by Mark Puls
Seeing the American flight, Clinton had turned his troops around and ordered a pursuit. At about 11 A.M., British cannons began to shell the Continental position. Knox worked furiously in what he believed was the hottest weather he had ever endured to move his gunners into position. "The enemy advanced with great spirit to the attack, and began a very brisk cannonade on us, who were formed to receive them," he recalled in a letter to Lucy.
The Americans took cover behind a hedgerow and woods, thanks to what Washington later described to Congress as "the brave and spirited conduct of the officers, and aided by some pieces of well served artillery, [which] checked the enemy's advance.“23
As the American troops regained their composure, they reloaded to attempt another assault. Their newly acquired discipline surfaced, and the men sent coordinated volleys ripping through the British lines. A correspondent from the New York Journal reported that "the severest cannonade began that it is thought ever happened in America.“24 Knox's artillery belched explosive charges that scattered the enemy troops and were met with a furious response from the royal cannons. Knox later recalled of his men, "I was highly delighted with their coolness, bravery and good conduct.“25 Alexander Hamilton watched the firestorm and observed that the American "artillery acquitted themselves most charmingly.“26 The acrid smell of spent gunpowder filled the air and enveloped the battlefield as the armies fired almost blindly at each other. Men fell not only from enemy shots but from exhaustion and dehydration. The temperature topped ninety-two degrees, and the oppressive humidity, coupled with the heat emitted from cannons and muskets, drained fluids from the men dressed in heavy woolen uniforms. At the height of the battle, the wife of one of Knox's wounded artillerists, Mary Ludwig Hays, who would be celebrated as Molly Pitcher, heroically carted water to thirsty gunners trying to keep the Continental cannons blazing to match the British sallies. According to legend, she even manned a cannon after her husband fell. The duel dragged on throughout the afternoon. General Greene replaced Charles Lee and led his troops to circle around the enemy's left flank to Monmouth Road, emerging behind the courthouse and rear of the British line. The royal troops attempted to force Greene's men to retreat, but they made a spirited stand, and Knox's artillery gunners repulsed the charge with deadly precision. Exposed from behind by infantry and cannon fire, the redcoats fell back through a dense patch of woods and marsh. Washington ordered his troops to attack on both sides of the British line, and Knox's men sent galling cannon fire to the enemy front. The Americans gave chase but became bogged down in the terrain as twilight descended. They lay on their arms in the battlefield throughout the night, waiting for the morning light to renew the attack. Many were in critical need of water and were agonizing, some dying, from thirst. Washington found that the sandy ground in the area was "destitute of water." Knox did not rest but worked to get cannons in position to support the anticipated attack.
As the orange haze and the blue light of morning emerged, Knox could see that the British had slipped away in the night, leaving many of their wounded on the battlefield. The enemy had retreated so silently that even the American soldiers on outposts just a few yards away did not detect their movements. The redcoats left a trail of knapsacks, muskets, and personal belongings strewn for miles.
As Knox surveyed the battlefield, he thought it "a field of carnage and blood." Casualties on both sides were almost identical, each around 360. Henry felt his men and, indeed, the entire Continental Army under Washington had acquitted themselves. "Indeed, upon the whole, it is very splendid," he wrote in a letter to Lucy the following day. "The capital army of Britain defeated and obliged to retreat before the Americans whom they despised so much!“27 To his brother William, Henry gloated, "The effects of the Battle of Monmouth will be great and lasting. It will convince the enemy and the world that nothing but a good constitution is wanting to render our army equal to any in the world.“28
Henry realized the victory over the main British army was critical in establishing confidence in the Continental Army before French troops took to the field in the war.
Washington gave much of the credit to Knox and his artillery corps. A day after the battle, he issued a statement in the army's general orders, proclaiming "[i]t is with peculiar pleasure in addition to the above that the commander-in-chief can inform General Knox and the Officers of Artillery that the enemy have done them the justice to acknowledge that no artillery could be better served than ours.“29 And to Congress, he reported that "[a]ll the artillery both officers and men that were engaged, distinguished themselves in a remarkable manner.“30
Charles Lee, however, would be court-martialed for failing to carry out Washington's orders; he was found guilty and suspended from the army for one year, thus ending his career in the service.
Knox had little time to recover from the battle. The army immediately resumed the march though New Jersey heading for New York. The British force reached Sandy Hook within a few days and waited for Admiral Howe's royal fleet to ferry the men to Manhattan. Congress, meanwhile, could finally return to Philadelphia after convening for ten months in Yorktown, Pennsylvania.
