With the clash averted for the moment, Lee now stepped forward and requested the command he previously had brushed aside. He had decided, he said, that leading such a large corps was “undoubtedly the most honorable command next to the Commander-in-Chief.”65 Having witnessed Lafayette’s performance, some of Lee’s colleagues may have impressed upon him the need for such a request. If so, he probably did not require much coaxing.
Washington may even have been relieved by Lee’s entreaty. At any rate, he acceded to his wishes, seemingly perturbed only by the possibility that his vain young protégé might be offended by his sudden loss of power. Late in the afternoon of June 27 Lee supplanted Lafayette, taking command of the corps at Englishtown. Washington and the main army remained at Cranbury, about four miles to the rear, but separated from Lee by deep ravines, topography hardly ideal for rapid deployment; about nine hundred New Jersey militia were posted a similar distance on the opposite side of Englishtown. Washington’s army was ready to fight. But so was Clinton’s army. The British commander easily could have moved northeast to the more hilly ground of Middletown, there escaping a clash. Obviously, he had no desire to duck an action. The redcoats were on tabletop-flat terrain, the sort of environment in which they normally fought best.
Lee’s orders were to engage the British the next morning. But what Washington really intended has been the subject of endless dispute. On the morning of the Battle of Monmouth Court House he wrote that he meant only “to harass” his foe, and his earlier directives to Lafayette had directed him merely to annoy the redcoats. However, Washington subsequently characterized his aims as those of a commander bent on attacking Clinton’s army and provoking a full-scale battle.66
At 7:00 A.M. on June 28, the morning still and already hot, Lee moved forward. In no time he was bedeviled by an intelligence breakdown. Told first that Clinton had not moved, then informed that he had moved, Lee had to pause to await definitive word. Thirty minutes or more passed before he proceeded, crossing two ravines en route, the first—or the “west ravine”—spanned by a narrow bridge, the next one—the “middle ravine”—traversed by an equally narrow causeway. Lee had to be worried by what he was discovering. This terrain—which Washington had not troubled to reconnoiter—was not conducive to a battle; indeed, he already had entered a sector from which a hurried retreat would be impossible. However, not only did Lee fail to inform Washington of the perplexities that he faced, but when he discovered that the British were moving he confidently informed the commander that he could ravage their rear guard. Lee pushed on past the court house at Monmouth, then angled north, taking a position just east of still another morass, the “east ravine.” Now he was ready to strike. What he did not know—or what he ignored, depending on whose subsequent account one chose to believe—was that Clinton had rushed units back to protect his endangered rear. The British also planned a strike. And Clinton was first to get his men in motion.
In no time the American left wing buckled under the British assault. Immediately thereafter, moreover, three regiments on the American right commanded by Lafayette pulled back. The Frenchman apparently acted on his own initiative; Lee certainly did not order his retreat, and Wayne, in command of the center, counseled against his action, imploring him to stay so they could jointly counterattack. With both the right and left collapsing, Wayne was left with no choice but to fall back too, and that, in turn, compelled Lee, who still was full of fight, to order a retreat to a point behind Monmouth. Inexplicably, however, Lee once again failed to inform Washington of the course of events.
Lee sent Duportail ahead to select the best site behind the east ravine, the place where he would make his second stand. But when Lee arrived with his army, he discovered that the French engineer had chosen a poor location for a fight. Duportail had picked a spot which exposed the American right to the enemy, while its center was beneath an eminence that the redcoats surely would command. At the same moment that Lee discovered Duportail’s unaccountable error, he also learned that Washington and the main army still were more than two miles away, too far removed to provide immediate aid. Most importantly, however, Lee now realized that his force of about 2500 men faced a reinforced adversary that consisted of “the whole flowr of the British Army, Grenadiers, Light Infantry, Cavalry & Artillery, amounting in all to 7,000 men.”67 He ordered yet another retreat, this one across the two remaining bottoms and onto the high ground beyond the west ravine.
