There they felt secure. On either side lay heavy swamps and thick woods, while in front of them was a narrow pass, through which the Americans must go if they continued the attack.
And that was just what General Washington determined to do. Carefully he arranged for divisions to move upon the right and upon the left, while the artillery was to be brought up and pour its terrible fire directly into the front of the position the British had taken.
The men responded with a will, but before the detachments could gain the desired position the night had come, and darkness spread over the field, wrapping friend and foe alike within its folds. Although the eager Americans could not then advance, they resolved to pass the night in the positions they then held, which were very near to the lines of the British, and renew the attack as soon as the light of the morning came.
Guards were established, and then the entire army prepared for the night. The exhausted men threw themselves upon the ground, many of them lying at full length with their arms spread wide and their faces resting directly upon the sand. Seldom have men been more completely worn out than were those hardy soldiers on that day of the battle of Monmouth. Many had fallen, and when their friends examined their bodies for the marks of the fatal bullets not a scratch could be found.
The beams of the summer sun had accomplished what, in many instances, the bullets of the enemy had failed to do. All day long the sun had hung in the heavens like a great red ball of fire. Steadily the heat had risen higher and higher, until it had arrived at a point which even the "oldest inhabitants" could not exaggerate in their stories. The tongues of some of the men had swelled so that speech became impossible. The poor Hessians, condemned to wear their heavy fur hats, left many a lifeless body behind them which the heat had conquered before the desperate Americans could accomplish the same result.
For hours that night not a sign of life appeared in the American camp. Motionless as logs the exhausted soldiers lay stretched upon the ground, and the sounds of their deep breathing were all that could be heard. They had not stopped even to bury their dead, so little life did the living men apparently retain.
Great was the astonishment in the American camp when the first faint streaks of the dawn appeared on the following morning, and it was discovered that not a soldier remained in the British camp. Sir Henry Clinton had permitted his weary men to rest until ten o'clock, and then, in silence, preparations were made to join the forces of General Knyphausen, who, meanwhile, had marched on and gone into camp at Nut Swamp, near the Heights of Middletown.
The British soldiers hastily had collected their wounded, leaving only forty of the poor fellows behind them, and then under the light of the moon began their march to the position which Knyphausen was holding. So wearied were the American soldiers, so heavy was their slumber, and so silent were all the movements of Clinton's men, that their departure was not discovered before the morning came, and by that time the redcoats were with the Hessians and safe from all danger of an attack.
General Washington considered a further pursuit as "impracticable and fruitless," and greatly to the chagrin of his army no attempt was made to push forward. The great battle of Monmouth had been fought. The soldiers hastily prepared to bury their dead, and so hurried were their movements that one man afterwards declared he had seen the bodies of thirteen men cast into one shallow pit which had been dug in the sand. Yet the Continentals were neither brutal nor indifferent. A British army was near them, and desperate haste was considered necessary.
The results of the battle, its effect upon the redcoats and buffcoats, and those who wore no coats at all, and the parts which Tom Coward and certain other of our acquaintances had taken in the struggle, we must reserve for another chapter.