[New] Brunswick, November 30, 1776
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 have done all other letters to you, from the same place and Peekskill, upon the business of your office, as I conceived and found them to be.
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. I am, Dear Sir, etc.
PS. The petition referred to I keep.
This letter was to be all, unless Reed himself opened the subject.
Of his larger problem Washington wrote, “I will not despair”; but before another sun had set he needed to summon all the resolution that lay behind his words. On the morning of December 1 scouts reported the enemy at Bonum, about ten miles from New Brunswick. Rumor had it that reenforcements from Staten Island had joined Earl Charles Cornwallis, a possibility that Washington could not disregard when he put an estimate of six to seven thousand on the force of his adversary. The American Army, on the other hand, continued to dwindle. With scarcely 3400 effectives, Washington had to undertake a new retreat. Orders were issued for every man and every vehicle to cross the Raritan at once. It was done in the early afternoon and without loss, but the margin was so narrow that the whole of the bridge could not be destroyed.
Now that odds were so heavy and the future so black, Washington felt that he should not halt until he reached the Delaware and put himself where he could move readily to the Pennsylvania side of that river. He continued to send out earnest calls for reenforcements as he proceeded on his way, via Princeton. At the college town he hoped Lee would meet him, but neither Lee nor any dispatch from that officer was waiting. Stirling, with about twelve hundred men, was left at Princeton to act as a check-rein on a galloping chase by Howe; the remainder of the little Army passed on to Trenton December 3.
There Washington received a dispatch from Lee, but the content was as depressing as silence had been. Lee’s letter was four days old, and it was in the mood of a man anxious to do as he pleased in quest of fame. Now Lee justified his delay on the ground that when he entered Jersey he would bring “Four thousand firm and willing troops. . . .” If the advance had been begun earlier, said the tardy General, “I should have only led an inferior number of unwilling.” Lee concluded: “I could wish you would bind me as little as possible, not from any opinion, I do assure you, of my own parts, but from a persuasion that detached Generals cannot have too great latitude, unless they are very incompetent indeed.”
Washington had to adjust himself to the fact that no help could be expected from Lee for several days. Meantime, Howe might advance before militia arrived in number large enough to give hope of a successful defence. When the report of a powerful British onmarch was verified, Washington did not delude himself: He could not make a stand otherwise than by risking a hopeless fight with his back to the river. The ghost of the American Army must be transported across the Delaware and, if possible, must be revived. December 7, by nightfall, the troops were in Pennsylvania, opposite Trenton. No public property, other than a few boards, had been left on the Jersey side of the river. On the eighth the enemy had a part of his column at Maidenhead and at Princeton and he pushed his van to Trenton. Report was that Howe’s train included boats in which to ferry Redcoats to the Philadelphia Road. If this were true, then the Americans must be spread, thinly, along the Pennsylvania shore and the crossings fortified. Orders for the collection and removal of boats from the left to the right bank of the Delaware were being executed, but these instructions must be enlarged to cover the entire navigable stretch of seventy miles above Philadelphia. This only was certain: If Howe had any boats, they had not been brought forward, nor had any considerable number thus far been found by his men on the Jersey shore. What could be done? Washington must concentrate his troops and procure militia reenforcement in order to prevent, if possible, the British capture of Philadelphia before the American Army of 1777 could be recruited and brought into the field. He was not sure this could be done; he did not believe Philadelphia could be saved unless the troops under Lee joined the other Continentals when Howe started his march on the city. Even with Lee’s aid, whatever was done to keep Philadelphia from falling into the hands of the enemy must be done quickly, because Washington could expect no more than three weeks’ further service from some of the best of his troops. The time of nearly all the Continental regiments, except those of Virginia and of Maryland, would expire with December. The history of 1775 was being paralleled in a manner that sickened and appalled.
Washington did not deceive himself. His resolution was inflexible; his hope was waning fast. He remained of the opinion that the enemy would attempt soon to cross the Delaware and move on Philadelphia. Nothing, he thought, except lack of boats held the British back. All calculations, all argument, came back to the same ugly fact: If any basis of hope remained, it lay in Lee. With his troops, some of them battle-tested, to augment Washington’s Continentals and the Philadelphia militia there was a chance that Howe might be halted, or so discouraged that he would go into winter quarters north of the Delaware. Without Lee, those strong British and Hessian battalions almost certainly would destroy with ease the wraith of the Army that lingered after the losses of 1776.
Lee began his crossing of the Hudson on December 2 and proceeded to Morristown, which some of his troops did not reach until the tenth. The previous night Washington received a letter written by Lee on the eighth. On the evening of the tenth another of the same date arrived. In one of these communications, Lee reported his own troops as 2700 and “our Army,” militia included, as 4000. Then Lee said: “If I was not taught to think that your Army was considerably reenforced, I should immediately join you; but as I am assured you are very strong, I should imagine we can make a better impression by hanging on [the enemy’s] rear, for which purpose a good post at Chatham seems the best calculated.” He proceeded to explain briefly the advantage of that position.
