumstances to conduct matters agreeably to public expectation, or even of those who employ me, as they will not make proper allowances for the difficulties their own errors have occasioned.”
In this furious disappointment, Washington resumed his efforts to dispose his troops for combat or retreat. He felt himself most disadvantageously placed for either, because what remained of his small Army still was divided in four fragments—his own feeble force at Hackensack and Fort Lee, Stirling’s eight small regiments, about one thousand men, at Rahway and New Brunswick, Lee at White Plains, and Heath at Peekskill. The last of these forces must be left on guard in the highlands. To keep Howe and Burgoyne from forming a junction and isolating New England remained an imperative of strategy. Washington’s columns, Lee’s and Stirling’s must be reunited if Howe made the expected move and attempted to take Philadelphia.
Washington had the multiple phases of this problem before him November 20 when an express brought him a dispatch from Greene: A heavy British force had crossed North River that morning below Dobbs Ferry and appeared to be marching rapidly to Fort Lee. Washington in a few minutes was galloping towards the fort. He confirmed reports that the British were in greatly superior numbers and ordered the place evacuated immediately, even though this meant that pots had to be left boiling and tents standing. There was only one avenue of quick escape—across the Hackensack, which had a single bridge. Once across that stream the country was flat and offered no natural strongholds. It was necessary for Washington to order a withdrawal beyond the Passaic and leave a fine country to be ravaged by the Hessians. On the twenty-first he made the necessary moves and proceeded with his short files to Aquackanock Bridge on the Passaic. He wanted now to reunite his scattered forces. This, he reasoned, would involve a farther withdrawal, probably to New Brunswick, in order to be in touch with Stirling, who had made ready to join him on receipt of the news that Howe’s vanguard, under Cornwallis, had passed North River. As soon as the full strength of the British offensive in New Jersey was manifest the essentials of the plan adopted in advance by Washington were to become operative: In accordance with instructions given Lee before the Army moved from White Plains, that officer was to leave Heath to guard the highlands. With militia included, Heath now had about four thousand men. Lee’s numbers had risen to more than 7700 and included some of the most experienced and best disciplined troops of the Army. These were Washington’s principal source of strength and were to be moved forthwith to Jersey, though Lee had been asserting, ever since the fall of Fort Washington, that sound strategy dictated retention of the area around White Plains. From the Passaic River, Washington wrote his senior lieutenant about the evacuation of Fort Lee and proceeded to answer Lee’s arguments against a shift from White Plains. Washington told Lee: “Unless, ther
efore, some new event should occur, or some more cogent reason present itself, I would have you move over by the easiest and best passage.”
Lee’s coming was in reality a matter of life and death in the sternest, most realistic addition and subtraction. If he brought five thousand and Stirling could count one thousand bayonets, these could be added to the fragments of Continental regiments, Greene’s men from Fort Lee, the militia and the survivors of the Flying Camp, all of whom had now been assembled under Washington to an unstable aggregate of 4400. On paper, then, the arrival of Lee and Stirling would give the reconcentrated Army a temporary strength of 10,400, but that figure, if attained at all, would be illusory. Within less than ten days the Army would be reduced by slightly over two thousand on the expiration of the service of the Maryland and New Jersey regiments of the Flying Camp. Eight hundred and fifty more would be free to go home January 1. That would leave slightly over 7500, of whom 5000 represented brigades, with Lee. Continuance of resistance, in any serious sense, thus depended on that officer’s prompt compliance with the instructions sent him. Those instructions were positive but, of course, were phrased considerately.
The weather, which had been unusually fine, now grew bad. The British seemed willing to wait on the elements. At Newark, where Washington established temporary Headquarters, there was much work and planning for the commander. Washington decided Thomas Mifflin should visit Philadelphia and explain to Congress the weakness of the Army and the necessity of immediate help. Joseph Reed was dispatched on a similar mission to Governor Livingston of New Jersey. Congress was besought to forward money for the payment of the soldiers of the Flying Camp.
In the Quaker City crisis was shaking the revolutionary leaders out of their addiction to defer that which was pressing and to consider promptly that which might be postponed. Congress, city authorities and Council of Safety were almost frantic as they heard one report after another of British plans for marching on Philadelphia. A committee was named by Congress to visit Washington, and another was chosen to devise means of reenforcing him and of obstructing the advance of the enemy. The Commander-in-Chief was authorized to recall the New Jersey and Pennsylvania regiments then in the Northern Department.
From all of this and from recruits the bounty would attract, there might rise in 1777 a new and more stable Army if, meantime, the frail remnant of the Army of 1776 could survive. For the next few weeks, everything would depend upon the activity of Howe, the contingencies of war and the prompt arrival of Lee with his veteran brigades. Rain or hesitation or both appeared to be holding back the royal army; Lee’s coming was taken for granted; the adverse developments at the beginning of the last week of November were a spread of desertion and the report of a Tory uprising in Monmouth County, New Jersey. As nothing worse was apparent, a few of the courageous and philosophical men in the Army began to reknit their ravelled hope.
