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Lafayette backed off, but not entirely. The problem with French officers eased after a French plenipotentiary arrived and discouraged their ardor for the American cause. Morris gave Washington that happy news, and he also complained about Lafayette’s gullibility. The commander in chief apologized for his young friend. “His countrymen soon find access to his heart,” he explained, “and he is but too apt afterwards to interest himself in their behalf, without having a sufficient knowledge of their merit.”37
Lafayette returned from Barren Hill to find another foreign officer at Valley Forge, the British-born Charles Lee, exchanged from captivity. Washington had learned during the winter that Lee had campaigned to take his place during the Conway fracas and had otherwise disparaged him. There were also suspicions, later confirmed, that he had tried to collaborate with the British. Now he was back, the highest ranking major general, asserting his right to be second in command under Washington. But he had changed during his captivity. He was often depressed, and even the dogs seemed subdued. He said that American soldiers could not stand up to British regulars. Lafayette disagreed. He said Lee’s “whole appearance was entirely peculiar,” but he got along with him. They had a few meetings in which the strange general displayed his biting wit, but their friendship did not last. A year later Lafayette explained that “as one of them was a violent Anglomaniac and the other a French enthusiast, their relationship was never peaceful.”38
FIGHT, SIR
The differences between the two foreign officers became apparent in mid-June 1778, after Clinton evacuated Philadelphia. Because shipping space was short, he sent only his heavy equipment, his invalids, and about 3,000 Tories downriver. Before sunrise on June 16, he removed his artillery from its positions around the city and began sending infantry regiments across the Delaware River. By the eighteenth he had evacuated his entire force of about 10,000 men, encumbered by baggage, guns, and more loyalists. At Haddonfield, New Jersey, he assembled a slow-moving train nearly twelve miles long before Washington tumbled to what had happened.39
Sensing that Clinton was up to something, the commander in chief had sent a list of questions to his generals on the sixteenth, asking for advice. The next day they hashed it out at a council of war. Lee dominated the discussions, and most of the others deferred to his forceful presentation and his experience. He advised against attacking the British with amateur American troops. Lafayette suggested at least harassing the redcoats if they crossed New Jersey. “I am of opinion that theyr army is as precious to them as ours is to us,” he said, “and that they will not be fond of fighting us, but upon equal grounds.” Greene, Wayne, and Pennsylvania militia general John Cadwalader agreed with him, while Hamilton and Laurens cheered from the sidelines. Washington bowed to the majority and decided that the army would stay at Valley Forge until Clinton’s intentions became clear, postponing a final decision for forty-eight hours.40
Washington had 13,500 men under him and could count on about 2,000 New Jersey militia, who mobilized when the redcoats entered the state. Clinton, with his smaller force and heavy baggage, was a great temptation. The decisive engagement of the war could lie ahead of both generals. Clinton was bogged down with few roads to choose from, and Washington might destroy his entire army. On the other hand, if he lost, he could ruin the American cause.41
Clinton could be attacked while in column rather than formed for battle. The roads ahead of him were scarcely worth the name, the militia had already begun to block them, and the bridges were destroyed. Once he reached Bordentown he had two choices. He could move through Trenton and Princeton to Brunswick, from which he could march to Amboy with his flank protected by the Raritan River and then proceed by ferry to Staten Island. The other route lay northeast to Raritan Bay, where the fleet could meet him. As Washington tried to figure out where Clinton would go, the British general’s decision depended on what the American army did.
