Washington [183]
Upon receiving the letter, Reed tendered his resignation to Congress, but Washington got him to revoke it. Washington did not ask for a direct response to his letter; nor did he request a talk. Instead he resumed a civil, if guarded, relationship with Reed. The two exchanged many letters without referring to the episode, as Washington waited for the younger man to broach the subject. On March 8, 1777, Reed finally referred to the incident and told Washington that he had tried futilely to retrieve his original letter to Charles Lee. Disingenuously, he said there was nothing in the letter “inconsistent with that respect and affection which I have and ever shall bear to your person and character.”37 Reed made further efforts to repair the relationship, but Washington didn’t bury the hatchet until June 11, 1777, when he sent Reed a conciliatory letter. He wasn’t a man who rushed to forgive, but he didn’t hold grudges either. He told Reed that it wasn’t the criticism of his behavior that had stung him so much as the devious method: “True it is I felt myself hurt by a certain letter, which appear[e]d at that time to be the echo of one from you . . . I was hurt, not because I thought my judgment wrong[e]d by the expressions contained in it, but because the same sentiments were not communicated immediately to myself.” Washington signed the letter “Your obedient and affectionate” George Washington.38
Washington never revealed to Lee his knowledge of the secret correspondence, and Lee’s behavior toward Washington grew ever more imperious. Headquartered in Peekskill, New York, he admitted to Washington in late November that he had ignored his orders to proceed to New Jersey: “I cou[l]d wish you wou[l]d bind me as little as possible . . . from a persuasion that detach[e]d generals cannot have too great latitude.”39 Instead of sternly reprimanding Lee, Washington entreated him to bring his five thousand men to New Jersey, but Lee kept ignoring his requests in an infuriatingly cavalier manner. Washington at last had no choice but to lead his dwindling army across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. He also began a low-key campaign to discredit Lee in the eyes of Congress—his political style always hinged on fine gradations—telling John Hancock in early December, “I have not heard a word from General Lee since the 26th last month, which surprises me not a little, as I have dispatched daily expresses to him desiring to know when I might look for him.”40 At last Lee and his men crossed the Hudson and began moving south through New Jersey, albeit at a glacial speed.
On the morning of December 13, General Charles Lee received a well-merited rebuke to his overweening vanity. He had spent the night at an inn near Basking Ridge, New Jersey, enjoying the company of a woman of easy virtue. In an elementary error, he chose a spot for this tryst three miles from the safety of his army. Colonel William Harcourt, a British cavalry officer heading a team of seventy British dragoons, learned of Lee’s whereabouts from local Tories and surrounded the inn. Lee had just composed his acerbic letter about Washington to General Gates when he spied British horsemen outside the window and gasped, “For God’s sake, what shall I do?”41 The widow who owned the inn tried to conceal Lee above a fireplace as bullets ripped through the windows. After twenty-two-year-old Banastre Tarleton, later known for bloodthirsty tactics in the South, threatened to burn down the inn, Lee surrendered in slippers and a filthy shirt to the derisory cheers of his captors and a mocking trumpet blast. To make his degradation complete, the British didn’t allow him to don