Two Revolutionary Symposia Coming Up in New York

The month of May brings two gatherings of Revolutionary War researchers in upstate New York, just a scenic drive away from Boston.

Saratoga 250 will host its fourth annual Turning Point Symposium in Schuylerville on 3 May with these speakers:

• Dr. Phillip Hamilton – “Washington’s Artillerist: Henry Knox Commands the Continental Guns”
• Matthew Keagle – “My Dinner with Andre?: Henry Knox Arrives at Fort George on Lake George”
• Dr. Bruce M. Venter – “Irascible Ethan Allen: He Cared Little About Ticonderoga’s Guns”
• Michele Gabrielson – “American Calliope: The Writings of Mercy Otis Warren and Her Friendship with Henry Knox”
• Dr. Mark Edward Lender – “The Woman at the Gun Reconsidered: Molly Pitcher’s Legendary Performance at Monmouth”

Registration for that day is $89 and includes two meals.

The following day, 4 May, Hamilton will conduct a bus tour of the “Sled Tracks of Henry Knox.” That has a separate registration cost.

At the end of the month, the Fort Plain Museum convenes its annual American Revolution Conference in Johnstown. This year’s presenters include:

• Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson – “The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780”
• Maj. Gen. Jason Q. Bohm, U.S.M.C. (Ret.) – “The Birth and Early Operations of the Marine Corps: 250 Years in the Making”
• Alexander R. Cain – “We Stood Our Ground: 250th of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775”
• Abby Chandler – “Choosing Sides: North Carolina’s Regulator Rebellion and the American Revolution”
• Gary Ecelbarger – “The Mammoth of Monmouth: George Washington’s 1778 Campaign in New Jersey”
• Michael P. Gabriel – “Richard Montgomery and the Other Invasion of Canada”
• Shirley L. Green – “Integrating Enslaved and Free: Rhode Island’s Revolutionary Black Regiment”
• Don N. Hagist – “Marching from Peace into War: British Soldiers in 1775 America”
• Patrick H. Hannum – “The Virginia Campaign of 1775-76: Kemp’s Landing & Great Bridge”
• Wayne Lenig – “The Mohawk Valley’s Committee of Safety in 1775”
• James L. Nelson – “Bunker Hill: The First Battle of the American Revolution”
• Eric H. Schnitzer – “Breaking Convention: How a Fussy Detail about British Uniforms Doomed Burgoyne’s Army to Captivity”
• William P. Tatum III, Ph.D., the James F. Morrison Mohawk Valley Resident Historian – “‘To Quell, Suppress, and Bring Them to Reason by Force’: Combatting the Loyalist Threat in New York during 1775”
• Bruce M. Venter – “‘It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones’: Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys Take Fort Ticonderoga”

This program extends from the afternoon of Friday, 30 May, to the morning of Sunday, 1 June. Registration for people not already members of the museum costs $160 and includes lunch on Saturday.

The Fort Plain conference also offers a bus tour—in this case beforehand, on Thursday, 29 May. Alex Cain will guide attendees along the Battle Road in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. So that would be a busman’s holiday for folks coming from the Boston area.

Online Talks about Patriots of Color and Their Legacy

This month, the Boston Public Library and the National Park Service are teaming up for two online events that look at the Revolutionary War and its legacy.

Tuesday, 12 April, 6:00–7:00 P.M.
Patriots of Color
online

More than 2,100 men of color from Massachusetts served the Patriot cause during the American Revolution. They served as militiamen in emergencies, and as professional soldiers who marched in campaigns from Boston to Saratoga, from Monmouth to Yorktown.

As the nation plans for its 250th anniversary, join National Parks of Boston staff and interns as they share their emerging research that explores select life stories of Patriots of Color during and long after they served on the Revolutionary battlefields.

Register for this event through this link on this page.

Tuesday, 26 April, 6:00–7:00 P.M.
Connecting Past, Present, and Future: The Descendants of Darby Vassall on the Legacy of Slavery and Freedom
online

In 1774, the family of Darby Vassall—enslaved in Cambridge and surrounding towns—seized their freedom. Vassall dedicated the rest of his life to the struggle for freedom, education, and equality for greater Boston’s black community.