Washington read this in full appreciation of the advantage of having a force in the rear of Howe’s army, a strategical possibility of which Cornwallis was already unhappily conscious. Washington was not disposed to dwell on the fact that Lee now spoke of four thousand men, though in a previous letter he had mentioned “an army of 5000 good troops in spirits.” The main issue dominated. Lee must be brought to the main Army, but how, how, how? Additional orders would be ineffectual; a personal appeal was the only recourse. Humiliating as it was to beseech a subordinate to do what was properly to be commanded of him, Washington felt that the cause and the crisis required that meek diplomacy. He gave directions to Stephen Moylan to proceed at once to Morristown and to push forward Lee’s troops and Gates’s as well. As Lee of course could balk Moylan, the Commander-in-Chief wrote his senior lieutenant: “I cannot but request and entreat you and this, too, by the advice of all the general officers with me, to march and join me with all your whole force, with all possible expedition.” Washington wrote briefly of route and of the disposition of British forces, who seemed to be making ready for an attempt to cross the Delaware above Trenton. “Do come on,” he coaxed, “your arrival may be happy, and if it can be effected without delay, may be the means of preserving a city, whose loss must prove of the most fatal consequences to the cause of America.”
In reporting to Congress, Washington already had said he did not know how to account for the slowness of Lee’s march; now he summarized Lee’s letters and said only, “as I have not at present, nor do I see much probability of further reenforcements, I have wrote to him in the most pressing terms to join me with all expedition.” From Washington’s point of view, that was self-protectiv
e because it put on record the fact that Lee was insubordinate.
The crisis tightened. On December 13 Washington doubtless heard that Congress had left Philadelphia for Baltimore, where it was to reassemble not later than the twentieth. Intelligence reports indicated that the enemy might be making dispositions for an attempted crossing. Events seemed to show, also, that the British were so confident of their strength they could afford some dispersion of force in a desirable minor operation. The fleet that had left New York December 1 had discharged near Newport, Rhode Island, on the eighth a force of sufficient magnitude to evoke from state authorities loud and instant calls for assistance. Washington ordered Joseph Spencer and Benedict Arnold to proceed there, but he could spare neither Greene nor Gates, whom the Rhode Islanders were anxious to procure.
From Lee, on the thirteenth, there came another strange letter, under date of December 11. It began with the statement, “We have three thousand men here at present; but they are so ill-shod that we have been obliged to halt these two days for want of shoes.” With no elaboration of this reason for delay, Lee’s letter proceeded: “Seven Regiments of Gates’s corps are on their march, but where they actually are, is not certain.” Then, for some reason, the letter was shifted to the third person: “General Lee has sent two officers this day; one to inform him where the Delaware can be crossed above Trenton; the other to examine the road toward Burlington, as General Lee thinks he can, without great risk, cross the great Brunswick post road, and by a forced night’s march, make his way to the ferry below Burlington. Boats should be sent from Philadelphia to receive him. But this scheme he only proposes, if the head of the enemy’s column actually pass the river. The militia in this part of the province seems sanguine. If they could be sure of an Army remaining amongst ’em”—and here Lee shifted back to the first person, “I believe they would raise a very considerable number.”
Washington did not lose patience in answering: “I am much surprised,” he wrote, “that you should be in any doubt respecting the route you should take.” With a brief explanation, once more, of the crossing arranged for Lee, the commanding General proceeded: “I have so frequently mentioned our situation and the necessity of your aid that it is painful to me to add a word upon the subject. Let me once more request and entreat you”—he did not withhold the humiliating verb—”to march immediately for Pittstown, which lies on the route that has been pointed out, and is about eleven miles from Tinnicum Ferry, that is more on the flank of the enemy than where you are. Advise me of the time you will arrive there, that a letter may be sent you, about your future destination and such other movements as may be necessary.” Washington had said substantially the same thing previously and with no observable result. This time he was going to hold out a prospect that he believed no soldier could disregard. Stirling was to follow Moylan to Lee and was to dispatch other officers to Gates and to Heath. The object of this was to ascertain the condition of the various forces, learn when the columns could be expected at Pittstown, and see what proposals Lee, Gates and Heath could make for an attack on the British in concert with Washington’s forces.
“Use every possible means without regard to expense,” said Washington, “to come with certainty, at the enemy’s strength, situation and movements; without this we wander in wilderness of uncertainties and difficulty, and no plan can be formed upon a rational plan.” Stirling well may have gasped at his orders: A General who had declared himself almost certain to fail in the effort to keep the British from Philadelphia without the help of Lee now was hinting that the Army would turn from defensive to offensive. Washington sketched only in the vaguest way the possibility of recrossing the Delaware, but the spirit of the offensive was rising. It might be desperation; it might be military madness; but there would be no more hesitation of the sort that cost Fort Washington and more than 2800 men.
