Colonel Fitzgerald carried this in person to Lee and brought back a reply as amazing as the first letter. Lee begged pardon for the error of dating—and made another of like sort in heading his new communication June 28 instead of June 30. He then indulged himself in this: “I trust the temporary power of office, and the tinsel dignity attending it, will not be able, by all the mists they can raise to offiscate [offuscate] the bright rays of truth.” Meantime, Lee concluded, “Your Excellency can have no objection to my retiring from the Army.”
In a later letter of the same day, Lee said that reflection had convinced him a court of inquiry “should be immediately ordered. . . .” With this request, which was not unusual, a prudent officer would have ended the exchange; Lee would not have it so. He defiantly offered this antithesis: “. . . but I could wish it might be a court martial.” With that he leveled a new threat: “for if the affair is drawn into length, it may be difficult to collect the necessary evidences, and perhaps might bring on a paper war betwixt the adherents to both parties, which may occasion some disagreeable feuds on the continent; for all are not my friends, nor all your admirers.” Lee then proceeded to his final challenge: “I must entreat you, therefore, from your love of justice, that you will immediately exhibit your charge; and that on the first halt, I may be brought to a trial, and am, sir, your most obedient, humble servant.”
Lee asked a court-martial. He should have it! There followed consultations, some drafting of papers, and then a brief word to one of the staff: please ask Adjutant General Scammell to come to Headquarters and bring his sword and sash with him. Scammell arrived promptly. Washington gave him this document to deliver officially and in person to General Lee:
Head Quarters, English Town,
June 30, 1778
SIR: Your letter by Colo. Fitzgerald and also one of this date have been duly received. I have sent Colo. Scammell, the Adjutant General to put you in arrest, who will deliver you a copy of the charges on which you will be tryed. I am, etc.
Announcement of the trial was made in the next day’s orders: “A general court martial whereof Lord Stirling is appointed President will sit in [New] Brunswick tomorrow (the hour and place to be announced by the President) for the trial of Major General Lee.” It soon was known everywhere that the paper handed Lee by Scammell had ordered trial:
First: For disobedience of orders, in not attacking the enemy on the 28th of June, agreeable to repeated instructions.
Secondly: For misbehavior before the enemy on the same day, by making an unnecessary, disorderly and shameful retreat.
Thirdly: For disrespect to the Commander-in-Chief, in two letters dated the 1st of July and the 28th of June.
Never had the main Army experienced such a sensation; never had there been such heated discussion of personalities, not even in the Conway cabal. Young staff officers, Laurens and Hamilton in particular, were vehemently critical of Lee because they knew what his orders had been; Wayne and Scott stood squarely to their charge that Lee, in effect, had not exercised command when he met the British. Every aspect of the accused officer’s conduct was reported. Fair-minded men doubtless recognized the difficulties he faced because of his unfamiliarity with the ground, the ceaseless calls of his subordinates for instructions and, to quote Lee’s own words, “a crowd of visitants and spectators, acting in no capacity” who “galloped in so furiously” that they might have alarmed the troops; but why he had ordered his large force to retreat before a numerically inferior foe with scarcely an exchange of fire the court would have to ascertain.
By the time that tribunal began to take testimony on July 4 the Army’s talk was of the closing campaign rather than of the opening trial. Morgan had attempted to follow the retreating British, but he had been able to do little. The enemy marched almost without challenge to Nave-sink and thence to Sandy Hook, New York and Long Island. Washington gained only in deserters, who continued to slip from the British camps. Weather continued almost unendurably hot, but it did not interfere materially with the observance of the second anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The ceremonial was in a sense a celebration of Monmouth and was similar to the exercises that had proclaimed the French alliance. To many of Washington’s supporters, the day in retrospect became still more joyful on receipt of news from Philadelphia of a duel Cadwalader had fought in answer to a challenge Conway had sent him because of an alleged slur. Cadwalader had shot the Frenchman in the face, not fatally, as some feared and others hoped.