In this virtual program, join Vassall’s descendants for a conversation on the significance of surfacing the past, present, and future. Members of the Lloyd family and other descendants will reflect on the process of finding their ancestors’ history, and the critical importance of making this history—of the legacy of slavery, the value of freedom, and the beauty of the struggle—known to this and future generations.

Staff from the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site and other historical organizations will also briefly discuss collaborative efforts to research and memorialize the legacy of the Vassall family and slavery in greater Boston.

Register through this page.

McBurney on “George Washington’s Nemesis,” 8 Oct.

On Thursday, 8 October, the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York will share a talk by Christian McBurney on “George Washington’s Nemesis: The Outrageous Treason and Unfair Court-Martial of General Charles Lee.”

The event description says:

While historians often treat General Charles Lee as an inveterate enemy of George Washington or a great defender of American liberty, author Christian McBurney argues that neither image is wholly accurate. In this lecture, McBurney will discuss his research into a more nuanced understanding of one of the Revolutionary War’s most misunderstood figures.

I can’t think of a historian who portrays Charles Lee as “a great defender of American liberty,” though. Certainly we’ve moved past the nineteenth-century treatment of him as a villain for challenging the sainted Washington after the Battle of Monmouth, but even Lee’s most sympathetic biographers don’t deny he was a difficult, ego-driven man.

Lee was paradoxical—a long-serving British officer fighting the British army, one of the most vocal and enthusiastic proponents of American resistance and independence in 1774 and 1776, yet dismissed from the Continental Army by the end of 1778.

McBurney’s new book about Lee leans into exploring such paradoxes. On the one hand, the general’s conduct at Monmouth—for which he was court-martialed, expelled from the army, and turned into a villain—is actually quite defensible. But Lee’s cooperation with the British command when he was a prisoner of war in the preceding months, which Americans didn’t learn about until generations afterward, looks like outright treason.

This online talk will begin at 6:30 P.M. on Thursday. Registration for the event will close at noon on that day.

In the meantime, the Journal of the American Revolution has shared an article by McBurney that grew out of his research for the book, as well as his study of Rhode Island. It discusses one of Lee’s subordinates, Col. Henry Jackson of Boston, and what he did at Monmouth. Did he set off the American retreat that forced Lee to withdraw and regroup? Was his action justified?

In his usual thorough fashion, McBurney analyzes the record of the 1779 inquiry into Col. Jackson’s decisions. In July 1778, a month after the Monmouth battle and while the court-martial of Gen. Lee was still going on, sixteen junior officers complained that due to Jackson’s “misconduct, confusion & disobedience of orders,” “many gentlemen of General Washington’s army have freely delivered sentiments unfavorable” to their units.

Continental Army commanders were in no hurry to remove Jackson, however. It wasn’t until April 1779 that the court of inquiry met in Providence under Col. Timothy Bigelow. And that procedure started out by stating that Jackson himself was “thinking his character much injured & his Reputation highly reproached.” So was he now pushing the inquiry to restore his reputation (as other Continental officers did)?

The Jackson trial went on for months. Only five officers of the original sixteen testified, including only one from Jackson’s own regiment. Their testimony described the colonel’s battlefield behavior in positive terms. So what had caused problems? First, Col. Jackson had fatigued his men by marching them too hard. Second—Gen. Lee.

The Legend of Molly Pitcher—A New Source

Since I was on a Battle of Monmouth kick, I’ll jump to one of the most enduring American legends to come out of that fight: Molly Pitcher.

As Ray Raphael wrote in Founding Myths and this article for the Journal of the American Revolution, there’s solid evidence of a woman helping her husband in the Continental artillery at that battle. In his memoir, first published in 1830, army veteran Joseph Plumb Martin wrote:

A woman whose husband belonged to the artillery and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole time. While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.

There’s also contemporaneous documentation of the state of Pennsylvania awarding a pension to Margaret Corbin, who took her husband’s place at a cannon during the defense of Fort Washington in 1776.

