The British continued work on redoubts but made no move. Early June 19 Washington had a report that puzzled him: The British were withdrawing to New Brunswick. They had started during the night and as they had so short a march, they could not be overtaken or injured. Why had they gone back without making a single attack? From the fact that the King’s men had been working the previous day on their redoubts, Washington concluded that the decision to end the watch on the Raritan was reached suddenly. He assumed that the British had found it difficult to assault the advantageous ground the Americans had strengthened at Middle Brook, and he reasoned that Howe perhaps had been discouraged by the extent to which militia had flocked to the American camp.
Had Howe let down his guard? Washington did not yield to the temptation to strike. He followed the retreat but did not attack. At the end of the twenty-second the Redcoats were concentrated in Amboy. Washington moved up at six o’clock the next morning to take a look at the British defences. The enemy’s position appeared unassailable by such a force as Washington could throw against it. Howe’s flanks rested on waterways; strong redoubts ran across the neck on which Amboy stood. Army Headquarters consequently were opened about five miles north of New Brunswick at Quibble Town.
In the face of reports that many of the British troops had been sent to Staten Island, Washington was notified June 26 that the British had sallied from Amboy in greater strength than ever and were advancing several columns as if they intended to do one or more of three things—to cut off Stirling at Metuchen Meeting House, bring the main Army to battle, or occupy the high ground in the vicinity of Middle Brook. The march of the British was said to be rapid, as if they hoped to overwhelm Stirling or get to elevated positions before Washington could. This was not a fisherman’s cast at which Washington would snap. His forces at Quibble Town he put on the march for Middle Brook, and he doubtless directed Stirling to disengage himself from troops who already were assailing the position at Metuchen. The British columns pursued as far as Westfield and halted there, and on the twenty-eighth returned to Amboy. On July 1 the jubilant word brought to Middle Brook was that the enemy the previous day had evacuated Amboy completely and reestablished themselves on Staten Island.
It was true. The operation that began November 20 when Cornwallis crossed the Hudson and moved against Fort Lee had now ended in withdrawal from New Jersey of all large bodies of British. A cause that had been close to complete ruin seven months previously was not yet assured of victory; but it had recovered to a vigor justifying John Hancock’s statement that the British evacuation of Jersey “will be the most explicit declaration to the whole world that the conquest of America is not only a very distant but an unattainable object.”
Washington himself was not elated; he knew the deficiencies of his Army and the immensity of the advantage Howe still enjoyed. “Our situation,” Washington told Gov. John Rutledge of South Carolina, “is truly delicate and perplexing and makes us sensibly feel now, as we have often done before, the great advantage they derive from their Navy.” Always, too, Washington had to ask himself whether the scanty American forces were balanced strategically between New Jersey and the Hudson, or whether the danger of having Carleton and Burgoyne sever New England from the rest of the country was greater than the risk that Howe, if confronted with too few, might subdue the middle States.
Before Washington could measure the improvement in his military situation or even give himself rest from strain, his Army was involved anew in troubles as baffling as those he had to face in the winter of 1776-77. On July 3 he withdrew his troops to his former station at Morristown, whence he could move swiftly to the Hudson or Philadelphia as Howe’s next maneuver might require. Washington had no convincing intelligence reports on British preparations but the probabilities seemed decisively on the side of an advance by Howe to form a junction with Burgoyne when the latter assailed Ticonderoga. A more immediate danger was that of a surprise attack by Howe on the highland defences. Putnam was invoked to watch vigilantly for the coming of the enemy and keep his forces concentrated. Gen. George Clinton was asked to cooperate and call out the New York militia. Sullivan’s Division was moved to Pompton, sixteen miles northeast of Morristown and about twenty miles west of the Hudson. From that point, if necessary, Sullivan could hasten to the support of Putnam in balking an attack on the forts of the highlands, “the thing of all others,” Washington wrote Schuyler, “most fatal to our interests,” because “the possession of the Highlands [by the British] would effectually bar all mutual assistance of our two Armies.”
The Commander-in-Chief could not devote himself exclusively to study of the defence of the Hudson. He had to give it his prime thought, but he had to deliberate also on other conditions that were exasperating in themselves and full of danger to the Army. One of these was the violent resentment Greene, Knox and Sullivan were showing because of the pretensions the Frenchman, du Coudray, was making. Another cause of uneasiness was a murmur that Washington was devoting too much to the defence of the Hudson and disregarding the danger of an attack on Philadelphia. Quartermaster General Mifflin had been among the first to voice such complaint and was becoming progressively alienated on this account from Washington.
