The Drillmaster of Valley Forge (19 page)

 

S
TEUBEN'S BLOOD WAS UP
. Doubtless he would have liked to accompany Lafayette to the front, just to be in the thick of the action, but he had not yet come to the point in his career where he
expected
such an honor. The Baron was still anxious to prove himself; he wanted to be indispensable.

Washington did have use for a man of Steuben's talents. Although he had many scouts, many eyes and ears, watching the British at every turn, none of them had the Baron's experience in European warfare. Steuben would finally get the chance to do what he had been trained to do, so many years ago, in Frederick the Great's royal suite: to collect and analyze intelligence so that his commander could employ his army as the situation warranted.

If Washington were to launch an attack, one vital question needed to be answered: What route would Clinton take to New York City? There were two obvious options. Either he could travel due north from his current position, through Cranbury and thence to the Amboys, approaching New York by land; or, alternatively, he could take a more easterly route, to Sandy Hook, where naval transports could ferry his troops to Staten Island. New York was not far away; if Clinton really pushed his troops along, and if Washington miscalculated the route,
the British could evade the Continentals altogether and seek safety in the hilly country of northern New Jersey.

Map of the northern theater of the war, 1778–80

Sometime in the evening of the twenty-fourth, before Lafayette had departed, Steuben—accompanied by Duponceau, Ben Walker, and a small cavalry escort—slipped out of the camp at Hopewell to find the British army.

He did not have to travel very far, for the British column had barely inched along since its arrival at Crosswicks two days before. Clinton's two divisions had separated, with Cornwallis's rear guard halting at Allentown on the night of the twenty-fourth, and Hessian general Wilhelm von Knyphausen's division taking its rest at Imlaystown, just
under four miles to the east. Riding all night, Steuben and his party reached the outskirts of Allentown by dawn on the twenty-fifth. From here he reconnoitered both British divisions. At eight o'clock that morning, Knyphausen's division broke camp and marched north along the road that led north to Freehold. This would seem to indicate that Clinton's destination was Sandy Hook and not the Amboys. Cornwallis's division at Allentown, however, had not yet moved, and this was critical. Allentown was at a crossroads, where the road that ran from Crosswicks forked. The right fork went east-northeast through Freehold and toward Sandy Hook; the left fork, due north through Hightstown and Cranbury and to the Amboys.

The Baron rode north, skirting the British, but by noon on the twenty-fifth he still did not know where Cornwallis was headed, or if Cornwallis had moved at all. Three hours later, Steuben had reached Hightstown, nearly eight miles north-northeast of Allentown, where he received the word: Cornwallis's division was on the march, and had taken the right fork toward Monmouth Courthouse and Freehold. Clinton was bound for Sandy Hook.

Steuben understood the urgency of the situation. Washington, of course, would have to be alerted, but first the commanders of the advance guard must be apprised of Clinton's movements. With Ben Walker at his side, translating his French into passable English, Steuben dictated a terse note to Brig. Gen. Charles Scott, who commanded a portion of Lafayette's corps. Scott, a profane Virginian who would later serve as governor of Kentucky, had led his command of 1,440 light troops through Princeton and toward Allentown the previous day, and was anxiously awaiting further word from Steuben. The Baron offered his advice: “I therefore submit to your Judgement whether it would not be best to advance your Corps as far as this place [Hightstown].”
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The waiting and uncertainty were over, at least for the time being. Lafayette could follow Clinton more closely, and Washington could move the main body to Lafayette's support. That night the various elements of the advance guard rendezvoused at Hightstown, and on the
morning of the twenty-sixth they marched by different paths toward Englishtown. Washington brought the eight thousand men of the main army to Cranbury to await further developments.

Clinton paid little heed to Washington's troop dispositions. He was well aware that he was being followed: the Jersey militia continued to dog him, and Steuben himself had moved so close to Clinton's forces “as to fire a Pistol at their Horsemen whilst feeding their Horses.” But the British columns moved at a languorous pace, probably more because of the brutal heat than for any other reason. On the morning of the twenty-sixth, Knyphausen's division had reached the town of Freehold, while the rear guard under Cornwallis had halted at Monmouth Courthouse. And there they stayed. Just after noon on June 27, Steuben rode to a hill less than two miles from Monmouth, from which vantage point he could observe Cornwallis clearly with his spyglass. He reported to Washington in some bewilderment that the British “have some tents pitched & their Horses are at Pasture & [they have] not the least appearance of moving.”
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Washington had already made up his mind to attack. He waited only on the most fortuitous moment to do so: when the head of Knyphausen's column set off again toward Sandy Hook, but before Cornwallis's division broke camp. An attack at this point would catch Lord Cornwallis at his most vulnerable, when the rest of Clinton's army would be slowest to react to an attack from the rear. If Washington acted quickly and decisively, Cornwallis could be defeated, or at least heavily mauled, before Knyphausen came to his relief. Yet the Americans needed all the time the British could spare them, for Washington faced an unforeseen problem: a last-minute change of command.

The problem was in large part Washington's own doing. He had entrusted the entire advance guard, and therefore the honor of leading the assault, to Lafayette. Maybe the marquis was not Washington's most brilliant lieutenant, but he was the most eager, and in this situation zeal and daring were more important attributes than tactical proficiency. Charles Lee had disdained to take part in Washington's plan,
but once it was obvious that Washington intended to go through with it, Lee changed his mind. He was not about to let the young Frenchman take the honor that should have been his by right, not if there was any chance of gaining glory by it.