But the specific legendary figure we’ve come to know as Molly Pitcher first showed up in the second volume of Freeman Hunt’s 1830 collection American Anecdotes:

Before the two armies, American and English, had begun the general action of Monmouth, two of the advanced batteries commenced a very severe fire against each other. As the warmth was excessive, the wife of a cannonier constantly ran to bring him water from a neighbouring spring. At the moment when she started from the spring, to pass to the post of her husband, she saw him fall, and hastened to assist him; but he was dead. At the same moment she heard an officer order the cannon to be removed from its place, complaining he could not fill his post by as brave a man as had been killed. ‘No,’ said the intrepid Molly, fixing her eyes upon the officer, ‘the cannon shall not be removed for the want of some one to serve it; since my brave husband is no more, I will use my utmost exertions to avenge his death.’ The activity and courage with which she performed the office of cannonier during the action, attracted the attention of all who witnessed it, finally of Gen. Washington himself, who afterwards gave her the rank of Lieutenant, and granted her half pay during life. She wore an epaulette, and every body called her Captain Molly.

Five years later the story was in print again, in two sources, one of which I don’t think has been discussed before. A Popular Cyclopedia of History, an oft-reprinted reference book compiled by Francis Durivage, stated:

In the beginning of this battle [of Monmouth], one Molly Pitcher was occupied in carrying water from a spring to a battery, where her husband employed in loading and firing a cannon. He was shot dead at last, and she saw him fall. An officer rode up, and ordered off the cannon. “It can be of no use, now,” said he. but Molly stepped up, offered her services, and took her husband’s place, to the astonishment of the army. She fought well, and half pay for life was given her by Congress. She wore an epaulette, and was called Captain Molly, ever after.

And here’s a source I don’t think anyone has spotted before, also from 1835: Allgemeine Beschreibung der Welt [General Description of the World] published in Philadelphia. This book was credited to E. L. Walz with editing by Heinrich Diezel of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. It was printed in old Gothic type, and I’ve never studied German. I’m therefore at the mercy of Google’s O.C.R. transcription and translation services, but this is what I think that book says:

In Monmouth County siel im Revolutionskriege eine Geschichte vor, welche noch immer häufig in N. I. erzählt wird: Die Amerikaner unter Washington, und die Engländer unter Henry Clinton, schlugen sich hier wasser herum. Es war an diesem Tage heiß und schwühl. Mitten in der Schlacht sah man eine Frau, Molly Pitcher, die einigen Artilleristen Wasser zutrug, unter denen auch ihr Mann sich befand. Von einer Kanonenkugel getroffen, stürzte er leblos nieder. Molly that nun, was 1000 andere Weiber nicht gethan haben würden. Statt zu weinen, stellte sie sich an die Stelle des Gefallenen und versah mit wahrem Heldenmuthe seine Dienste. Sie kam glücklich davon. Von dieser Zeit an behielt sie bis zu ihrem Tode den Namen: Major Molly.

[From Monmouth County in the revolutionary war fell a story which is still frequently told in N.J.​​: The Americans with Washington, and the English under Henry Clinton, this also reflected around water. It was hot and schwühl on this day. In the midst of the battle some artillerymen saw one woman, Molly Pitcher, that was happening water in which her ​​husband was. From a cannonball hit, he fell down lifeless. Molly now did what 1000 other women would not have done. Instead of crying, she stood in the place of the dead man and adorned with true heroism his services. She got off lucky. From that time on she kept until her death the name: Major Molly.]

It’s notable that the story penetrated the German-American community so early. That might lend credence to the interpretation that the real Molly Pitcher was Mary (Ludwig) Hays, the daughter of German immigrants to Philadelphia. On the other hand, Mary Hays settled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, after the war, and lived until 1832, a local character who also received a state pension. So it’s a little surprising that this book’s source for the story seems to come from New Jersey rather than two counties away.

Clearly this anecdote grew in the telling. Mary Hays was supposedly called “Sergeant Molly” after the battle and later in life. In these early sources the corresponding detail became “the rank of Lieutenant” and “Captain Molly,” then “Major Molly.” There’s no documentation to support the claims that this woman received such a rank or a pension from “Gen. Washington himself” or the Congress. But clearly by the 1830s Americans of many sorts were telling the story of Molly Pitcher.

TOMORROW: But there already was a famous Molly Pitcher.

