Light-Horse Harry: A Biography of Washington’s Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee (Heroes and Villains from American History)
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There a detachment of Virginians quickly erected the bridge, and a small, mounted scouting force under Lieutenant Michael Rudolph was sent ahead to determine whether the enemy had been alerted. Time was now the most precious of all factors; if the British discovered the presence of the raiders after daybreak, the whole attacking force could be cut off and either killed or captured. Tension was running high, and dawn was only two hours away.
Rudolph had returned with word that the Redcoats were sleeping, and the assault party started off at once, one platoon ordered to take the drawbridge while the others waded across the waist-high, muddy waters of the ditch. Contrary to custom and common sense, Harry rode with the vanguard.
More than fifty men had already scaled the stone wall of the fort when the attackers drew fire from blockhouses and the drawbridge. By then it was too late, Harry’s reserves were moved up and the raiders fanned out, their bayonets ready. So far the Americans had not fired a single shot.
Redcoats and Hessian mercenaries began to surrender by the score, giving themselves up so quickly that something of a traffic jam developed as they were sent across the bridges. There was another, unexpected complication, too. The wives and children of many British officers and sergeants were living at the fort, and had to be evacuated with care. An officer could ruin his good name forever if he failed to treat noncombatants with elaborate courtesy. They were evacuated, too, all of them shown every consideration.
Harry was frantically busy. More than two hundred and fifty prisoners had been taken in the first charge, but the Redcoat colonel in command of the fort was not among them. Someone discovered that he was absent at a meeting in New York Town, where he had remained overnight, and Harry had to be satisfied with taking the person of his deputy, a major.
No one could find the key to the powder and ammunition magazine, so Harry ordered two detachments to batter down the strong wooden doors of the chamber, warning the officers to whom he gave the assignment, however, not to use firearms. Daylight would soon break, and several junior officers reported that although the cannon could be moved, they would slow the American retreat. Harry ordered them moved immediately, but insisted that first priority be given the prisoners, women, and children.
It proved impossible to break into the munitions stores in the time available before daybreak, so that attempt had to be abandoned. Harry, the last man to leave the fort, rode across the drawbridge a scant twenty minutes before dawn.
Now a new and unexpected hitch developed that put the entire operation in jeopardy. Captain Peyton’s boats were nowhere to be seen near the rendezvous point. Harry’s raiders were badly outnumbered by their prisoners, and were exhausted after their long march. No one had eaten a bite of food since the previous afternoon. And, to make matters still worse, most of those who had forded the ditch had taken insufficient precautions to protect their own powder, which had been rendered useless.
British reinforcements were only a short distance away, and the sky was growing lighter. Harry ignored the grumbling and carping of Major Clarke, and sent a courier galloping off to the headquarters of Lord Stirling, at the village of New Bridge, for reinforcements. Soon thereafter the raiders faced their first test when a company of Redcoat infantry appeared on the road directly ahead of the vanguard.
Harry knew of only one way to deal with the situation. A half-troop of horse rode down the foot soldiers, sabers flashing in the early morning light, and the attack was so rapid, so ferocious, that the British infantry surrendered. Only a few American officers, including Harry, who had led the charge himself, knew that his entire party was suffering from a critical lack of powder.
Stirling responded at once to Harry’s plea for help, and a full battalion of American infantry appeared to give support and protect the raiders’ rear. It was almost noon, and Harry expected the enemy to retaliate in force at any time. He ordered that the march continue, even though some of his men were now so weary they were staggering.
Early in the afternoon a strong detachment of Redcoat cavalry appeared, but Harry dispersed the foe by dividing his own small force of horsemen into two columns and attacking the British flanks. These tactics were so unorthodox they bewildered the enemy, who withdrew.
Peyton’s men, who had gone through a difficult time of their own, finally joined the column, increasing its strength. And late in the afternoon Harry finally marched into Lord Stirling’s camp with nearly four hundred prisoners. He had lost one man killed and two wounded in the entire operation.
He, his Partizans, and the infantry who had accompanied them were fed a hearty meal and threw themselves on the ground to sleep. In spite of near-disaster, mishaps and the confusion that seemed inevitable in military operations, they had won a clear-cut victory against great odds.
General Washington responded at once with, for him, lavish praise. In a letter to the Continental Congress, he declared, “Major Lee fulfilled his trust with great address, intelligence and industry.”
He was even warmer in a personal letter he sent to Harry, saying, “You will find my sense of your conduct, and that of the officers and men under your command, expressed in the General Orders of yesterday, and in my letter to the Congress. I congratulate you on your success.”
Stirling quickly congratulated Harry, too, and so did Anthony Wayne, Nathanael Greene, and Henry Knox, generals whose opinions he valued highly. Another who wrote him was the young Marquis de Lafayette, the French volunteer who was a kindred spirit, and who declared, “The more I have considered the situation of Paulus Hook, the more I have admired your enterprising spirit and all your conduct in that business.”