Thanks to Steuben’s efforts, the Americans moved fast. They began marching out of Valley Forge on June 18, and the place was empty soon after midnight. Washington reached Coryell’s Ferry on the twenty-first, still lacking enough information to tell where Clinton was headed; he assumed that it would be northward. Scout reports the next day said that he had guessed right. He ordered the militia to step up their harassment and sent Morgan’s riflemen to snipe at Clinton’s east flank. Other troops, militia and Continentals, barked at the redcoats’ heels. On the twenty-third Washington reached Hopewell, east of Princeton, where he learned that the British and Hessians were south of Bordentown. His most critical guessing game began in earnest. He must have troops on any road the British might use, but he could not scatter his divisions enough to keep him from assembling a striking force once Clinton’s route of march became clear. He called a council of war for the twenty-fourth.42
It was one of the most heated meetings Washington ever presided over. The decision to be made was whether to strike at Clinton or just follow him across New Jersey. Lee, as usual, started it off. He wanted to postpone any engagement until reinforcements arrived from France. He “very eloquently,” in Lafayette’s opinion, “argued that we should provide a pont d’or [golden bridge, a graceful way out] for the enemy to reach New York…that the British army had never been as disciplined and as strong.” Most of the others agreed with him. Lafayette, Greene, Steuben, Cadwalader, and Wayne did not. Lafayette said that “it would be disgraceful for the army command and humiliating for our troops to permit them to travel the length of New Jersey with impunity.” Washington asked all of them what they thought. “Fight, sir,” said Wayne, and the other four echoed the sentiment.43
Washington compromised. He would avoid a general engagement but send a force of 1,500 men to annoy Clinton’s flanks and rear. Lafayette, Greene, Steuben, and Wayne protested, and Wayne refused to sign the minutes of the meeting, although the others did. “People expect something from us,” Greene thundered, “and our strength demands it. I am by no means for rash measures but we must preserve our reputations and I think we can make a very serious impression without any great risk and if it should amount to a general action I think the chance is greatly in our favor.” Hamilton muttered that the decision “would have done honor to the most honorable body of midwives and to them only.”44
Washington sent Colonel Charles Scott off with 1,500 men to harry Clinton’s rear and right, and Morgan’s riflemen to snipe at the other flank. He was taken aback by the sharp divisions, and he was about to hear more. Steuben and Duportail cornered Lafayette after the meeting and asked him, because his English was better, to explain to Washington “how distressed they were to see that we were going to loose an occasion which may be repented as one of the finest ever offered.” Greene, Hamilton, and Wayne joined the trio and begged the marquis to use his personal influence with the commander.45
Instead of a formal protest, Lafayette wrote Washington a personal letter and handed it to him. He had signed the minutes, he began, because he had been told he should sign it, and because almost all the others who agreed with him also signed. The main disagreement was whether 1,500 or 2,500 troops should be sent to harass the retreating enemy. Arguing for the larger figure, he said the main part of the army should maintain contact with Clinton, to take advantage of any opportunity. The enlarged advance force would be able to attack “some part of the ennemy with advantage—of even beating those tremendous grenadiers if they fight with them.” Six generals agreed with him, he said.
“In a word,” he continued, “I think the measure consistent with prudence, military principles, with the honor of the american army and every one in it…. I have perceiv’d my dear general, that you were rather inclind to follow the same way I so ardently wish for, and I would a council of war would never have been call’d.” He closed with a personal touch: “But I forgot that I write to the general, and I was ready to speack freely to my friend.”46
Lafayette was right, and Washington knew it. This was the time for bold action, not half-measures. Th
e marquis urged him to give in to his own inclinations, and he did. Almost immediately, new scout reports suggested that the redcoats were in a bad way. The temperatures hit nearly 100 degrees every day, and the air was suffocatingly humid when it was not raining, which it did often. Both armies faced the same conditions, but the Americans traveled light. Clinton’s overloaded men were literally dropping dead from the heat as they slogged through mud and sand at about six miles a day.
Washington decided to fight, hoping to tear a piece off the redcoat column’s rear. Instead of 2,500 men, he raised the figure to 4,000 Continentals and militia, big enough to need a major general to supersede Scott. Since Lee was senior, Washington offered the post to him. He declined it because he opposed the project in general and because a vanguard was not lofty enough for his dignity. Washington gave the command to Lafayette, with Wayne his second.