Charles Lee on a Fatal Sunday

Mount Vernon just shared an interview with Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone about their recently published book, Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle.

Here’s the authors’ positive appraisal of how Gen. Charles Lee behaved as a battlefield commander on 28 June 1778:

Charles Lee had a difficult assignment. He had to lead a vanguard of some 3,500 to 4,000 men of mixed commands, led by officers he didn’t know, into terrain he didn’t know, against an enemy whose strength and intentions were unknown. He had to do this in the face of conflicting intelligence reports and without adequate cavalry or other scouting capabilities.

Nevertheless Lee executed a nearly perfect movement to contact, quickly assessed the enemy situation, and formulated a reasonable plan to cut off what he thought was a relatively small British rear guard. It would have been exactly the limited blow and victory [George] Washington had in mind. When faced with an overwhelming British counter-attack, and an unauthorized retreat by a sizable part of his command, Lee pulled back in fairly good order, looking for a place to make a stand until Washington brought up the main army.

When he met the commander-in-chief—and the two generals had their famous contretemps—Lee in fact was headed for the very ground on which Washington organized the main American line. Lee then fought an admirable delaying action at the Hedgerow, buying the time Washington needed to form the main army. Charles Lee certainly made some mistakes—lots of officers did that day—but all in all he fought a good battle at Monmouth.

Of course, after quarreling with Washington, Lee demanded a public vindication which took the form of a court-martial. He thus destroyed his American career, turning a battlefield draw into a permanent defeat as surely as Washington had turned it into a victory.

TOMORROW: Charles Lee in the 21st century.

“Lapping a spot of dry blood on his sleeve”

Before leaving the diary of the mysterious Capt. Smythe, I must highlight a passage that Frank Moore quoted from that document in 1860.

Smythe was a British army officer stationed around New York. In his entry for 8 Nov 1778, he wrote:

This afternoon a party of our horse brought in two rebel privates from Powles Hook. One of them is very intelligent and communicative; but the other is the most whimsical tony I ever have seen. Wherever he goes, he carries with him a large gray cat, which he says came into the rebel camp on the night after the battle at Freehold Meeting-House [better known as Monmouth], and which he first discovered lapping a spot of dry blood on his sleeve, as he lay on his arms expecting another dash at the British. His affection for the cat is as wonderful as hers is for him, for they are inseparable. He says if we don’t allow him extra rations for his cat, he shall be obliged to allow them out of his own.

A New Complete English Dictionary from 1760 defines “jack-pudding” as “a tony; a merry andrew”—all types of fools.

[Portrait above by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau in 1747, as featured here.]

Lee and Laurens Finish Their “Transaction”

As related yesterday, on 23 Dec 1778 Col. John Laurens and Gen. Charles Lee (shown here) met for a duel on the aptly named Point No Point Road, leading to what’s now Bridesburg, Pennsylvania.

Laurens’s second was his friend and fellow aide de camp to Gen. George Washington, Col. Alexander Hamilton. Lee’s second was one of his aides, Maj. Evan Edwards. Lee had been in a duel to the death before. (Obviously, it hadn’t been fatal for him.)

When we left the fun, Laurens’s pistol shot had hit Lee, from a distance of “five or six paces.” But the general, declaring that it was just a flesh wound, wanted to proceed with a second exchange of fire.

Edwards and Hamilton protested that one shot was enough to satisfy the officers’ honor. Edwards was a little more persistent about that. Finally the duelists allowed their seconds to negotiate, though those two men were already in agreement—the sticking-point was getting the parties themselves to settle down.

Here’s the rest of the account, from Hamilton’s pen:

Col Hamilton and Major Edwards withdrew and conversing awhile on the subject, still concurred fully in opinion that for the most cogent reasons, the affair should terminate as it was then circumstanced. This decision was communicated to the parties and agreed to by them, upon which they immediately returned to Town; General Lee slightly wounded in the right side.

During the interview a conversation to the following purport past between General Lee and Col Laurens—On Col Hamilton’s intimating the idea of personal enmity, as beforementioned, General Lee declared he had none, and had only met Col. Laurens to defend his own honor—that Mr. Laurens best knew whether there was any on his part.