A more acute concern was the plight of the Commissary. Washington had felt that Carpenter Wharton, Deputy Commissary General at Headquarters, was incompetent and that Joseph Trumbull, head of the department, should come to Morristown and remain there. Trumbull was in Connecticut and was not in accord with Washington’s view that the balancing of his books was less important than personal supervision of the feeding of the main Army. Congress was cognizant of Wharton’s derelictions and the smell of scandal. Trumbull first was urged, then commanded, to come to Philadelphia and set right the muddled affairs of his subordinates. He arrived April 22, reassured Congress regarding provisions immediately available and dismissed Wharton; but he did not silence other complaints. A crisis came at the end of May when Washington told Trumbull that he must visit Morristown and procure sufficient supplies or see the Army disperse for lack of food. These circumstances and the loss at Danbury prompted prolonged debate in Congress, during the course of which some of Trumbull’s assistants quit and some became demoralized. On June 10 Congress adopted new regulations for the commissariat and on June 18 fixed the pay and named the men to direct a complicated organization. Trumbull looked with some favor on the plan of the new service, though he had felt that its success and his labor for it depended on the compensation allowed him, the nature of the regulations and the character of the man in charge of the department. The organization provided no longer for one inclusive category of commissaries, but for two classes, one to have charge of purchase and the other to control issue. Trumbull resigned his old post and agreed with reluctance to act temporarily as Commissary General of Purchases.
At the moment the question was whether the troops could be provisioned to the end of the month, or even to the close of the next week. Trumbull sent one of his deputies to Washington July 9 with a letter in which he said that the bearer, Maj. Robert Hoops, had found it impossible to act because of the “difficulties arising from the strictness of Congress’ new regulations.” Trumbull wrote earnestly: “I really fear the Army will suffer if not be disbanded soon if some effectual measures for my relief are not taken.” He proposed that Congress be requested to send a committee to Morristown as soon as possible in order that members might see the danger and recommend corrective measures. Washington forwarded this to Congress with the warning that unless something was “done in aid of Mr. Trumbull immediately, this Army must be disbanded.” Washington went on to say that the Army might be obliged to move within a few hours and might have more to dread from the disorder of the Commissary than from the acts of the enemy.
This, then, was the situation: a ragged citizen Army too small for the task assigned it and under dissatisfied officers, might be compelled to scatter in order to keep from starvation at a time when every regiment should be ready to mov
e swiftly if it was to continue maneuver against a powerful professional force able to strike anywhere on deep water. Washington’s greatest need was for a prolongation of quiet in order that provisions might be collected and distributed. Instead, the express who arrived on the morning of July 10 brought a dispatch from Schuyler, dated July 7, to this effect: a report had been forwarded that St. Clair had evacuated Ticonderoga; it was feared the greater part of the garrison had been captured.
The movement Washington previously had dreaded—a British advance on Philadelphia—now appeared the lesser of evils. If Howe’s army were embarked, prompt notice of its departure for the Delaware would give Washington time to reach Philadelphia ahead of the foe; and if Howe started overland toward Pennsylvania, the Americans could outstrip him. Every consideration of strategy seemed to indicate that instead of doing either of these things, Howe would proceed up the Hudson to a junction with the northern army as soon as he confirmed the report that Burgoyne had reached Ticonderoga. On like grounds of military logic, Washington believed that Burgoyne would not proceed farther southward until he knew Howe’s drums had sounded the advance up the river. The three essential and immediate tasks were to move the main Army closer to the highlands of the Hudson, assure utmost vigilance at posts the enemy would pass or assail in moving to cooperate with Burgoyne and prevail on the eastern States to send their militia to strengthen Schuyler. Temporary troops assembled to resist the advance of the enemy from the New York lakes should be placed under some aggressive man. Orders must be prepared for Continental brigades to start northward. Their unannounced objective was Pompton Plains, eighteen miles from Morristown. Thence Washington intended to proceed through Smith’s Clove to the vicinity of West Point and await word of what was happening up the Hudson.
Neither the news nor the march was pleasant. En route to Pompton, during the evening of July 11, Washington received verification of the evacuation of Ticonderoga. Although details were lacking, he had to accept the event, which he put “among the most unfortunate that could have befallen us.” The disaster might be worse than reported, because Washington did not yet know what had happened to St. Clair’s garrison after it had abandoned Ticonderoga on the sixth. Washington advanced most of his small Army to a point eleven miles in the Clove, Orange County, New York, and there he halted July 22 until he could clarify reports he had received of the presence of British ships up the sound, in North River, off Sandy Hook, and at sea on voyages to unascertained anchorage. On the twenty-fourth, Washington felt sure the British fleet had left Sandy Hook. Philadelphia seemed its most probable destination, but he had to admit that the descent of the King’s ships might be on New England. Once more he paid tribute to sea power when he said simply: “The amazing advantage the enemy derive from their ships and the command of the water keeps us in a state of constant perplexity and the most anxious conjecture.”
The imperative task was placing the Continental brigades where they would have the shortest distance to cover when the plan of the enemy was disclosed. The light horse should proceed towards Philadelphia; the best disposition of the main Army probably would be at the crossings of the Delaware, on either side of Trenton, whence the march to Philadelphia or North River would not put too heavy a strain on the men. Washington moved southward the larger part of his Army. On July 27 he received word that seventy sail of the British fleet had been sighted off Egg Harbor. He felt it more probable than ever that the destination of Howe was Philadelphia, but he was not quite convinced. “Howe’s in a manner abandoning General Burgoyne,” Washington said, “is so unaccountable a matter that till I am fully assured it is so, I cannot help casting my eyes continually behind me.”
