(June 28, 1778)
And the most glorious deeds do not always provide us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a minor issue. . . it tells us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sites, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles.
–Plutarch
The air smelled of rotten eggs. Gunsmoke had settled since the end of the fighting, but its sulfurous stench lingered in the hot, humid atmosphere. For Continental Army officers, it was yet another reminder of a missed opportunity, thanks to the clumsiness (some said treachery) of Major General Charles Lee.
These were the aftermath of the Battle of Monmouth Court House, on June 28, 1778, among the foothills and hollows of central New Jersey.
More than 700 men, roughly half Continental, half Redcoats, and Hessian, were missing or lay scattered, wounded or dead, on the sprawling battlefield. It had been the longest action of the war, more than nine hours, and one of the largest. For Americans it was also the most frustrating workday in the entire fight for independence. The opportunity to deal a real blow to the enemy by attacking his rear as he retreated through New Jersey had been wasted, or so the American officers believed.
As night fell on the gruesome scene, the Americans were unaware that the British were already planning to slip away. They silenced their chariot wheels, abandoned their dead and many of their wounded, and were soon deserted themselves by hundreds of deserters. When the sun came up the next morning, to produce another wildly hot and sweltering day with temperatures in the high nineties, the Continental Army would hold the field. In accordance with the customs of war, that made the Americans the winners.
The last cannon shot ended at around five in the afternoon. Major generals ordered their brigade commanders to round up stragglers, reorganize their troops, and place them in defensive positions. The men fanned out to loot the dead and retrieve the American and British wounded and bring them to the rear. That night everyone who had fought collapsed to the ground. Soldiers and officers alike were exhausted, not so much from the fighting as from the brutal heat: many of the casualties on both sides had been due to sunstroke and thirst rather than gunfire.
The division commanders trudged back to headquarters, which meant wherever the commander-in-chief was. He was at the top of a steep hill overlooking the scene of the last stages of the action. One of them was Nathanael Greene, a strong and combative Quaker and the most trusted major general in the army.
Greene found the commanding officer as dusk was turning dark. General George Washington slept on a cloak spread on the floor. The boy, Major General Lafayette, lay curled up beside him, also asleep on the general’s cloak.
The middle-aged man and the teenager had met less than a year ago, at the end of another hot, sweltering day: Philadelphia in August. In the months since, they had come together like two orphans in a storm, which had first struck them in different places, one in the Old World, the other in the New, in 1775.
The Quaker soldier shared the opinion of the American commanders that this day would have gone better if the original plan had been followed. The aggressive young Lafayette should have remained in command of the advance force rather than be replaced by Lee. Washington should not have been forced to charge on the scene and take personal command. Instead, Lafayette’s energies had been wasted. Washington had found a disaster in the making and turned it, at best, into a tactical draw.
But any regret about what might have been was banished by the poignant scene before him, Washington and Lafayette sleeping together. Having watched the attachment between these two grow over the months, Greene also found the young man endearing. He had once told his wife that the child was irresistible due to “an inexplicable charm”. Nothing could be more enchanting, in this creepy, stinking setting, than this warm, familiar image: not so much two exhausted soldiers as a father and son sharing the innocent comfort of sleep.
Greene spread his own cloak under a nearby tree, vowing to scare away anyone who might disturb the sleeping couple. But the day and the battle that had just passed proved to be too much even for his iron frame. Sleep soon washed over him, as it had already washed over Washington and Lafayette, together at peace in the madness of war.
From the book Adopted Son by David A. Clary Published by Bantam Books; January 2007; $27.00 US/$34.00 CAN; 978-0-553-80435-5
Copyright © 2007 by David A. Clary