Newspapers in Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and the other major cities of the nation hailed the triumph, and Harry Lee was now assured of the esteem he sought from his fellow countrymen. He was no longer an officer who showed mere promise, no longer one who helped others attain victories, but had won laurels of his own in a manner that could be denigrated by no one.
Even Sir Henry Clinton, embarrassed and unhappy, issued an order to his own outpost commanders telling them to be more alert in the future. And at a dinner given in his honor by New York Tories, he said, “I wish I had a few more officers of my own who display Major Lee’s spirit. He is no Marlborough, but his gallantry and our slovenliness make him appear great.”
Harry had every reason to anticipate that he would receive his due rewards from the Congress. He would be made a lieutenant colonel, and his officers would be promoted one rank. Even though he had captured no booty, his victory had been as great as that won by “Mad Anthony” Wayne at Stony Point.
Instead he received notice that he was under arrest, and would be tried by a court-martial board on eight serious charges, any of which, if proved, would subject him to immediate, dishonorable discharge from the Army.
VII: THE TRIAL
Harry Lee had been too successful for his own good at Paulus Hook, and the security precautions taken prior to the launching of the enterprise had been so thorough and complete that not even high-ranking American officers had known of the venture. Two of them were furious, each believing that he should have been given the opportunity to win such glory. Brigadier General Peter Muhlenberg, sometimes known as “the pastor,” and Brigadier General William Woodford were competent, loyal officers. Both commanded infantry brigades, and both were doubly upset because an officer who had never held a major command and was much junior to them had been granted the privilege of making the raid.
They complained in formal letters to Lord Stirling, their superior, who was required under Army procedures to forward the communications to Washington. Their statements were based in part on hearsay evidence, and they were fed all the ammunition they wanted by the disgruntled Major Clarke, who declared that he would have assumed command of the expedition himself had Harry not lied to him about the date of his promotion from captain to major.
The actual charges were varied. One specified Clarke’s complaint. Another stated that Harry had o
rdered a retreat before capturing a redoubt still in enemy hands at the fort, a failure that had placed the entire mission in jeopardy. He was also charged with having taken no steps to destroy the British storehouse, arsenal, and blockhouses.
Another charge stated that he had given various commands to junior officers rather than to men senior to them, and that in so doing he had defied rules of military procedure. Even those he had favored, the indictment said, had been given their appointments in an “irregular manner.”
One long charge was devoted to the retreat from Paulus Hook, and declared that he had carried it off in “such a confused, irregular, unmilitary manner” that the Americans would have suffered great losses had they been intercepted by a large body of the enemy. Finally, Harry was accused of conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman.
The arrest had been ordered by General Washington, as Harry reported direct to the commander-in-chief, and Washington also directed that a court-martial board hear the charges and pass on them.
Harry Lee’s first reaction was a stunned disbelief, which quickly gave way to wild anger. No matter what the board might rule, he wrote his parents, he intended to resign from the Army and return home. His letter stating this resolve was dated September 3, the day he received the unhappy news.
Within twenty-four hours, however, he had simmered down enough to experience doubts about the wisdom of such a course. The Army had been his only love, and he didn’t know what to do. Deeply disturbed, he wrote a personal letter to General Washington, asking for advice and stating that, if it would help restore unity in the ranks of the highly placed, he would send his resignation to the Congress at once.
Washington sat down and penned a reply the instant Harry’s letter reached him a few hours later. “As you request my concurrence to the step you propose,” he said, “I do not find myself at liberty to give it, because it appears to me to be premature and unnecessary. From the time your report was dispatched to the Congress, there is no reason to suppose delay. I am firmly persuaded the event will show you they cannot possibly intend you injustice. I should be sorry you would suffer your sensibility to betray you into an error — which on reflection you would condemn.”
Washington, that most impartial of men, had leaned far to assure a worried subordinate of his support. Rarely had the commander-in-chief been so firm in his profession of friendship.
But Harry, having decided to face a court-martial board, couldn’t help stewing. Most of the charges against him were false, and he felt confident he could prove his innocence. But several were serious. One concerned his failure to burn the enemy’s stores and fortifications, another was that his retreat had been disorganized and unmilitary — which at least hinted at cowardice, and still another was Clarke’s allegation that the young Virginian had lied in order to gain command of the expedition.
Harry had acted in accordance with the verbal instructions given him by General Washington, but as September wore on while he awaited trial, he couldn’t help wondering whether he had understood those orders correctly. Again he wrote to the commander-in-chief, and again received an immediate reply.
Washington recalled their conversation in complete detail, he wrote, and said he had directed that “no time should be lost in attempting to bring off cannon, stores, or any other articles, as a few minutes’ delay might expose the party at least to imminent risk. I further recollect, that I likewise said, that no time should be spent, in such case, in collecting stragglers of the garrison, who might skulk and hide themselves, lest it should prove fatal; also that, if the post could not be carried in an instant by surprise, the attempt must be relinquished. My objects were to surprise it, to bring off the garrison immediately, and to effect a secure retreat.”