Col Laurens replied, that General Lee was acquainted with the motives, that had brought him there, which were that he had been informed from what he thought good authority, that General Lee had spoken of General Washington in the grossest and most opprobrious terms of personal abuse, which He Col Laurens thought himself bound to resent, as well on account of the relation he bore to General Washington as from motives of personal friendship, and respect for his character.

General Lee acknowleged that he had given his opinion against General Washingtons military character to his particular friends and might perhaps do it again. He said every man had a right to give his sentiments freely of military characters, and that he did not think himself personally accountable to Col Laurens for what he had done in that respect. But said he never had spoken of General Washington in the terms mentioned, which he could not have done; as well because he had always esteemed General Washington as a man, as because such abuse would be incompatible with the character, he would ever wish to sustain as a Gentleman.

Lee’s remarks about Washington as a general went back to their dispute at the Battle of Monmouth. About which Lee had had a lot to say, though not necessarily what Laurens had heard.

But that conversation was apparently enough to make Laurens and Lee agree with the advice their seconds came back with. Everybody headed home.

Hamilton wrote out this account of the duel, and he and Edwards both signed it on 24 Dec 1778. They concluded: “Upon the whole we think it a piece of justice to the two Gentlemen to declare, that after they met their conduct was strongly marked with all the politeness generosity coolness and firmness, that ought to characterise a transaction of this nature.”

Lee never attained another command after Monmouth and his subsequent court-martial (which he had requested); he died of a fever in 1782. Laurens had died a couple of months earlier from battle wounds. Edwards died in 1798. Hamilton lived until 1804 and then…you know.

Washington, Lee, and “tinsel dignity”

Yesterday I quoted Gen. Charles Lee’s letter to Gen. George Washington after the Battle of Monmouth, complaining that the commander-in-chief had spoken too harshly to him on the battlefield.

On 30 June 1778, Washington replied to that letter, rejecting the charge of using harsh language but leaving no doubt that he was sticking with the substance of his criticism:

I received your letter (dated thro’ mistake the 1st of July) expressed as I conceive, in terms highly improper. I am not conscious of having made use 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 soon as circumstances will permit, you shall have an opportunity, either of justifying yourself to the army, to Congress, to America, and to the world in General; or of convincing them that you were guilty of a breach of orders and of misbehaviour before the enemy on the 28th Inst. in not attacking them as you had been directed and in making an unnecessary, disorderly, and shameful retreat.

Aide-de-camp Lt. Col. John Fitzgerald delivered that letter to Lee.

As most historians read the correspondence, Lee replied to Washington twice that same day. Lee was still struggling with the dates of his letters, and he dated his first reply 28 June instead of 30 June even as he apologized for misdating the letter that started this all. He wrote:

I beg your Excellency’s pardon for the inaccuracy in misdating my letter—you cannot afford me greater pleasure than in giving me the opportunity of shewing to America the sufficiency of her respective servants—I trust that temporary power of office and the tinsel dignity attending it will not be able by all the mists they can raise to affuscate the bright rays of truth, in the mean time your Excellency can have no objection to my retiring from the army—

Finally, Lee sent a third letter after the second, this time dated 30 June:

Since I had the honor of addressing my letter by Col. Fitzgerald to your Excellency I have reflected on both your situation and mine, and beg leave to observe that it will be for our mutual convenience that a Court of inquiry should be immediately ordered—but I could wish it might be a court martial—for if the affair is drawn into length it may be difficult to collect the necessary evidences, and perhaps might bring on a paper war betwixt the adherents to both parties—which may occasion some disagreeable feuds on the Continent—for all are not my friends, nor all your admirers—I must intreat therefore from your love of justice that you will immediately exhibit your charge—and that on the first halt, I may be brought to a tryal—

A court-martial was a more serious forum than a court of inquiry; Lee was taking the risk that he might be punished, not just deemed at fault. A talented political writer, Lee was also warning Washington that he might prevail in the court of public opinion. Indeed, a couple of days later, Lee was unable to resist the temptation to make his case in the newspapers as soon as he saw an item critical of his movements at Monmouth.

