Washington [233]
On June 16 Washington received a clue that the British stood on the verge of leaving Philadelphia: peace commissioners sent by George III to Philadelphia had asked for the immediate return of their clothing from the laundry. Two days later ten thousand British and Hessian troops began shuffling across New Jersey toward New York, slowed by a baggage train of fifteen hundred wagons that stretched for twelve miles. Coincidentally, Washington had recently lectured his men on the hazards of getting bogged down with bulky, overloaded baggage: “An army by means of it is rendered unwieldy and incapable of acting with that ease and celerity which are essential . . . to its own security.”11
Washington summoned a war council to consider whether to pounce on the retreating army. Most of his generals, after the previous fall’s defeats and the traumatic winter, urged extreme caution. The usually daring Henry Knox warned that “it would be the most criminal madness to hazard a general action at this time,” while Charles Lee passionately opposed any action.12 Despite the overall air of skepticism, some of Washington’s generals wanted to engage the British aggressively; the impetuous Anthony Wayne declared his desire of “Burgoyning Clinton.”13 On June 18, as soon as he received definite word that the British were leaving Philadelphia, Washington sent six brigades in pursuit of them. The last remnants of the Continental Army crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey on June 22.
Two days later, at Hopewell, Washington again weighed the conflicting views of his generals. In sweltering, rainy weather, the British Army had turned east toward Sandy Hook and trudged across gravelly, uncertain terrain at a rate of only six miles per day, making them a tempting target. Their woollen uniforms and cumbersome gear turned their march into a torturous ordeal. Some soldiers dropped dead from sunstroke, and the British ranks were badly thinned by desertions. For once the Continental Army, twelve thousand strong, enjoyed a numerical advantage. At a war council on June 24 Charles Lee reiterated his view that it was in the patriots’ interest to have the British evacuate Philadelphia and that they should, to this end, construct “a bridge of gold” to New York and let the British cross it.14 Once again the generals opposed a major engagement and favored a more circumscribed operation in which fifteen hundred men under Brigadier General Charles Scott would harass the British Army. Such caution led Alexander Hamilton to comment tartly that the timid conclave “would have done honor to the most honorable society of midwives.”15 Greene, Wayne, Lafayette, and Steuben knew the country clamored for strong action. “People expect something from us and our strength demands it,” Greene advised in a letter. “I am by no means for rash measures, but we must preserve our reputation.”16 Lafayette, who privately ridiculed the war council “as a school of logic,” urged Washington to defy its meek counsel.17 Washington, with growing confidence in his own judgment, overruled the majority of generals and decided to undertake a more assertive operation against the British, led by an advance contingent of four thousand men.
On June 25 he learned that British troops were approaching the tiny crossroads village of Monmouth Court House (now Freehold) and deputized Charles Lee to lead the offensive. When Lee balked at the assignment as beneath his lofty dignity, fit only for a “young volunteering general,” Washington handed the job to Lafayette, who would command the vanguard force to harry the British rear.18 “The young Frenchman, in raptures with his command and burning to distinguish himself, moves toward the enemy who are in motion,” the aide James