The Boys of Old Monmouth: A Story of Washington's Campaign in New Jersey in 1778

by Everett T. Tomlinson

The two officers did not long delay to talk to him, but still urged their horses swiftly forward, although the straggling, disorderly troops now almost filled the road, and their worst fears were confirmed each moment.

At last, in the post of danger and nearest to the pursuing British, the two officers discovered General Wayne and his men. "Mad Anthony" was certainly "mad" at that time, and while he assured the aids that the retreat was genuine and general, at the same time he declared that it was absolutely needless. He also declared that "Lee had drawn off his best men at the very time when he was facing a body of British far superior to himself in numbers, but that even then the redcoats could be beaten if a stand were made against them."

There was no time for an extended conversation, but, doubtless, the two officers understood what the exceedingly vigorous language of Mad Anthony Wayne was intended to convey, and after receiving the suggestions he sent by them to General Washington, and assured now that they had discovered the worst, they put spurs to their horses and rode swiftly back to give the information they had received to the great commander.

Meanwhile, General Washington himself had not been idle, we may be well assured. Riding swiftly forward, he met band after band of the retreating, disorderly Continentals, and heard many expressions of anger and disgust, very like to that which had already greeted the two officers he had sent forward.

At last, in the rear of the retreating column, he met General Wayne and his angry men. Hastily summoning Mad Anthony and two or three of his officers, the great leader told them that he "should depend upon them that day to give the enemy a check," and quickly directed General Wayne to form his men, and, with their two pieces of artillery, strive to stop the progress of the redcoats.

It was just at this moment that General Lee himself rode up, and the scene which followed was one which those who witnessed it never forgot. There is no more sublime sight in all this world than the towering passion of a great man. Not pettiness, not irritability, but the just and righteous anger of a noble, large-hearted man in the presence of wickedness.

General Washington probably never before in all his life had been so angry as he was at that time. Thoughts of the cause of the country he loved, the lives of thousands of brave and devoted patriots, the sight of angry, desperate men all about him, the disappointment at the loss of what he had confidently counted upon, the loss also of that for which so many noble men had been sacrificing and toiling through many weary days and on their long marches, rushed upon him like a flood. And before him stood the guilty man who alone was to be blamed for it all. Small wonder is it that Washington was almost beside himself with rage and sorrow.

The name of Benedict Arnold is one that is hated to-day by every American schoolboy, for, after all, most boys can be trusted to hate evil in whatever form it presents itself. But the treachery of Benedict Arnold had at least the merit of being unmasked and comparatively open, for he took his stand boldly on the side of the redcoats, whom he at one time had fought with a bravery none can ever forget. But the memory of Charles Lee has not even that redeeming quality, for his actions on the field of Monmouth can only be explained on the ground of treachery or cowardice, and a coward is not very greatly to be preferred to a traitor. If both Lee and Arnold had fallen in battle, how much better it would have been for them and their friends, for "a good name is to be preferred above great riches," and they left neither. Perhaps the strange desire which Lee later expressed in his will, that his "body should not be interred in any church or churchyard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Baptist church," was not entirely out of keeping with the man himself.

The conversation between Washington and Lee at the time they met on the retreat at Monmouth has been variously reported; but doubtless the fact that those who heard it were as excited as the generals themselves may in part account for the differences in the reports which have come down to us. We may be sure the conversation was not extended to the length which some have said it was, or that it savored largely of the high-flown expressions which have been quoted.

One of the men who was present is reported to have said that Washington in his sternest manner looked at Lee, and demanded, "What is the meaning of all this, sir?"