In adjourning the council, Washington strongly suggested to Lee that he hold a strategy session with his subordinates. Not long after Washington departed for the main army, a pair of couriers reached Lee with some of the commander in chief’s afterthoughts. Worried that the British might launch a spoiling attack, Washington wanted Lee to alert the militia then watching the enemy. A second message instructed Lee to send forward a strong (six-hundred- to eight-hundred-man) observation force to fix the British rear guard in place come morning.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in MHQ magazine
• Subscribe online and save!
 

Lee convened the requested meeting, but little if anything was accomplished. As Anthony Wayne recollected, Lee ‘had nothing further to say on the subject’ since ‘the position of the enemy might render any previous plan invalid.’ Lee later commented that ‘if the country is un-reconnoitered, and the force, disposition, and situation of the enemy doubtful, I must profess that I cannot persuade myself that a precise plan can be attended with any good consequences, but that it must distract, lead astray, and in effect be ruinous.’ That night, Lee made little effort to rectify those intelligence gaps. He did instruct Brig. Gen. Philemon Dickinson, whose eight hundred New Jersey militia were shadowing the enemy, to alert him when the British column began moving. Lee also attempted to coordinate with the expert riflemen under Colonel Morgan operating against the British right flank. However, a clerical error and the note’s imprecise wording resulted in Morgan’s experienced fighters missing the start of the next day’s action.

For Sir Henry Clinton, pondering the same situation just a few miles to the east, the withdrawal to this point had been successful, though not without its vexations. His command endured energy-draining heat broken only briefly by violent rain showers that turned the dirt roads into mud and slowed the cumbersome wagons to a crawl, while the enemy militia remained busy ‘filling up the wells and breaking down and destroying the bridges and causeways before us.’

Clinton had expected a run-in with Washington’s regulars at a choke point near Mount Holly, but when no serious opposition appeared, the English commander became convinced that his

opposite ‘had no thoughts of risking a general action.’ Clinton continued to worry most about protecting his exposed wagon train, yet even in this defensive stance, he watched for a chance to strike.

Clinton’s sources of local intelligence were good enough for him to form an accurate appraisal of Washington’s movements. Indeed, his only significant miscalculation was his unwavering belief that he would face the combined armies of Washington and Gates. Clinton halted his long columns around the small village of Monmouth Courthouse on the afternoon of June 26, where he anticipated a serious attack the next day.

When nothing developed on June 27, Clinton carefully reconnoitered the area. He observed the relatively open plains northwest and south of the village. The area west of Monmouth Courthouse was more undulating and creased by several ravines. He saw that the lone road that wriggled between the ravines west of the village came to a boggy morass spanned by a small bridge. Should the enemy attack him at Monmouth Courthouse, his best course would be to press the Americans against the swampy barrier. However pleasant the prospect, Clinton

concluded that the always careful and cautious Washington would never jeopardize his army in such terrain. At 4 a.m. on June 28 (an hour later than he had

intended), Clinton started his forward division and the long wagon train toward Middletown and prospective safety.

In piecing together the strike force, Washington mixed and matched commands and officers to a degree that would totally confuse many of the battle’s historians. He wanted the point of his sword to be as sharp as possible, and so many of the various commands he was committing to the upcoming action were special composites drawn from the most able troops of different brigades and regiments. This blending of units posed a serious challenge to effective control. Hours later, when he was in the midst of a desperate effort to choreograph this admixture, Charles Lee would comment on the’shocking situation’ as he ‘hardly knew a single man or Officer’ under his command.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to