The initial retreat had been orderly, and so, in all likelihood, was the second withdrawal, although subsequent eyewitness accounts varied. All that now is clear is that sometime around noon Washington learned that Lee was retreating, and he hurried forward to discover the reason for this action. Along the way he encountered squads and companies, even entire regiments, falling back. Passing through part of a light infantry unit that had gone out with Lee that morning, Washington paused to ask who had ordered the retreat. When told that Lee was responsible, he was heard to mutter: “d-——n him.”68
By the time Washington and Lee met just beyond the west ravine, each man still astride his thirsty, sweaty mount, the commander had worked himself into a rage. His first words to Lee were uttered in an irate, contemptuous tone, and (depending on the eyewitness) were something along the lines of: “I desire to know, sir, what is the reason, whence arises all this confusion?,” or “My God, General Lee, What are you about?” Some recollected that Washington swore at him. Lafayette claimed that Washington called Lee a “damned poltroon.” Whatever he said it certainly was not what Lee had expected to hear; indeed, Lee was so stunned that for once in his life he was speechless. He could only stammer, “Sir, sir———.” Some thought it evidence that Lee had lost control of himself, and of his army. Washington acerbically repeated his question, adding that he believed Lee had fled from an insignificant British “covering party.” Now Lee responded. He denied that there was any confusion. The retreat was orderly and it was justified, he insisted. Washington was unmoved. He in effect denounced Lee for having taken the command, considering his aversion all along to an attack. Then he assumed command.69
Interestingly, among Washington’s first orders was a directive to fall back to the very spot for which Lee had been heading when their tête-á-tête had occurred, and by all accounts the commander performed an extraordinary feat in quickly getting the men in place. Yet, by the time everyone again was ready to fight, Washington must have realized that he had erred in accusing Lee of retreating before a small British force. In a rare gesture of magnanimity Washington rode back to Lee and asked him to take command of all the troops in the rear, and a bit later that afternoon the commander observed that the American difficulties had occurred because the British had been able to effectively utilize their cavalry, an implicit admission that Lee had done as well as could have been expected inasmuch as his force lacked such a wing.
A few minutes later the first British assault came. The fighting raged for an hour—and it was in this action that “Molly Pitcher” (probably Mary Ludwig Hayes, in reality) allegedly took over the cannon her fallen husband had helped to operate—before Washington was able to bring up the main army. That hour was probably the most crucial of the day, for the danger of a British breakthrough was very real. The Americans largely fought defensively, often at very close quarters. But the American line held, and in the end it was the British army that disengaged and began to fall back. Washington responded by ordering his army to advance, but the men were too spent from the torrid heat and the long, hot fight to continue.
The battle had hardly been the sort of fight that General Washington had envisioned that morning. Yet, one of his prayers had been answered. Throughout the ordeal the American soldiery had performed capably, a tribute in considerable measure to the lessons taught by von Steuben at Valley Forge. Still, no one had been a victor on this bloody day. The British had lost at least 350, killed and wounded, the Americans about 60 percent of that number. For all that, the clash had resolved nothing.70
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By 6:00 the battle was over, save for a relatively futile and harmless artillery duel, the last gasp of two armies spent from the searing heat and the long strain of combat. After an hour or so that too ceased, and men watched with satisfaction as the cooling shadows lengthened and ultimately night fell, a happy intermission in the bloodletting, albeit only a temporary one. Or so the men believed. They slept on the battlefield that evening, their commander with them, likewise slumbering fitfully on the hard earth, waiting to renew the battle at sunrise.
But this fight was indeed over. The army awakened the next morning to discover that the British were gone. Clinton had stolen away for Sandy Hook on the Jersey coast, departing as stealthily as his foe once had left Long Island and the Assunpink.
George Washington must have fairly beamed that morning as he rode about the battlefield, inspecting this, looking into that. His army had survived, from the icy, hungry weeks at Valley Forge to that unbearable high summer day at Monmouth. Philadelphia was in American hands, and, for a change, it was his adversary who had broken off the fight on this sandy littoral in New Jersey. If the doubters had not previously been silenced, this campaign surely would hush their protests. And, if all that was not enough, the future had never looked so rosy. Soon the French would arrive and the course of the war would change.
In fact, the nature of this struggle already had changed. General Washington simply had no way of knowing how different the war henceforth would be.
10
The Character of General Washington
“The strictest rectitude”
George Washington was honest with himself—up to a point at any rate. Early in life he had circumspectly catalogued his faults and set about to correct them. One of his “foibles,” he had discovered, was his temper. It was not as though he was a surly, irascible sort, but when it seemed to him that his integrity was being questioned, his temper was certain to flare. And he had learned early on that the only safeguard against behavior that he might later regret was to stifle his passions.
It was an elementary lesson, but that Washington had learned it and Charles Lee had not was only one of a multitude of differences between these two men. At Monmouth Washington had failed to keep a rein on his temper, but later in the afternoon of that battle his passion had cooled and he had come as close to apologizing to Lee as he ever was likely to come. That he took no adverse action against General Lee during the next three days would seem to be tantamount to his silent approbation of his subordinate’s conduct. During that same period, however, Lee had stewed over Washington’s behavior until he no longer could restrain himself. Then he wrote his commander a remarkable letter. He alternately seemed to blame Washington and the sycophants (“dirty earwigs,” he called them) at headquarters for the harsh words uttered on the battlefield. Whoever was responsible, he said, he believed his conduct and his courage had been questioned, and he requested that Washington either apologize or formally press charges so that he could defend himself. Whatever his previous feelings toward his voluble subordinate, Washington now made no attempt to restrain his fury. He sent guards to place Lee under arrest pending an inquiry, and he accused him of acting with “disrespect to the commander in chief,” as well as of having disobeyed orders and of having made “an unnecessary, disorderly, and shameful retreat” at Monmouth.1
General Washington easily could have chosen to mollify Lee. He might have spoken with him privately; he might have sent him a carefully worded letter designed to placate, the sort of missive he had learned to master in three years of dealing with other volatile personalities. He might even have apologized. Instead, he acted in the manner of one who could brook no questioning of his actions. Perhaps, too, he simply took the opportunity to scuttle Lee, a troublesome subordinate whose performance too often had been lackadaisical and questionable. But it also is possible that Washington responded viscerally and not as a result of calculation. What now is clear is that Washington’s victimization of Lee was but part of a pattern of edgy, often hostile behavior which he exhibited toward those officers who possessed the power to constitute a potential threat to his position.