That day, the fourteenth, a heavy freeze began. If it continued, the muddy roads would be hard, but the Delaware might be covered with ice. If the covering soon were thick enough to support men and cannon, then Cornwallis might cross and attack before the American plan of action could be matured. Again, if the river did not freeze heavily enough to present danger of a British advance on too long a front to guard it, the ice might present an obstacle to the Continentals’ returning to the north bank. Washington faced these possibilities and refused to permit them to discourage him. Like every other man, he might have better days and worse, might find sunlit hours short and black night long, but he now had conquered the confusion of mind that had paralyzed him early in November. Said Thomas Paine: “Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared to full advantage but in difficulties and in action. The same remark may be made on General Washington, for the character fits him.” Paine had seen Washington at Fort Lee and in the ghastly retreat across Jersey and testified as an eye-witness. Washington’s planning justified this praise. On the day he once more “entreated” Lee to advance—the day when Stirling was riding fast over treacherous roads toward Morristown—Washington wrote Gates of the Army’s weakness, of the depth of the retreat, of the great strength the British showed, and of the lack of help from the militia. Washington could not or would not believe that Lee would fail him, and he told Gates: “I expect General Lee will be here this evening or tomorrow, who will be followed by General Heath and his Division. If we can draw our forces together, I trust, under the smiles of providence, we may yet effect an important stroke, or at least prevent General Howe from executing his plans.”
As soon as Lee arrived, Washington would explore with him the possibilities of an offensive. Noon of the fifteenth and no message from the outposts that the van of the veteran Division was close to the upper crossings of the Delaware, safely beyond the extended right flank of the British. At one o’clock a spattered horseman drew rein at Headquarters—an express from General Sullivan. So often had expresses brought bad news and so seldom had they been the bearers of good tidings that Washington had trained himself to expect anything, but he had now something new, something bewildering; Sullivan reported that on the thirteenth, about ten o’clock in the morning, at a temporary lodging some three miles from the American lines, General Lee had been captured by a British patrol.
Washington, in his first announcement to Congress, felt it proper to write: “I will not comment upon the melancholy intelligence, only adding that I sincerely regret General Lee’s unhappy fate, and feel much for the loss of my country in his captivity.” Comment by others ranged from dismay to puzzlement and suspicion. The facts were not known in their fullness for days and, when known, scarcely explained Lee’s conduct. He had ridden to before he had finished breakfasting and bickering. Most of his guards had must have retired at a late hour and slept long, because it was ten o’clock before he had finished breakfasting and bickering. Most of his guards had slipped off to a nearby building and were trying to warm themselves in the sun when a party of British—four officers and thirty mounted men—dashed up the lane, surrounded the tavern and demanded that Lee come out to them. After a few minutes and with scarcely a show of defence, Lee yielded. The British quickly put him on a horse, hatless and not fully clothed, and dashed off with him to New Brunswick. The party had been organized by Lieut. Col. William Harcourt who had volunteered to reconnoiter the position and strength of Lee’s forces, when he learned that Cornwallis had no acceptable intelligence of the American column. Accidental capture of an American light dragoon with a dispatch for Lee had given the clue that prompted Harcourt to sweep down on the inn. Harcourt and his men rode seventy miles on their circuit without loss or accident and they had high welcome when they brought in their prisoner. It was doubtful whether the British or the Americans put the higher valuation on him and his importance to the Continental cause. Congress was anxious to relieve the hardships of Lee’s imprisonment and voted him one hundred half-joes. Robert Morris was to supply these to Washington, who was requested to forward them through British channels. Others found consolation in the fact
that Gates was at hand and could be used by Washington for tasks that would have been assigned Lee. Fear of what the less informed public would make of the affair was voiced by one of Washington’s aides, Samuel Webb. “. . . We shall find hard work,” he wrote, “to convince many officers and soldiers that [Lee] is not a traitor.”
Heath and Gates had recent letters from Lee that would have created suspicions of other and puzzling sorts if the papers had been made public. Lee’s letter to Gates was written the morning he was captured and had been snatched up by Gates’s messenger as the British troops came thundering up the lane that led to White’s Tavern. Had this document fallen into hostile hands it would have been juicy meat to British teeth and exceedingly hard for Lee to swallow. Said Lee: “The ingenious [sic] maneuver of Fort Washington has unhinged the goodly fabric we have been building—there never was so damned a stroke—entre nous, a certain great man is damnably deficient—He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties—if I stay in this Province I risk myself and army and if I do not stay the Province is lost forever.”
Whether or not Washington had sensed any of this, he did not waste words on the situation. His reply to Sullivan’s announcement of the capture of Lee contained two sentences of regret and then—”the event has happened. And I refer you to the several letters which I had wrote him, and to one which now goes to Lord Stirling, who I presume is with you, and who was fully possessed of my ideas when he left me, for the measures you and he may judge necessary to adopt.” There was no more than that, because every hour added problems and multiplied perplexities. Washington continued to face those maddening questions on which life or death of the Revolution depended: when would Sullivan and Gates arrive; how could the crossing of the Delaware by the British be prevented; was it really possible to forge a counterbolt, or was the situation hopeless?
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