[Return of Charles Lee] The British retreat from Philadelphia was regarded by the Americans as equivalent to a victory, and Washington was anxious to enhance the moral effect of it by a sudden blow which should cripple Sir Henry Clinton’s army. In force he was about equal to the enemy, both armies now numbering about 15,000, while in equipment and discipline his men were better off than ever before. Unfortunately, the American army had just received one addition which went far to neutralize these advantages. The mischief-maker Lee had returned. In the preceding summer the British Major-general Prescott had been captured in Rhode Island, and after a tedious negotiation of nine months Lee was exchanged for him. He arrived at Valley Forge in May, and as Washington had found a lenient interpretation for his outrageous conduct before his capture, while nothing whatever was known of his treasonable plot with the Howes, he naturally came back unquestioned to his old position as senior major-general of the army. What a frightful situation for the Americans; to have for the second officer in their army the man whom the chances of war might at any moment invest with the chief command, such a villain as this who had so lately been plotting their destruction! What would Washington, what would Congress have thought, had the truth in its blackness been so much as dreamed of? But why, we may ask, did the intriguer come back? Why did he think it worth his while to pose once more in the attitude of an American? Could it have been with the intention of playing into the hands of the enemy? and could Sir Henry Clinton have been aware of this purpose?
[Lee’s reasons for returning] Such a hypothesis, implying direct collusion between Lee and the British commander, is highly improbable. We must remember that Sir William Howe, the Whig general, had just gone home to defend his military conduct against the fierce attacks of the King’s party; and his successor, Sir Henry Clinton, was not only a Tory, but the personal relations between the two men were not altogether friendly. It is therefore hardly credible that Clinton could have known anything about Lee’s coöperation with Howe. If he had known it, we may be sure that the secret would not have lain buried for eighty years. It is much more likely that since the disastrous failure of Lee’s military advice he was reduced to painful insignificance in the British camp, and was thus prepared to welcome an opportunity for trying his fortune once more with the Americans. Indeed, the circumstances were such as hardly to leave him any choice in the matter. As a prisoner of war, he must submit to exchange. The only way to avoid it was to make a public avowal of having abandoned the American service and cast in his lot with the British. But such an avowal would at once withdraw from him General Washington’s protection, and thus leave him liable to be tried as a deserter and shot for the gratification of George III. On the whole, as the event proved, there was more safety for Lee in following Fortune’s lead back into the American camp. He came with the renewed hope of supplanting Washington uppermost in his breast. As for Clinton, there is nothing to indicate collusion between him and the traitor, but he had probably seen and heard enough to confirm the declared opinion of Sir Joseph Yorke, that such a man as Charles Lee was “the worst present the Americans could receive.”
[Washington pursues the British] When Philadelphia was evacuated, Lee first tried to throw Washington off on a false scent by alleging reasons for believing that Clinton did not intend to retreat across New Jersey. Failing in this, he found reasons as plentiful as blackberries why the British army should not be followed up and harassed on its retreat. Then when Washington decided that an attack must be made, he grew sulky and refused to conduct it. Washington was marching more rapidly than Clinton, on a line nearly parallel with him, to the northward, so that by the time the British general reached Allentown he found his adversary getting in front of him upon his line of retreat. Clinton had nothing to gain by fighting, if he could possibly avoid it, and accordingly he turned to the right, following the road which ran through Monmouth and Middletown to Sandy Hook. Washington now detached a force of about 5,000 men to advance swiftly and cut off the enemy’s rear, while he designed to come up and support the operation with the rest of his army. To Lee, as second in rank, the command of this advanced party properly belonged; but he declined to take it, on the ground that it was sure to be defeated, and Washington entrusted the movement to the youthful Lafayette, of the soundness of whose judgment he had already seen many proofs. But in the course of the night it occurred to Lee, whatever his miserable purpose may have been, that perhaps he might best accomplish it, after all, by taking the field. So he told Washington, next morning, that he had changed his mind, and was anxious to take the command which he had just declined. With extraordinary forbearance Washington granted his request, and arranged the affair with such tact as not to wound the feelings of Lafayette, who thus, unfortunately, lost the direction of the movement.
[His plan of attack] On the night of June 27th the left wing of the British army, 8,000 strong, commanded by Lord Cornwallis, encamped near Monmouth Court House, on the road from Allentown. The right wing, of about equal strength, and composed chiefly of Hessians under Knyphausen, lay just beyond the Court House on the road to Middletown. In order of march the right wing took the lead, convoying the immense baggage train. The left wing, following in the rear, was the part exposed to danger, and with it stayed Sir Henry Clinton. The American advance under Lee, 6,000 strong, lay about five miles northeast of the British line, and Washington, with the main body, was only three miles behind. Lee’s orders from Washington were positive and explicit. He was to gain the flank of the British left wing and attack it vigorously, until Washington should come up and complete its discomfiture. Lee’s force was ample, in quantity and quality, for the task assigned it, and there was fair ground for hope that the flower of the British army might thus be cut off and captured or destroyed. Since the war began there had hardly been such a golden opportunity.
[Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778] Sunday, the 28th of June, was a day of fiery heat, the thermometer showing 96° in the shade. Early in the morning Clinton moved cautiously. Knyphausen made all haste forward on the Middletown road, and the left wing followed till it had passed more than a mile beyond Monmouth Court House, when it found itself outflanked on the north by the American columns. Lee had advanced from Freehold church by the main road, crossing two deep ravines upon causeways; and now, while his left wing was folding about Cornwallis on the north, occupying superior ground, his centre, under Wayne, was close behind, and his right, under Lafayette, had already passed the Court House, and was threatening the other end of the British line on the south. Cornwallis instantly changed front to meet the danger on the north, and a detachment was thrown down the road toward the Court House to check Lafayette. The British position was one of peril, but the behaviour of the American commander now became very extraordinary. When Wayne was beginning his attack, he was ordered by Lee to hold back and simply make a feint, as the main attack was to be made in another quarter. While Wayne was wondering at this, the British troops coming down the road were seen directing their march so as to come between Wayne and Lafayette. It would be easy to check them, but the marquis had no sooner started than Lee ordered him back, murmuring about its being impossible to stand against British soldiers.[Lee’s shameful retreat] Lafayette’s suspicions were now aroused, and he sent a dispatch in all haste to Washington, saying that his presence in the field was sorely needed. The army was bewildered. Fighting had hardly begun, but their position was obviously so good that the failure to make prompt use of it suggested some unknown danger. One of the divisions on the left was now ordered back by Lee, and the others, seeing this retrograde movement, and understanding it as the prelude to a general retreat, began likewise to fall back. All thus retreated, though without flurry or disorder, to the high ground just east of the second ravine which they had crossed in their advance. All the advantage of their offensive movement was thus thrown away without a struggle, but the position they had now reached was excellent for a defensive fight. To the amazement of everybody, Lee ordered the retreat to be continued across the marshy ravine. As they crowded upon the causeway the ranks began to fall into some disorder. Many sank exhausted from the heat. No one could tell from what they were fleeing, and the exultant ardour with which they had begun to enfold the British line gave place to bitter disappointment, which vented itself in passionate curses. So they hurried on, with increasing disorder, till they approached the brink of the westerly ravine, where their craven commander met Washington riding up.
[Washington retrieves the situation] The men who then beheld Washington’s face and listened to his outburst of wrath could never forget it for the rest of their lives. It was one of those moments that live in tradition. People of to-day, who know nothing else about Charles Lee, think of him vaguely as the man whom Washington upbraided at Monmouth. People who know nothing else about the battle of Monmouth still dimly associate the name with the disgrace of a General Lee. Not many words were wasted.[17] Leaving the traitor cowering and trembling in his stirrups, Washington hurried on to rally the troops and form a new front. There was not a moment to lose, for the British were within a mile of them, and their fire began before the line of battle could be formed. To throw a mass of disorderly fugitives in the face of advancing reinforcements, as Lee had been on the point of doing, was to endanger the organization of the whole force. It was now that the admirable results of Steuben’s teaching were to be seen. The retreating soldiers immediately wheeled and formed under fire with as much coolness and precision as they could have shown on parade, and while they stopped the enemy’s progress, Washington rode back and brought up the main body of his army. On some heights to the left of the enemy Greene placed a battery which enfiladed their lines with deadly effect, while Wayne attacked them vigorously in front. After a brave resistance, the British were driven back upon the second ravine which Lee had crossed in the morning’s advance. Washington now sent word to Steuben, who was a couple of miles in the rear, telling him to bring up three brigades and press the retreating enemy. Some time before this he had again met Lee and ordered him to the rear, for his suspicion was now thoroughly aroused. As the traitor rode away from the field, baffled and full of spite, he met Steuben advancing, and tried to work one final piece of mischief. He tried to persuade Steuben to halt, alleging that he must have misunderstood Washington’s orders; but the worthy baron was not to be trifled with, and doggedly kept on his way.[18] The British were driven in some confusion across the ravine, and were just making a fresh stand on the high ground east of it when night put an end to the strife. Washington sent out parties to attack them on both flanks as soon as day should dawn; but Clinton withdrew in the night, taking with him many of his wounded men, and by daybreak had joined Knyphausen on the heights of Middletown, whither it was useless to follow him.
CHARLES LEE