Then, November 24, Washington opened a letter addressed by Lee to Reed, who still was absent in consultation with Governor Livingston. It was an astonishing document: Lee was not bringing his troops. Instead he was ordering the detachment to Washington of two thousand of Heath’s men. Washington read with dismay. He had not meant to give Lee discretion; politeness had not been intended to modify orders; the one thing about which he had been most explicit before leaving White Plains had been that Heath should remain to guard the highlands; now Lee was taking two thousand of Heath’s men and was leaving at White Plains the very troops Washington most needed, and needed without an hour’s delay! There might be several interpretations of Lee’s action. Anyone who regarded him as an ambitious adventurer might scrutinize that letter to Reed and might consider some of the language suspicious, arrogant even. Had a critic, moreover, read the correspondence book at White Plains he would have seen other communications that would have puzzled him. The day before Lee wrote Reed, he had scratched off to his friend Benjamin Rush a letter in which he had boasted “I foresaw, predicted, all that has happened” at Fort Washington. Lee had concluded: “I could say many things—let me talk vainly—had I the powers I could do you much good, might I but dictate one week; but I am sure you will never give any man the necessary power. . . .” There was much almost as vainglorious as that—for example, a paper addressed to Gov. James Bowdoin of Massachusetts concerning separate armies on either side of the Hudson, with the assurance that if the enemy attempted to enter New England or force the passes of the highlands, “I should never entertain a thought of being succoured from the Western Army”—and more in like strain, along with no little that was sound, soldierly and sensible.
Washington had not seen these letters, of course, nor had he observed anything to change his opinion that Lee was fickle; but now he took the view that Lee merely had misunderstood or misinterpreted orders and wrote immediately to leave no doubt of his wishes. He proceeded then to give such instructions about the march as seemed to be necessary. In a letter received late November 26, Lee stated that he had received Washington’s “orders” and would “try to put ’em in execution,” but, he said “[I] question much whether I shall be able to carry with me any considerable number of men, not so much from a want of zeal in the men as from their wretched condition with respect to shoes, stockings &c, which the present bad weather renders more intolerable.” Then Lee went blandly on: “I sent Heath orders to transport two thousand men across the river, apprize the General and wait for further orders, but that great man (as I might have expected) entrenched himself within the letter of his instructions and refused to part with a single file, though I undertook to replace ’em with a part of my own.”
This was disconcerting in that it showed Lee apparently unfamiliar with Washington’s plan to keep Heath in the highlands, regardless of other moves. Further, Lee spoke of “two days’ delay”—as if two days might not mean the difference between surviving and perishing. Heath, in his turn, reported the first phase of a correspondence with Lee, whose demand for the dispatch of the two thousand men he refused as contrary to his direct orders from the Commander-in-Chief. Washington’s secretary gave assurance to Heath: “In respect to the troops intended to come to this quarter, his Excellency never meant that they should be from your Division.”
On the twenty-seventh there still was no news that Lee was marching to help his commander, and all the reports were that more of the British were across the Passaic. There were indications that a force to support Cornwallis might land at Amboy. Washington could not give battle and must retreat at least as far as New Brunswick. The move began November 28. As the American rearguard left Newark, the British entered the opposite side but they did not attempt pursuit. At noon, November 29, Washington reached New Brunswick and halted the Army, which, in spite of all its freezing and splashing in the mud, doubtless was interested to hear of abundant liquor there. If the survivors of Washington’s luckless campaign found rum and fought among themselves and disturbed the uncertain sleep of an anxious town, who could blame them unduly?
Washington did not have precise figures before him on November 30; but he had a calendar and he had a tabulation prepared for Congress while he was at Newark. This was the paper which had shown that of the 5410 troops, more than two thousand had the right December 1 to start home. “If those go whose service expires this day,” Washington had to write the President of Congress, “our force will be reduced to a mere handfull”—when a division of the enemy was at Elizabeth Town and the King’s quartermasters were busy in the choice of shelter five miles farther south. Never had the situation been so desperate, not even on the corresponding date of 1775 when the Connecticut militia were about to march off, or on December 31, the last day of the “old Army.” It seemed futile to appeal to the common man; only the exceptional individual was patriotic. If liberty was to be won in America, it must be by the patience, the courage, the intelligence, the character of a few leaders. These men must stand together.
An express from General Lee arrived with a letter addressed to Colonel Reed. In Reed’s ab
sence, the express insisted on putting the letter in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief. If it was official, it was to be opened as a matter of course by Washington. A twist of the sheet, the crackling of the sealing-wax, and then:
Camp, Nov’r the 24th, 1776
My Dr. Reed:
I received your most obliging, flattering letter—lament with you 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 blunderer in the right, but eternal defeat and miscarriage must attend the man of the best parts if cursed with indecision.
The General . . .
There followed an explanation of Lee’s reasons for not wishing to march to Jersey; then came a summary of what he hoped to do to “Ranger” Rogers and nearby British. Next a few words about the prospect of recognition by France, and—
I only wait myself for this business I mention of Rogers & Co. being over—shall then fly to you—for to confess a truth I really think my Chief will do better with me than without me.
Washington was more hurt than outraged by the accidental discovery that his Adjutant General and his senior division commander apparently had been exchanging letters critical of him. For months he had been on his guard against the “fickleness” of Lee. Now that Lee’s state of mind had been disclosed bluntly, Washington would be more careful than ever in dealing with that soldier. Officially, there could be no change of attitude. Lee’s professional knowledge must be utilized for the country’s sake. It was Reed whose secret correspondence mortified—Reed who had shared the most intimate conversation, Reed who knew all that went on at Headquarters. Why had not Reed told him what had been passed on to Lee? As it was, the circumstances of opening the letter had to be explained to Reed; that was the obligation of a gentleman. Washington sat down on that most miserable of his wretched days and wrote this:
Washington Page 54