By 1778 half the original thirteen general officers were gone, including Montgomery and Wooster, who had been killed in combat, and Pomeroy and Thomas, who had perished from diseases. Three others among the thirteen had quit the service by then. Almost everyone quickly concluded that Joseph Spencer had been miscast; indeed, his nickname, “Granny,” spoke volumes about the impression he gave. Washington undoubtedly reached a similar conclusion about his fitness, and from the outset he managed to keep him on the sidelines. Spencer finally resigned in 1778. Schuyler also was gone by 1778, but he had never served directly under Washington. The commander had treated him cordially and had offered every possible aid to ensure his success. Nevertheless, Schuyler had been terribly unpopular with many in Congress, and he was replaced in 1777, prompting his resignation; while Lee’s hearing was being prepared, Schuyler awaited trial on a charge of incompetence. Artemas Ward was the third of the original general officers to resign. From the very beginning Washington had depicted Ward as fat, lazy, and incompetent, and as too inert to remove himself “from the smoke of his own chimney,” the same allegations—in virtually identical language—that he had made against General Joshua Fry, his commander in the Virginia Regiment in 1754. It is far from certain, however, that Ward really was as useless as Washington suggested. The authorities in Massachusetts, a colony with more military tradition than any other American polity, had thought enough of Ward to make him their commander in 1775, and he had overseen the successful operation at Bunker Hill. Nevertheless, Washington quickly established a pattern of granting him only inconsequential assignments, and after two years the first American commander left the service.2
On the other hand, from the outset Washington had placed some trust in Putnam, Heath, and Sullivan, three men whom he could never have considered a personal threat. Although Putnam had been the only major general unanimously selected by Congress, no one could have imagined him as commander in chief. At fifty-seven, he was thought by many to be too old, but mostly he lacked the polish for such a post; a farmer and former tavern owner, “Old Put” never overcame his humble beginnings, even impressing one Philadelphian as “much fitter to head a band of sickle-men or ditchers, than musketeers.”3 Washington gave Putnam a shot at glory, but after witnessing a string of ineffectual performances the commander rebuked him and assigned him to the lackluster task of recruiting in Connecticut. Heath had been the tenth of the thirteen selected, almost an afterthought. He had little military experience, no combat experience, and he was unknown outside Massachusetts. Still, Washington bestowed upon him several important commands, until he, too, was reprimanded for his indifferent leadership in the Highlands; thereafter, he was used only for staff work, and by 1778 he was in command of Boston, now safely in the backwater of things. Washington was most tolerant of Sullivan among these three. As inexperienced and powerless as Heath, Sullivan owed his appointment to Congress’s whim that New Hampshire should not be left without a general. His actions on the battlefield in 1776 and 1777 had won him few friends in high places, while his willingness to serve as Howe’s errand boy in transmitting British peace feelers to Congress had gained him the lasting enmity of many. Yet Washington stuck with him through failure after failure, and a few weeks before Monmouth he placed him in command in Rhode Island, a very active theater.
There can be no doubt that Washington was closer to Nathanael Greene than to any of the original thirteen. The commander took to him from the beginning, impressed that his men were the best-disciplined soldiers within the ragtag army he inherited in 1775. A year later he pushed for Greene’s elevation to major general, then he put him in charge of the defense of Brooklyn. Washington’s confidence in him could not be sundered, not even by Greene’s egregious blunder at Fort Washington. But what was the source of the commander’s unshakeable trust?
Washington generally was a go
od judge of men, and intuitively he may have recognized Greene’s talents. If so, Greene’s conduct as quartermaster general, and later as commander of the American forces in the South, certainly confirmed Washington’s judgment. In addition, Washington may have been drawn to Greene for reasons that he could not fully understand. While ambitious, and rather bold, impetuous even, in action, Greene was inclined to be respectful, almost obsequious to those in authority. His behavior toward Washington was nothing if not ingratiating—just as it earlier had been toward Artemas Ward. Dominated by a father who still ordered him about when he was nearly thirty years old, Greene long had been accustomed to deferential conduct. On the eve of the Revolution, in fact, he had helped organize a volunteer infantry company, but when his candidacy for rank was turned down because of his slight limp, he stayed on as a private.4 It is unimaginable that Washington—or virtually any other of the original offiers, for that matter—would have acquiesced in such an affront. It was equally unimaginable that a person of such temperament ever could have posed a threat to Washington’s leadership, and this may have increased Greene’s attractiveness.
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