European comments upon this battle were as eulogistic of the American Commander-in-Chief as after the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Germantown. The historian Gordon says of Washington, upon his reaching the battlefield: “He animated his forces by his gallant example, and exposed his person to every danger common to the meanest soldier; so that the conduct of the soldiers in general, after recovering from the first surprise occasioned by the retreat, could not be surpassed.”
General Lee was tried for disobedience of orders in not attacking the enemy; for misbehavior before the enemy; a disorderly retreat; and insolent letters sent to the Commander-in-Chief, after the battle, and was sentenced to “suspension from command for twelve months.” A reasonable self-control, which he never had exercised, might, even at this crisis of his history, have saved him his commission. He died ignominiously, and even in his will perpetuated his hatred of religion and his Maker. An abstract of the testimony taken upon his trial shows that the adjustment of the advance troops by General Lafayette was admirable; that up to the time when Lee ordered a retreat without consulting him, all the troops were steady in their positions, awaiting some systematic orders from Lee, who had just taken command; that Lee did not intend to force the battle which Lafayette had organized; that brigades and detachments had no information of adjoining commands, or supports; that when Lee’s orders for a general retreat reached brigades, each brigade moved more through example than instructions, without direction or intimation of any new formation, or any reason for the retreat.
Recent writers have revived the tradition as to Washington’s alleged profanity at the Battle of Monmouth. It would seem that either Charles Lee, or his witnesses, or the witnesses of the United States, under cross-examination, immediately after the occurrence, would have testified to such words, if spoken, for the sake of vindicating Lee, when his commission and honor were in jeopardy. Every witness agrees with Lee as to language used; but none imply profanity. Silence in this respect is, prima facie, the strongest possible legal evidence in disproval of the charge.
One of the most eminent of American historians, in a footnote, thus attempts to verify this vague tradition respecting Washington: “It is related that when Lafayette visited this country in 1825, he was the guest of Chief Justice Hornblower at Newark, N.J., and that while seated on his front porch, one evening, Lafayette remarked that the only time when he ‘ever heard Washington swear, was when he rebuked Lee at meeting him on his retreat at Monmouth.’” The late Justice Bradley, who married a daughter of Judge Hornblower, in a letter, thus meets this statement: “Nothing of the kind ever occurred. Lafayette did not stay at Mr. Hornblower’s, but at the principal public house of the city. There he was visited; but the subject of the Battle of Monmouth was not mentioned.”
Lafayette does not, in his Memoirs, make such a charge; nor in letters to his wife, which were voluminous in sketches of his beloved commander. Invariably, he exalts the character of Washington, as “something more divine than human.”
An additional statement, however, is given, to indicate the intensity of feeling and excitement of manner which characterized Washington’s deportment on the occasion referred to. The late Governor Pennington, of New Jersey, afterwards Speaker of the American House of Representatives, was a pupil of Dr. Asahel Green, President of Princeton College, and related this incident of his college career: “Dr. Green lectured on Moral Philosophy, and used as his text-book Paley’s work on that subject. When engaged on the chapter relative to profane swearing, after Dr. Green had dilated on the subject, expanding Paley’s argument on the uselessness and ungentlemanliness of the vice, and the entire absence of any excuse for it, some roguish student put to him this question: ‘Dr. Green, did not Washington swear at Lee, at the Battle of Monmouth?’ Now, the doctor was present during the battle, in fact, a chaplain in the service, although a young man, and was an enthusiastic admirer, almost worshipper, of General Washington. When the question was put to him, he drew himself up with dignity and said: ‘Young man, that great man did, I acknowledge, use some hasty and incautious words at the Battle of Monmouth, when Lee attempted to excuse his treacherous conduct: but, if there ever was an occasion on which a man might be excused for such forgetfulness, it was that occasion!’”
In reply to an insolent letter written by General Lee immediately after the battle, in which he protested against “very singular expressions used on the field, which implied that he was either guilty of disobedience of orders, of want of conduct, or want of courage,” Washington replied: “I received your letter, expressed, as I conceive, in terms highly improper. I am not conscious of any very singular expressions at the time of my meeting you, as you intimate. What I recollect to have said, was dictated by duty and warranted by the occasion.”
As at Kipp’s Bay, when Washington denounced the panic as “dastardly and cowardly,” and tradition called that “profanity,”—thus, at Monmouth, Washington rebuked Lee’s conduct. Lee’s letter, just cited, conveys his estimate of Washington’s words and manner. He also testified, that it was “manner rather than words” that gave him offence.
The Battle of Monmouth, from first to last, was a supreme test of Washington the Soldier. From Monmouth, he marched to Brunswick, where he rested his troops; thence to Haverstraw Bay; and finally, on the twenty-second day of July, he established his summer headquarters at White Plains.
Note.—Washington’s Military Order Book, from the 22nd of June to 8th of August, 1779, in his own hand-writing, contains the following General Order.