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 McHenry wrote in his diary.19 Suddenly afraid that Lafayette would steal his glory, Lee informed Washington that he had reconsidered. “They say that a corps consisting of six thousand men, the greater part chosen, is undoubtedly the most honorable command next to the Commander in Chief; that my ceding it wou[l]d of course have an odd appearance,” he wrote with considerable understatement. “I must entreat therefore . . . that, if this detachment does march, that I may have the command of it.”20 If he did not get the command, Lee asserted, he would be disgraced, which meant he might have to resign.

Whatever Washington thought of Lee’s attempts to gratify his own self-importance, he couldn’t afford a feud with his second in command on the eve of battle, even if Lee had shown little sympathy for the planned attack. On the other hand, he didn’t wish to disappoint Lafayette. So he crafted a nice compromise, adding one thousand men to the operation and placing Lafayette under Lee’s nominal command. As James McHenry wrote, “To prevent disunion, Lee is detached with 2 brigades to join the Marquis and as senior officer to the command. His detachment consists of 5,000 men, four-fifths of whom were picked for this service.”21

On June 27, as the British reached the vicinity of Monmouth Court House, the advance American forces pulled to within six miles of the tail end of their column. Meeting with his generals, Washington ordered Lee to attack the British column the next morning, as soon as it sprang into motion. He himself would hang in the rear with six thousand men, prepared to move forward with the main body of the army.

In retrospect, Washington conceded too much latitude to Lee, and the open-ended nature of the battle plans would breed fatal confusion the following day.

Many romantic yarns have been spun about the eve of the Battle of Monmouth. One describes the Reverend David Griffith, a chaplain in the Continental Army, going to Washington and warning him that General Lee planned to make him seem inept the next day so as to nab the top army spot for himself. Another tale claims that several generals approached Washington’s friend Dr. James Craik and asked him to appeal to Washington to safeguard his own person in the coming conflict instead of exposing himself to danger. This advice, if given, ran counter to Washington’s active conception of leadership on the battlefield. It is also said that Charles Lee, overtaken by a case of nerves, paced through a sleepless night before the battle. As for Washington, he is said to have shown a touching solidarity with his men, akin to Shakespeare’s Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt, sleeping under a tree amid his army.

Around dawn Washington learned that the British Army had risen early and was already marching toward Sandy Hook. He sent orders for General Lee “to move on and attack them unless there should be very powerful reasons to the contrary,” and started toward Monmouth Court House with his men.22 Washington recommended that Lee’s men jettison their packs and blankets to accelerate their speed. Unfamiliar with the local topography, Lee found himself penetrating terra incognita, a problem that had troubled the Continental Army in previous contests. On this morning of brutal weather, the temperature would zoom close to one hundred degrees, and many men stripped off their shirts and rode bare-chested. Joseph Plumb Martin opined that “the mouth of a heated oven seemed to me to be but a trifle hotter than this ploughed field; it was almost impossible to breathe.”23 At eleven A.M. Washington, accompanied by troops under Stirling and Greene, wrote to Henry Laurens that several men had already expired from the heat.

Toward noon, as his main force advanced toward Monmouth Court House, Washington couldn’t see what was happening up ahead and assumed that all was going according to plan. In reality, Lee had made only a confused, halfhearted attack against Clinton and Cornwallis who, anticipating a possible attack, had concentrated their finest soldiers in the rear. They turned the tables, gathered six thousand men, and chased back the outnumbered Americans, who fell back in terror. Washington’s first inkling of disaster came when a farmer told him that American troops were retreating. Having received no report from Lee himself, Washington was at first incredulous. Then a frightened young fifer who was hustled into his presence assured him that “the Continental troops that had been advanced were retreating.” Washington was shocked. Fearful that a false report might trigger chaos, Washington categorically warned the boy that “if he mentioned a thing of the sort, he would have him whipped.”24

Taking no chances, Washington spurred his horse toward the front. He had not gone fifty yards when he encountered several soldiers who corroborated that the entire advance force was now staggering back in confused retreat. Soon Washington saw increasing numbers of men, dazed and exhausted from the stifling heat, tumbling toward him. He told aides that he was “exceedingly alarmed” and could not figure out why Lee had not notified him of this retreat.25 Then Washington looked up and saw the culprit himself riding toward him: General Lee, trailed by his dogs. “What is the meaning of this, sir?” Washington demanded truculently. “I desire to know the meaning of this disorder and confusion!”26 According to some witnesses, it was one of those singular moments when Washington showed undisguised wrath. Indignant, Lee stared blankly at him and spluttered in amazement. “Sir? Sir?” he asked, offended by Washington’s tone .27