A court-martial was convened on 4 July. The first two charges against Lee took language directly from Washington’s letter above, including the phrase “making an unnecessary, disorderly, and shameful retreat.” As for the third charge, that was for sending two disrespectful letters to Gen. Washington.

Charles Lee and “those dirty earwigs”

In the middle of the Battle of Monmouth, Gen. George Washington chided Gen. Charles Lee for his decision to withdraw from the Continental Army’s first encounter with the British forces (an incident recently dramatized in the season finale of Turn: Washington’s Spies). Indeed, one later author cited Lafayette as saying Washington called Lee “a damned poltroon.”

Whatever the commander-in-chief said, Lee was so upset that he couldn’t date his letters of protest correctly. He labeled the first “July 1st 1778,” but he must have written it on 29 or 30 June because Washington replied to it on the latter date.

Let’s say Lee wrote that letter on 29 June 1778 so the anniversary of that date offers an excuse to read its magnificent vituperation in full:

From the knowledge I have of your Excys character—I must conclude that nothing but the misinformation of some very stupid, or misrepresentation of some very wicked person coud have occasioned your making use of so very singular expressions as you did on my coming up to the ground where you had taken post—They implyed that I was guilty either of disobedience of orders, of want of conduct, or want of courage.

Your Excellency will therefore infinitely oblige me by letting me know on which of these three articles you ground your charge—that I may prepare for my justification which I have the happiness to be confident I can do to the army, to the Congress, to America, and to the world in general. Your excellency must give me leave to observe that neither yourself nor those about your person, could from your situation be in the least judges of the merits or demerits of our measures—And to speak with a becoming pride, I can assert that to these manouvers the success of the day was entirely owing—I can boldly say, that had we remained on the first ground, or had we advanced, or had the retreat been conducted in a manner different from what it was, this whole army and the interests of America would have risked being sacrificed.

I ever had (and hope ever shall have the greatest respect and veneration for General Washington) I think him endowed with many great and good qualities, but in this instance I must pronounce that he has been guilty of an act of cruel injustice towards a man who certainly has some pretensions to the regard of every servant of this country—And I think Sir, I have a right to demand some reparation for the injury committed—and unless I can obtain it, I must in justice to myself, when this campaign is closed, [(]which I believe will close the war) retire from a service at the head of which is placed a man capable of offering such injuries.

But at the same time in justice to you I must repeat that I from my soul believe, that it was not a motion of your own breast, but instigaged by some of those dirty earwigs who will for ever insinuate themselves near persons in high office—for I really am convinced that when General Washington acts from himself no man in his army will have reason to complain of injustice or indecorum.

TOMORROW: Washington’s reply.

“Making Use of So Very Singular Expressions”

Shortly after the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, which both the Americans and the British claimed as a victory, Gen. Charles Lee wrote an angry letter to his commander, Gen. George Washington. Lee was upset about the words they had exchanged during the fighting:

From the knowledge I have of your Excellency’s character, I must conclude that nothing but the misinformation of some very stupid, or misrepresentation of some very wicked person, could have occasioned your making use of so very singular expressions as you did on my coming up to the ground where you had taken post. They implied that I was guilty, either of disobedience of orders, want of conduct, or want of courage.

Your Excellency will therefore infinitely oblige me, by letting me know on which of these three articles you ground your charge, that I may prepare for my justification, which I have the happiness to be confident I can do to the army, to the Congress, to America, and to the world in general.

Decades later, the Marquis de la Fayette, who as a young officer had commanded troops in the battle, recalled that Washington had called Lee “a damned poltroon.” That would fit with Lee’s complaint about being accused of “want of courage.” No one at the time quoted Washington’s exact words, however.

Gen. Washington responded by saying that Lee’s letter was “expressed, as I conceive, in terms highly improper,” and misdated as well. As for his own language during the battle:

I am not conscious of having made use of any very singular expressions at the time of meeting you, as you intimate. What I recollect to have said was dictated by duty, and warranted by the occasion. As soon as circumstances will permit, you shall have an opportunity of justifying yourself to the army, to Congress, to America, and to the world in general, or of convincing them that you were guilty of a breach of orders, and of misbehaviour before the enemy, on the 28th instant, in not attacking them as you had been directed and in making an unnecessary, disorderly, and shameful retreat.