The British fleet appeared off the capes of Delaware Bay on the thirtieth, and presumably was making ready to enter. It was an easy matter to start a movement that had been anticipated. Orders were prepared and circulated; instructions were sent Sullivan to march for Philadelphia by the shortest route; Washington hoped his leading division would reach the city August 1. He hurried on in advance with his staff towards Philadelphia. His first task, after his arrival, was to ride through the environs of the city in order to ascertain where the troops could best be placed. He was at Chester on this mission the night of August 1 when up from Cape May rode an express: The fleet had sailed off on the thirty-first. Two hundred and twenty-eight sail had been counted off the capes—manifestly the entire fleet. If its objective had not been Philadelphia, why had it entered those waters; and if Howe had designed to attack the city, what had deterred him? Was the voyage to the Delaware a feint to draw the Continental Army to that region? Had the British slipped away to land in New England or ascend North River while the American column toiled through New Jersey again?
Military common sense directed that Washington start his troops back to the middle ground of the Delaware Valley and that Sullivan and two brigades that had been summoned from Putnam’s Army proceed to Peekskill. Orders were issued accordingly. Joint action by Burgoyne and Howe appeared to Washington to be “so probable and of such importance” that he would, he said, “with difficulty give into a contrary belief” until the evidence demanded it. Pending that, he would halt the Army at a convenient place and wait.
Washington remained in Philadelphia until August 5 and found time to attend at least one dinner. It was interesting because of the presence of a young Frenchman, not yet twenty, to whom Congress had voted the rank of Major General, though with the implied understanding the commission was honorary and without compensation. As Washington had been taxed to find some accommodation between ambitious foreigners of excessive rank and American officers jealous of their high position in the Army, the Commander-in-Chief could have been pardoned some misgiving when the young man was introduced as Major General the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette appeared to be modest, tactful, admiring and not at all inclined to tell the Americans how to manage their affairs. He made a deliberate effort to win the good will of Washington, and Washington invited him to visit the camp and took the young soldier with a party that made examination of the water defences of Philadelphia.
Washington had to treat half-a-score, more or less, of administrative ills. Some of these problems of August 1777 had been a torture from the time he had assumed command; others represented friction or weakness that had developed while the Army was on the march. The new organization of the Commissary was ill. As many complaints of neglect and mismanagement had been made, Congress adopted the greater part of the suggestions made somewhat tardily by the committee that had been to Headquarters. Meantime, Trumbull was relieved and William Buchanan named Commissary General of Purchases. Clothing was another subject of inquiry by the committee of Congress. In humiliating contrast to their adversaries, the men of the American Army had been in tatters at the opening of spring. Clothier General James Mease gave the fullest effort to the discharge of his duties, but the continuing demand was beyond the resources of the country. The committee included in its report recommendations for ascertaining what clothing the Army would need during the winter. This was to be imported or provided by each state for its own men at Continental cost. Needless to say, this arrangement disregarded the tightening of the British blockade, the frequent inability of the Board of Treasury to provide even the depreciated Continental currency and the general carelessness that seemed to be spreading from the office of the Quartermaster General.
Almost as vexatious to Washington was a problem represented by two words that had made some Americans flush with anger whenever they were uttered—”foreign officers.” Violent rivalries developed between du Coudray and additional French engineers employed by Deane. Three of these had arrived in Philadelphia during the last week of June and had let it be known that they would not take orders from du Coudray. Congress commissioned the senior, Louis le Beque Duportail, a Colonel and gave his two subordinates, Bailleul la Radiere and Obry Gouvion, the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and Major respectively. Two weeks later Congress settled some of the rivalries by
voting that Duportail should “take rank and command of all engineers previously appointed.” Washington was alarmed by the preference shown Duportail and even more by the knowledge that Greene, Sullivan and Knox had been angered and humiliated that du Coudray would have seniority over them. Knox, in particular, was outraged by what he considered an inexcusable slight. Greene, Sullivan and Knox addressed individual, but conditional, resignations to the President of Congress. Washington was quickly directed by Hancock to let the three Generals know that Congress regarded their letters as “an attempt to influence its decision”; if the officers were “unwilling to serve their country under the authority of Congress, they shall be at liberty to resign their commissions and retire.” To all Washington’s burdens and perplexities now was added this vehement rebuke of three of his best officers, because they protested against the apparent grant of seniority to a French soldier who had not marched a mile in America or faced even one bullet in the battle for independence! Washington acknowledged Hancock’s letter, stated that he had transmitted the resolves of Congress to Greene, Knox and Sullivan—and for the moment, said no more. Congress finally decided to give du Coudray staff, instead of line appointment, at the promised rank of Major General, and to make him Inspector General of Ordnance and Military Manufactories—a compromise that proved acceptable to Greene, Sullivan and the officer most directly concerned, Knox.
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