The Army remained a week at New Brunswick and then marched through Newark towards position at Paramus. All reports were that the British, too, were “reposing,” in Washington’s own word, at the stations to which they had returned, a circumstance that led him to believe the first stage of the campaign of 1778 was at an end. As reviewed by Washington’s admirers, the operations were declared a credit to him and to the troops. Congratulations from Henry Laurens were in the strain of the address by the Massachusetts Legislature after the liberation of Boston, and with this tribute came unanimous thanks of Congress to Washington and the Army.
As surely as Monmouth was a defeat for Lee, it was a victory for Washington. Never had he appeared to such advantage as a combat leader. When all accounts were balanced—the dead counted, prisoners cared for and deserters marched off—Clinton’s ranks were thinner by twelve hundred and more, losses perhaps five times those of the Americans. The battle was the best the Army yet had fought, the nearest approach it had made to victory in the field when the whole British force was at hand. Actions at Trenton and Princeton had been with detachments: This time all of Clinton’s troops had been near enough to have participated if their commander had wished to have a full engagement.
Clinton manifestly did not want a fight in Jersey. It was not certain where or when he subsequently would seek battle. After the British had embarked, presumably for New York, Washington thought it might be wise to place part of his Army on the east side of the Hudson to strengthen the defence of the highlands, but he delayed transfer until he could ascertain the views of Gates, whose whole attitude during the march of the British through the encumbering sands of Jersey had been one of cheerful cooperation.
Change of base brought diversion and relief. Washington’s troops continued the recovery they had begun at New Brunswick. Their reward was long sleep and rations usually full; Washington had larger compensation than even the thanks of Congress. He learned that the Delegates of nine States had signed the Articles of Confederation and that the “perpetual union” might become a reality when the other States assented. To no man could this mean more than to the patient General who had groaned over many a line he had written in an effort to persuade the States to support the common cause; but federation was in futuro.
Nearer, running through the camps, was rumor of tremendous import: New York had heard that a strong French fleet was off the coast! In a letter of General Arnold’s, received on July 11 from Philadelphia, Washington read that the sailing of French men-of-war from Toulon for a voyage to Chesapeake Bay had been set down as undisputed fact. On the night of July 13 confirmation was on Washington’s table in a dispatch from Congress, with a terse description of the fleet and unqualified announcement that the vessels had appeared off Chincoteague, Virginia, under the command of Vice Admiral Count d’Estaing.
Arrangements for signals and pilots were made; plans were sketched for passing the Army to the left bank of the Hudson, whence it could demonstrate against Manhattan Island at the time of d’Estaing’s arrival. John Laurens, who spoke good French and had the distinction of being the able son of the President of Congress, was directed to proceed to the Jersey coast and deliver a letter of welcome to the Admiral. In this first message to his new colleague Washington had to begin the confession of the hundred humiliating inadequacies of his Army: he could not even inform d’Estaing of the strength or composition of the enemy’s fleet in nearby New York.
Washington proceeded on the fourteenth with part of the Army t
o Haverstraw, on the west side of the Hudson, opposite King’s Ferry. That evening he received a letter of June 13 from d’Estaing and a duplicate of one, dated June 8, that had not reached American Headquarters. In display of cordial spirit and desire to share immediately in decisive action, these communications were a model for any ally. D’Estaing was off Sandy Hook and was encouraging the pilots to find a channel through which he could carry his deep draught vessels to attack Lord Howe’s fleet that was riding at ease “within the Hook.” The French Admiral was eager to know Washington’s plans. “I have orders to second them,” he wrote, and added: “I dare assure you that I will do it to the utmost of my power. To act in concert with a great man is the first of blessings. . . .”