Harry’s Partizan colleagues were overjoyed when he showed them Washington’s letter. The commander-in-chief, writing in his own hand, had dispelled several of the charges. He took still another step, too, as Harry and his friends soon discovered.
Although unwilling to censure two generals who had proved themselves dependable, Washington wrote a letter to Lord Stirling that stopped just short of a rebuke to Muhlenberg and Woodford, while simultaneously disposing of other charges. “The transactions in the Virginia Line,” he said, “in consequence of the enterprise against Paulus Hook, are to me as painful as they were unexpected.
“The only point I shall take notice of is the giving the command to Major Lee. This could be exceptionable, but on three principles, his being a horse-officer — his being unconnected with the division from which the greatest part of the detachment was drawn, or the number of men employed being too large for his rank.” All three objections, the commander-in-chief admitted, were reasonable, as they had no foundation in military custom or common sense.
Then he went on to destroy the arguments. “Major Lee’s situation,” he said, “made it most convenient to employ him to make the necessary previous inquiries: It was the best calculated to answer the purpose without giving suspicion. He executed the trust with great address, intelligence and industry — and made himself perfectly master of the post with all its approaches and appendages.
“After having taken so much pains personally to ascertain facts, and having from a series of observations and inquiries arranged in his own mind every circumstance on which the undertaking must turn, no officer could be more proper for conducting it; and as the command was not to exceed what any officer of his rank might decently be intrusted with, it would have been a piece of hardship if not injustice to have given the honor of the expedition to another.”
The communication was a private one, theoretically, but copies mysteriously found their way into every command of consequence in the Army. Greene and Knox soon added their views, both expressing firm opinions that the commander-in-chief had been right. It was time, they said, that the talents of Harry Lee were recognized. Lafayette became furiously partisan, and argued with anyone who dared to say a word in favor of the position taken by Muhlenberg and Woodford.
Another who raced to Harry’s defense was Alexander Hamilton, and the mere fact that he spoke up on the subject was an indication that the gods were smiling on Harry Lee. It was Hamilton’s place, as Washington’s senior aide-de-camp, to maintain a discreet silence in all controversies within the military establishment. The staff of the commander-in-chief, like the commander himself, was expected to remain neutral, and no one knew the rules of the game better than Hamilton, who had developed a talent for keeping his mouth shut, a difficult feat for a fiery, ambitious, and brilliant young man to perform.
Hamilton appears to have spent the better part of several days in mid-September 1779 writing letters to brother officers on the justice of Harry Lee’s cause. The Army thought it unlikely that he would have spoken so freely without the consent, or even the encouragement, of General Washington. There were many, consequently, who believed that Harry would be vindicated.
But Muhlenberg and Woodford continued to grumble, and in spite of the heavy artillery the other side had unlimbered, a large number of brigadier generals and colonels sided with them. These officers, all eager to win renown in their own right, disliked the prospect of watching glory snatched from them by their energetic juniors.
Major Clarke still complained, too, forcing Lord Stirling to silence him with the reminder that the matter would be settled by the court-martial board. Stirling’s intervention seemed to place him in Harry’s camp, and created fresh complications.
Major General William Alexander, still known to all of his colleagues as Lord Stirling, was a courageous, hard-driving officer of Scottish descent who would have won even greater renown than he achieved had he not been a shade too fond of brandywine. He never drank on duty, nor did he allow liquor to interfere with his calling in any other way, but, on those occasions when he had nothing better to occupy him after eating a supper of the beefsteak and oyster pie that was his favorite dish, he liked to settle down for an evening with a jug of French or Spanish brandy.
The news that Stirling, too, had taken sides reached the commander-in-chief’s headquarters. And Washington was forced to revise his plans. He had intended to ask Lord Stirling to become president of the court-martial board, but his lordship had disqualified himself, so someone else had to be found. It wasn’t easy, as virtually every senior officer seemed to be unburdening himself on the subject.
Meanwhile the Continental Congress was in an embarrassing predicament. Major Lee had won a brilliant victory, and his admirers in that august body were demanding that his feat be recognized and rewarded. One of the most persistent of his advocates was the powerful and universally respected Richard Henry Lee, his kinsman, and when Richie Lee spoke, the Congress listened. The distinguished legislator had the good sense not to make a public issue of the matter, however, but confined himself to private conferences with small groups of his fellow Congressmen.
The Congress, never noted for the speed of its deliberations, artfully walked a fence, marked time and busied itself with other matters. No one ever knew the outcome of a military trial in advance, even though Major Lee apparently had strong support in the Army. And the Congress, which had made more than its fair share of blunders through the years, saw no reason to put itself on a spot. If the major was exonerated, something could be done to commemorate the capture of the Redcoat garrison at Paulus Hook. On the other hand, if the major should be found guilty, the Congress would happily forget his victory.
Congressmen were politicians, by nature a cautious breed, so their reluctance to join in the fray was both sensible and natural. But Harry didn’t see their position in that light. The facts of his victory spoke for themselves, he wrote to his parents in a candid letter, and he was bitterly disappointed over the refusal of the Congress to take cognizance of his triumph.