Lafayette was to use “the most effectual means for gaining the enemys left flank and rear,” Washington told him in the small hours of June 25, “and giving them every degree of annoyance. All continental parties that are already on the lines will be under your command and you will take such measures…as will cause the enemy most impediment & loss in their march.” Instead of the fatherly caution of the Barren Hill orders, he granted the discretion that a proven general deserved. “For these purposes,” he said, “you will attack them as occasion may require by detachement, and if a proper opening shd. be given by operating against them with the whole force of your command.”47
Clinton had been last reported heading from Cranbury toward Monmouth Court House on a road nineteen miles long, deep sand all the way. Lafayette and Wayne rounded up their troops and headed off by forced march. After they left, Lee reappeared in Washington’s office and behaved in a manner that Hamilton scorned as “truly childish.” He had declined command of the advance thinking that it would amount to 1,500 men, but since he had learned its true size he had changed his mind.48
Washington was exasperated. He had to bow to Lee’s demands because seniority required that he have his way. Washington knew Lafayette would be disappointed, so he ordered a deal that both generals agreed to. Clinton had shifted his best troops to the rear of his column, where Lafayette would face them. Reinforcements were necessary, and he sent them with Lee. When he joined the marquis, he could take command by virtue of seniority. Until that point, they were separate commands, and Lee could not take over if Lafayette was in action. When Lee did catch up with the younger general, he was not yet engaged. “My future and my honor are at stake,” he told Lafayette. “I place them in your hands.” The marquis agreed to hand over command, provided he was not in battle within twenty-four hours.49
In solving one problem, Washington had created two others. One was that his action was controlled by a general who opposed the plan and its tactics. The other was that he had given Lafayette every incentive to rush into battle. The marquis reported that he had taken off toward the enemy, marching as fast as he could and “without waïting for the provisions tho’ we want them extremely.” Hamilton was with him, scouting ahead. By late on June 25 he had located the enemy approaching Monmouth Court House, and Morgan had skirmished with them. Lafayette wanted to push on and fired off appeals for supplies. “We want to be very well furnish’d with spirits as a long and quick march may be found necessary,” he told Washington.50
The weather was brutal, like “the mouth of a heated oven,” Joseph Plumb Martin remembered; “it was almost impossible to breathe.” Washington feared that Lafayette would march his men into the ground. “Tho’ giving the enemy a stroke is a very desirable event,” he cautioned, “yet I would not wish you to be too precipitate in the measure or to distress your men by an over hasty march.” If he pushed the troops too hard, many of them would become unfit for action. Washington then set out with the main force on Lafayette’s trail.51
The marquis had to stop because of his men’s hunger and exhaustion. He bombarded Washington with messages, begging for supplies, lathering to get into action. At Robins’ Tavern, on the road to Monmouth, he held his own council of war and told the commander in chief that his officers wanted to strike the enemy immediately. The redcoats were just four miles off and fading away from heatstroke and desertion. He believed “an happy blow would have the happiest effect, and I’ll alwaïs regret the time we have lost by want of provisions,” he complained. Washington answered that his own force was bogged down by mud and thunderstorms, so Lafayette should hold off until Washington was close enough to support him. Then new intelligence caused him to divert the advance toward Englishtown. “I am persuaded you will,” Washington said hopefully (and perhaps nervously), “on every occasion observe the greatest circumspection.”52
Lafayette had done his level best to get into battle before he had to turn his command over to Lee. The heat, the supply shortages, and straying communications defeated him. He told Washington that his order had arrived too late to execute. He would march out at two o’clock the next morning, June 27, headed for Englishtown, to join up with Lee. The discouraged marquis, once he gave up his position, was again a volunteer without a division, but when he offered to serve under Lee, the older general welcomed him to his command.