That general sentence would have been all the more gratifying to Washington if he had known the entire story of d’Estaing’s landfall. The tedium of eighty-seven days at sea and a shortage of water and provisions made d’Estaing anxious to get his casks refilled and his sick ashore. When he found no conveniences available and no duty to perform at the mouth of the Delaware, he left after a single day of waiting and proceeded north. On reaching the vicinity of Sandy Hook June 11, d’Estaing was confronted with a change of heart in the pilot who had come aboard off the Delaware and had promised to take the fleet inside the Hook, where, the man said, sweet water might be obtained easily. D’Estaing, puzzled and almost desperate, soon concluded that a reconnaissance had to be made on shore, and he undertook it in person. He reached land with much difficulty, only to find himself in what appeared to be a hostile community where his host, a Quaker, proved to be more English than American in sympathy. He contrived to make his way into the estuary known as Shrewsbury River where he was told he might reach fresh water by digging. This adventure cost the life of a marine officer and four sailors. Several rowboats sank. At this stage of d’Estaing’s unhappy experiences, on July 16, Laurens came out to the flagship, though he ran great risk of being drowned, and dispelled most of the Admiral’s misgiving; but the best pilots thereafter procured for d’Estaing could not point out a sure and safe channel, nor could Washington comply with d’Estaing’s request for a plan of action until he knew whether the French ships could assail effectively the British vessels. Delay in opening the attack on New York seemed certain, though it gave the enemy time for preparation and might involve the arrival of reenforcements for the British fleet. Meanwhile, d’Estaing was lowering his supply of water and getting reports of a steady rise in the number of men with scurvy.
Was there an alternative to swinging impatiently at anchor in the treacherous waters off Sandy Hook while pilots continued to seek a channel that might not exist? The question might be answered for Washington in a letter that brought him on July 17 a proposal by Congress that the operations of d’Estaing be directed against Rhode Island, where the destruction of a small squadron might open the way to defeat of the British garrison under Maj. Gen. Sir Robert Pigot. Washington gave this immediate study and found in it strategical excellencies that prompted him to make the basic preparation: John Sullivan, then commanding opposite Rhode Island, was authorized to call out sufficient militia to raise the total American force in that region to five thousand men. Washington decided, also, that whether the next objective was New York for the entire Army or Rhode Island for part of the troops, he now would be more advantageously placed east of the Hudson, and he executed the transfer July 15 through 18. As soon as this movement was completed, Washington dispatched Hamilton to d’Estaing to show him the proposal for an attack on Rhode Island and explain the new position of the Continental Army. The next night, July 19, Laurens returned from the French fleet and reported the Admiral so nearly in despair of finding a channel that he was considering the very course Washington had sent Hamilton to suggest. Washington consequently felt that he could assume the departure of the French fleet for Rhode Island as almost certain and that he should begin movement of troops in that direction. Gens. James Varnum and John Glover were ordered to start their brigades on the twenty-second. Some of these troops had not been twelve hours on the road when Washington learned from Hamilton that d’Estaing had abandoned hope of accomplishing anything at Sandy Hook and had decided to proceed to Newport.
Washington thus far had not seen the French Admiral, but correspondence had been altogether correct and friendly. Now d’Estaing was leaving the area of Washington’s direct command and was going to the district where the retirement of Joseph Spencer had led to the appointment of Sullivan as American commander. The New Hampshire General had courage and a sense of organization, but he was excessively ambitious and disposed to be overconfident until some adversity threw him into a desperate mood. His record as a military diplomatist was negative, though he had fraternized with some of the French officers in American service. If Washington had doubts concerning Sullivan’s part in the critical experiment in cooperation, he wrote nothing on the subject, but he quickly assured himself that the men who headed the reenforcements should be as suave in diplomacy as they were skilled in war. Lafayette was given divisional command of the two Continental brigades, Varnum’s and Glover’s. Not long previously, the sensitive feelings of Greene had been hurt because he had thought Washington critical of him. As an emollient, as well as a deserved distinction and a service to the French, Washington directed Sullivan to reorganize all the Continentals and militia into two divisions, with Greene in command of one and Lafayette responsible for the other. This was an arrangement not beneath the dignity of Greene, because Washington, in advance of the appointment, told Sullivan to disregard the authorized limit of five thousand for the expedition in Rhode Island and collect as many militia as the New England States would supply. If these temporary troops were forthcoming in adequate number, Greene and Lafayette each would have a division that counted as many men as either had commanded in earlier operations. With these two officers to assist Sullivan and d’Estaing a hopeful prospect took on shining color.
