Washington [237]
As always, however, Washington disclaimed credit and directed attention to a higher power. He ordered his men to put on decent clothes so that “we may publicly unite in thanksgiving to the supreme disposer of human events for the victory which was obtained on Sunday over the flower of the British troops.”39 The Battle of Monmouth added luster to Washington’s reputation as someone who could outwit danger. Writing on behalf of Congress, Henry Laurens predicted that Washington’s name would be “revered by posterity” and alluded to his miraculous escapes from harm: “Our acknowledgments are especially due to Heaven for the preservation of Your Excellency’s person, necessarily exposed for the salvation of America to the most imminent danger in the late action.”40
Washington’s role at Monmouth stands out with special vividness because it was the last such major battle in the North during the war. Henceforth the British high command would shift its focus to the South, where it hoped to exploit widespread Loyalist sentiment. This move would thrust Washington into the odd situation of often being an idle spectator of distant fighting in the South. Not until Yorktown, more than three years later, would he again be directly exposed to the hurly-burly of a full-scale battle. The Battle of Monmouth clarified that Washington did not need to save towns but only to preserve the Continental Army and keep alive the sacred flame of rebellion. As he told Laurens, the British were now well aware “that the possession of our towns, while we have an army in the field, will avail them little. It involves us in difficulty, but does not by any means insure them conquest.”41 A war of attrition, however deficient in heroic glamour, still seemed the most certain path to victory.
Before Monmouth, George Washington had been unusually tolerant of the antic, impertinent behavior and self-congratulatory rhetoric of Charles Lee, but that patience had now expired. Retaining his elevated opinion of his own military genius, Lee blustered indiscreetly that he had been on the brink of rallying his men when Washington showed up and ruined everything. “By all that’s sacred,” he exclaimed, “General Washington had scarcely any more to do in [the battle] than to strip the dead!”42 To top things off, Lee said that Washington had “sent me out of the field when the victory was assured! Such is my recompense for having sacrificed my friends, my connections, and perhaps my fortune.”43
Charles Lee did not realize that he had crossed a line with Washington, and that anyone who offended his dignity paid a terrible price. He saw himself as the victim and, for two days after the battle, awaited an apology from Washington. Then he sent him an insolent letter in which he blamed “dirty earwigs” for poisoning Washington’s mind against him: “I must conclude that nothing but the misinformation of some very stupid, or misrepresentation of some very wicked person cou[l]d 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, or want of conduct, or want of courage.” The presumptuous Lee then added that “the success of the day was entirely owing” to his maneuvers.44 This intemperate communication sealed Charles Lee’s fate.
With officers who crossed him, Washington tended to exhibit infinite patience and overlook many faults, but when a day of reckoning came, he unleashed the full force of his slow-burning fury at their accumulated slights. As with many overly controlled people, Washington’s anger festered, only to burst out belatedly. He now returned a blistering reply in which he branded Lee’s letter “highly improper” and said his own angry words at Monmouth were “dictated by duty and warranted by the occasion.” He accused Lee of “a breach of orders and of misbehavior” in not