Washington, unfortunately, acceded to Lee's demand. It may be that his sense of propriety overrode his visceral instincts; perhaps he still hoped that he might win Lee over with such a gesture. For all of Lee's insubordination and personal contempt, Washington never really snubbed him, and at Valley Forge he had welcomed Lee back from captivity as he would a prodigal son. It would prove to be a grave error.

Transferring the forward command from Lafayette to Lee was Washington's first fatal mistake. Giving Lee carte blanche to arrange the details of the actual attack was his second, and it came very close to costing him the battle that ensued.

Clinton's army had not moved since its arrival at Monmouth Courthouse on June 26. Knyphausen's division had encamped just east of the village, along the road to Middletown and Sandy Hook; Cornwallis's troops settled down on the high ground west of Monmouth. The troops needed a rest. Despite a recent heavy rain, water was in short supply, with the locals having sabotaged their wells before fleeing the area. Dehydrated soldiers could be pushed only so far before collapsing in such hot weather. The heat, as well as the swarms of biting insects that followed the army, sapped British morale, which was already sagging because the Redcoats were retreating before an inferior enemy.

There were tactical considerations to keep in mind, too. Clinton had an inkling that Washington would force a confrontation, and that in itself was good reason to hold still for a while. If he could entice Washington into a frontal assault there, on the high ground outside Monmouth, then the rebels would be at a terrible disadvantage.

Washington, however, did not oblige him yet. On Saturday afternoon, June 27, Washington rode to Englishtown to confer with Lee. In the presence of Lee's staff, the commander in chief gave Lee his orders: he was to attack the British rear guard in the morning, as soon
as he knew that Clinton was on the move. Washington was no more specific than this, leaving the operational details to Lee's discretion. It was an unwise decision on Washington's part, but although Lee had never been a dutiful subordinate, Washington had no reason to doubt his competence or physical courage.

The change of command was a mistake nonetheless. Whether from complacency or willful insubordination, Lee did next to nothing to prepare for the next day's action. He had not bothered to conduct his own reconnaissance of the enemy's positions since taking command on Saturday morning; he sent a handful of militia forward to scout the area that evening, but only after Washington had ordered him to do so. And when he met with his officers late Saturday afternoon, Lee told them only to have their troops ready to move by five o'clock the next morning. Lee's men were not prepared for battle because Lee had not prepared them.

 

B
Y
S
UNDAY MORNING
, Steuben was spent. He had been in the saddle for more than three full days with hardly a moment's rest. The urgency of his errands and the excitement of impending battle invigorated him. But at nearly forty-eight years of age, he was not a young man, and he had his limits. He had been riding through unfamiliar country, often at night, without even the blessing of a luminous moon to help guide his way. Late on Saturday night, the increasingly threatening skies opened up, a torrential downpour pelting his face and soaking his heavy woolen uniform as he blindly groped his way around the British lines. The mission was as dangerous as it was uncomfortable. There was no telling when he might run afoul of a British outpost or a cavalry patrol; without a significant escort to protect him, the danger of death or capture was very real. Still, the Baron kept at his task into the early morning hours of the twenty-eighth. Aching and weary to the bone, he rode around both British divisions, scanning their bivouacs for any sign of movement that might be revealed by the patchy and desultory light of the campfires.

In the early morning hours, his vigilance paid off. At around three o'clock on Sunday, the men of Knyphausen's division emerged from their improvised brush shelters—like Washington's men, they were travelling without tents—extinguished their fires, and formed up for the last leg of the march to Middletown. Within an hour they were on the road north, with their baggage train following immediately behind. Clinton's army was in motion; the moment Washington was waiting for had finally arrived.

Dawn came early that morning, at about half past four, yet it was still quite dark when Steuben sought out Philemon Dickinson to pass him the welcome news. Soon Dickinson's militia, who also had been watching the British closely, was exchanging fire with elements of Cornwallis's cavalry before being driven off. The word spread to both Lee and Washington. Washington was elated with the development, and quickly roused his own men so that he could hurry to support Lee.

What happened over the next few hours defies simple reconstruction. Of all the major engagements of the Revolution, Monmouth remains the most imperfectly understood. Because most of the detailed American accounts were entered as testimony in an acrimonious court-martial after the battle, it is difficult for the historian to separate impartial eyewitness accounts from the special pleading that one would expect to find in legal proceedings. Steuben himself wrote a detailed description of the battle several years after the fact, but he was prone to exaggeration when recounting his American exploits for his European friends; hence much of his narrative is demonstrably wrong, and all of it is highly suspect. Fortunately, there is enough common ground in the plethora of after-action reports to allow us to see the broad outlines of the battle of Monmouth, as well as Steuben's personal role in the action.
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That role was greater than the Baron could possibly have foreseen. He must have been giddy with anticipation as the sun rose that Sunday morning. Soldiering was what he loved above all things, and he had not been in battle since he was in his early thirties. Steuben felt like a young man again, and like a young man, he was a tad careless in his
exhilaration. As he continued to reconnoiter the British positions, he and John Laurens rode so close to the British lines that Steuben was immediately spotted, recognized…and pursued. The British generals were aware of his presence, and Knyphausen had issued orders that every effort should be made to capture the distinguished Baron unharmed. Two dragoons broke from the British lines and charged straight for him. He paused only long enough to draw both of his enormous horse pistols from the holsters lashed to his saddle and fire each of them at his pursuers; then he turned his horse about and galloped to safety, so fast that his cocked hat flew off his head during his retreat.
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