Washington was firm in belief that a glorious victory would be achieved when the French fleet reached Newport. At last the balance of power was shifting! “The fairest hopes that ever were conceived,” and the “moral certainty of success,” as he said later, now were America’s. In that spirit he rode to White Plains on the afternoon of July 20 with the intention of establishing Headquarters at the familiar village on the upper road to Connecticut. A personal letter to Thomas Nelson included this observation:
It is not a little pleasing, nor less wonderful to contemplate, that after two years’ maneuvering and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes that perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation, both Armies are brought back to the very point they set out from, and that that which was the offending party in the beginning is now reduced to the use of spade and pick axe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude to acknowledge his obligations. . . .
Had the General pursued this idea he might have been disposed to admit that if the providence of Almighty God was manifest in the confident return of a more experienced American Army to White Plains, the handiwork of the devil was to be seen there in the hearts of dissatisfied and quarrelsome officers. Rank and seniority were in dispute; contention among the Virginia Brigadiers was undiminished; Alexander McDougall and Johann Kalb were engaged in a polite exchange over the dates of their respective commissions; Steuben was angling for line command. Washington valued Steuben’s service but he faced so many vexations in dealing with officers from other countries that he included even Steuben when he wrote a friend in Congress, “I do most earnestly wish that we had not a single foreigner among us, except the Marquis de Lafayette, who acts upon very different principles from those which govern the rest.”
A score of other vexatious puzzles had to be solved—if that were possible—while Washington waited for a decision in Rhode Island. He seconded as best he could the efforts of the Board of War to procure c
lothing; he had to disapprove an operation against Detroit at a time when he might be required to send more troops to Sullivan; and he contended for weeks with varied disabilities among his senior officers. Putnam procured leave to go to Philadelphia where he had the satisfaction of getting Congress to approve the findings of the court-martial that acquitted him of culpability for the loss of Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery. Arnold still reported himself physically unable to take the field, in spite of Washington’s wish to employ him in the main Army. It seemed desirable to leave the invalid in Philadelphia, where he was making both friends and enemies by a tolerant attitude towards Loyalists.
Lee’s case took a turn still different. At the time of the arrest of that officer, Hamilton had doubted whether the court would condemn the leader of the advanced force at Monmouth. “A certain preconceived and preposterous opinion of his being a very great man,” said the aide, “will operate in his favor”; but the violence of Lee’s reckless utterances had destroyed this illusion. “By all that’s sacred,” he wrote Robert Morris on July 3, “General Washington had scarcely any more to do in (the Battle of Monmouth) than to strip the dead.” He credited himself “with great presence of mind and not less address,” and he insisted that “although my orders were perpetually counteracted,” he maneuvered the British “from their advantageous ground into as disadvantageous a one.” When Lee found there was no general support of these assertions, he began to complain, “No attack, it seems, can be made on General Washington but it must recoil on the assailant.” The hearing had been inclusive, though the court had been compelled to move with the Army. Lee conducted his defence with little skill and did nothing in cross-examination to shake the testimony of those who maintained, in effect, that he scarcely knew what was happening at the front. He called few witnesses and his principal aim seemed to be to establish the courage and coolness of his behavior on the field, rather than to demonstrate the wisdom of his dispositions and the skill of his maneuvers. His summing-up exhibited far more regard for phrase than for fact. The court concluded the hearing on August 9, and, on the third day of deliberation, found Lee guilty as charged. His sentence was suspension “from any command in the armies of the United States of North America, for the term of twelve months.” Some observers thought the sentence so severe that they feared Lee’s partisans and chronic malcontents would make an issue of it, but the event was to show no wavering in general support of Washington. Washington had resolved to say nothing of Lee or the case before final action was taken by Congress and made no comment in forwarding the proceedings to Congress on August 16.
Washington Page 70