Whatever the two generals had said, they were speaking in the heat of battle—and there was a lot of heat that June day. Nearly one hundred British and American soldiers died of “fatigue” or heat stroke. Two days later, though, neither man was backing down.

One curiosity of the generals’ exchange is that Lee’s letter was dated 1 July, but Washington answered it on 30 June. Both generals acknowledged the first letter was misdated. Lee wrote a second letter apologizing for that error and dated that 28 June, the day of the battle. Some historians treat that as a misdated response to the correction in Washington’s answer—though it would be odd to write such an apology without ensuring it was dated correctly.

I wonder about another possibility: Lee wrote his first letter right after the battle but dated it 1 July, thinking that he’d wait a couple of days before hitting send. But he sent it anyway, perhaps in the evening, then realized his dating mistake and sent along a preemptive apology for that. Washington might have received the first letter on 29 June and waited a day before replying. In their notes exchanged on 30 July, the generals agreed that it would be best to have a court-martial on Lee’s conduct.

Because the court-martial included the charge that Lee had been rude and insubordinate in his letter to Washington, their written exchange became part of its record, and was widely reprinted in America and Britain. The testimony did not get into specifics of what Washington had said to Lee. Some late-1800s authors saw that as evidence that Washington didn’t use the words “damned poltroon.” However, it could just be evidence that Washington’s officers didn’t want to set down the specifics.

That inquiry ended with Lee being relieved of command for a year. He spent 1779 sniping at Washington publicly, left the army for good in January 1780, and died less than three years later.

Charles Lee “a Damned Poltroon”?

During the Marquis de la Fayette’s visit to America in 1824-25, he made some remarks which indirectly resurfaced this week in the Library of America’s blog posting, “Did George Washington Swear During the Battle of Monmouth?” (This eighteenth-century picture of Lafayette comes courtesy of Vanderbilt University.)

According to Henry B. Dawson’s Battles of the United States (1858), on the morning of Sunday, 15 Aug 1824, Lafayette described the Battle of Monmouth “on the plaza of the residence of Vice-president Daniel D. Tompkins.”

Dawson cited that conversation without specifying how he came to know about it. Tompkins died in 1825. Dawson was born in Britain in 1821 and arrived in New York in 1834. So there must have been some intervening figures.

Dawson was a thorough researcher, and his account of the big Monmouth fight on 28 June 1778 is heavily footnoted with different sources. On the other hand, in his description of the friction between Washington and the Continental Army’s second-ranking general, the British-born Charles Lee, it’s clear which man he prefers. The passage starts as the commander-in-chief is trying to stem the American retreat:

At this instant the guilty author of the mischief, General Lee, rode up, and the commander-in-chief demanded, in the sternest manner, “What is the meaning of all this, sir?”

Disconcerted and crushed under the tone and terrible appearance of his chief, General Lee could do nothing more than stammer, “Sir, sir?” When, with more vehemence, and with a still more indignant expression, the question was repeated.

A hurried explanation was attempted—his troops had been misled by contradictory intelligence, his officers had disobeyed his orders, and he had not felt it his duty to oppose the whole force of the enemy with the detachment under his command. Farther remarks were made on both sides, and, closing the interview with calling General Lee “a damned poltroon,” the commander-in-chief hastened back to the high ground, between the meetinghouse and the bridge, where he formed the regiments of Colonels Shreve, Patton, Grayson, Livingston, Cilley, and Ogden, and the left wing under Lord Stirling.

When the first line of troops had been formed on the heights, General Washington rode up to General Lee, and inquired, in a calmer tone, “Will you retain the command on this height, or not? If you will, I will return to the main body, and have it formed on the next height.”

General Lee accepted the command, when, giving up the command. General Washington remarked, “I expect you will take proper means for checking the enemy,” and General Lee promised, “Your orders shall be obeyed; and I shall not be the first to leave the ground.”

Dawson’s footnote adds: “Gen. Lafayette referred to it as the only instance wherein he had heard the General swear.”

Some later authors insisted that it was completely out of character for Washington to swear like this, even once. But it’s clear that the commander said something unusually harsh to Lee.

TOMORROW: The general’s “singular expressions.”