Later on the twenty-seventh, Washington summoned his generals to discuss the coming action. The enemy was encamped around Monmouth Court House, ready for a fight. If they did not face one, they soon would be safe behind the heights at Middletown, a ten-mile hike to the east. Lee must attack Clinton early the next day, and Washington would come up to support him. Yet when Lee returned to his own commanders, all he told them was that the commander in chief desired no disputes over rank. In the absence of intelligence, he had no plan of attack, but would move cautiously and make it up as he went along. Then he wrote Washington that he expected the enemy to attack him.53
Clinton occupied a strong position around Monmouth Court House, a building at a crossroads about five miles southeast of Lee’s position at Englishtown. Washington with the main force was about three miles behind Lee. Clinton was ready to defend, attack, or resume marching away, and had spent the twenty-seventh expecting Washington to attack him. Not disappointed that the day had been quiet except for some skirmishing, he planned to leave the camp at four in the morning of June 28. The night before, Washington ordered Lee to put scouts out to watch the enemy, but he did not do so until six in the morning. The scouts found the British camp empty, except for a strong rear guard; the rest of Clinton’s force and its baggage were already on the road.54
Lee set out at about seven in the morning to cut off the rear guard. He demonstrated from the beginning that he meant what he had said—he had no plan. He also had not properly scouted the terrain, had too few aides, had shifted commanders around without remembering who was in charge of what, and did not tell his subordinates or Washington what he was doing. He had opposed the whole business from the outset and gained no enthusiasm for it as the sun rose. A confusing swirl of orders and counterorders, marches and countermarches, advances and withdrawals scrambled the 5,000-man force. All he accomplished was to alert Clinton that his rear guard was in danger, so the British commander turned Cornwallis’ division around.
Lee’s advance had made contact with Clinton’s rear, but his main force did not come onto the scene until ten o’clock. The landscape was varied—farm fields, hills, ravines, hedges, and a steep ridge to the west. Lafayette had asked for orders before dawn, and Lee told him to take charge of Wayne’s and Scott’s troops. He set off toward the courthouse, but Lee stopped him because of conflicting intelligence; he had also forgotten where his own men were. The two spent much of the morning arguing. Lafayette wanted to attack. Lee could not make up his mind.
Finally, Lee told the marquis to take three of Wayne’s battalions and some guns and strike the enemy’s left (south) flank. Lafayette jumped forward, ended up exposed in a hollow with rough ground ahead of him, and looked for a better place to begin an assault. As he maneuvered to another line of dep
arture, other commanders mistook his movements for a withdrawal. There had never been a good line formed anyway, and one after another American units fell back until a cascading retreat developed, some battalions in good order, others disorganized. Lafayette and the men under him came under fire from a British battery on his right.
The marquis pulled back. His men became confused, and his guns got tangled in some brush before their crews could get them to safety, across a creek and onto a hill to the west. He wanted to make a stand there, but the whole force was falling back around him. Lafayette claimed later that he had not intended to retreat, just re-form his ranks, but he really did not know what was going on. There had not been any serious fighting yet, because Cornwallis’ real muscle had not reached the scene. Lee tried to form a line, ordering Lafayette to anchor himself on a Quaker meetinghouse overlooking a ravine the enemy had to cross to strike the American right. It was not a good position, and the redcoats began to advance. Although Washington was not far to the rear, Lee retreated again. Skirmishing broke out as men on both sides dropped from heat and thirst. “I presume every one has heard of the heat of that day,” Private Martin declared, “but none can realize it that did not feel it. Fighting is hot work in cool weather, how much more so in such weather as it was.”55
Martin was not in the battle yet, because he was in the advance of the main force moving up with Washington. After his unit was ordered to take a break, he watched something interesting: “[W]e sat down by the road side;—in a few minutes the Commander-in-chief and suit[e] crossed the road just where we were sitting. I heard him ask our officers ‘by whose orders the troops were retreating,’ and being answered, ‘by Gen. Lee’s;’ he said something, but as he was moving forward all the time this was passing, he was too far off for me to hear it distinctly; those that were nearer to him said that his words were—‘d—n him;’ whether he did thus express himself or not I do not know, it was certainly very unlike him, but he seemed at the instant to be in a great passion, his looks if not his words seemed to indicate as much.” After passing Martin, Washington rode forward to observe and “remained there some time upon his old English charger, while the shot from the British artillery were rending up the earth all around him.” He rode back, deployed two brigades behind a fence, and told them to hold the enemy until the main force and its guns reached the scene.56