The French fleet arrived off the Capes of Delaware outside of Philadelphia on July 10 with eighteen ships, including transports carrying 10,000 soldiers and the news that France had formally declared war on Britain. Prepared to drive the British out of the city, instead the French were redirected to New York for an attempt to prevent the English from crossing New York Harbor. Clinton's force completed the naval evacuation, however, before the French gunships arrived.
Knox and the rest of the army crossed the Hudson River about fifty miles north of New York City and then marched south to White Plains. Washington wanted a coordinated land-sea, American-Franco attack to capture New York. But French admiral Comte d'Estaing was concerned that his ships might become grounded on the New York Harbor sandbar near Stanton Island. He was cautious about engaging the English fleet under Admiral Howe in unknown waters that demanded complicated navigation. Instead, he sailed for Newport, Rhode Island, for a joint attack with 10,000 American troops under General John Sullivan. The French ships, armed with 834 guns, sailed into Narragansett Bay by the end of July, and Howe's British fleet, with 914 guns, pushed off from New York City a week later to confront them.
Knox and the rest of the American army in New York awaited the outcome of the battle. Admiral d'Estaing, clearly more comfortable in fighting the British in the open sea, recalled his troops from land and headed back to ocean waters under a favorable wind. The two fleets spent days maneuvering for position when a violent sea storm intervened, scattering ships and damaging sails and riggings. When the tempest abated, many ships, including Admiral d'Estaing's flagship, the ninety-gun Languedoc, were crippled. Instead of a coordinated battle, ships engaged in skirmishes and attacks with enemy ships they happened to encounter. The French fleet reassembled off Newport, and the British returned to New York for refitting. The alliance already showed signs of strain as General Sullivan and Admiral d'Estaing insulted each other, and by late August, as hurricane season began, the fleet sailed to Boston for repairs. Many American soldiers and militia in Rhode Island became panic-stricken with the departure of French battleships and began to desert in hordes, leaving the troops under Sullivan in danger and forcing a retreat.
Knox became concerned when the British began reinforcing their garrisons in Rhode Island, and the American troops began leaving the state by August 30. He feared that Boston would become vulnerable to capture. He wrote to his brother, warning William to protect what little property they had left. But Henry also wondered if the British had tired of the war in America. "I believe [the enemy] are about to quit the continent, and perhaps only wait for their last orders to effect it." He thought that British confidence had been shaken at Monmouth. Lord Clinton's troops were deserting by the hundreds, cutting his strength by nearly a third. The Hessians were refusing to fight. Henry confided that he had lost much of his former admiration for the
opposing commanders: "It is improper for a person in my station to speak thus, were it to be divulged; but I do not believe there ever was a set of men so perfectly disqualified by a total and profound ignorance of every thing that ought to constitute the characters of leaders of an army to conquest. I beg you not to imagine that by depreciation of their abilities I mean to exalt our own. God forbid! I shall say nothing about it but only this, that we never set ourselves up as great military men.“31
But the British had little reason to evacuate America after Admiral d'Estaing decided to set sail for the West Indies, a move that ended any hopes of a major American offensive for the rest of the year. And perhaps, as Knox may have imagined, the British generals did not want to leave America as failures. The Continental Army, however, could do little to physically force the British out of New York City and back to England without a fleet to blockade the sea and hold off English warships and supply vessels. Washington had another problem that, unless solved, promised another winter of starvation, nakedness, and want for the troops. American credit was sinking and the currency of the fledgling country was nearly worthless, having plummeted 90 percent in value in recent months. To clothe his men, Washington had to plead for blankets, stockings, and shoes from the warehouses at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut. Although he suspected that the British might abandon America, he knew that they could simply hold on and wait for the country's finances to collapse under heavy debt and high inflation. To Congressman Gouverneur Morris of New York, he wrote in early October that the question was not "simply whether G. Britain can carry on the War, but whose Finances (theirs or ours) is most likely to fail." Officers suffered along with the enlisted men because the equipment for their positions was becoming prohibitively expensive. Washington reported to Morris in exasperation: "A rat, in the shape of a horse, is not to be bought at this time for less than £200; a saddle under thirty or forty; boots twenty, and shoes and other articles in like proportion. How is it possible therefore for officers to stand this, without an increase of pay? And how is it possible to advance their pay when flour is selling (at different places) from five to fifteen pounds pr. ct., Hay from ten to thirty pounds pr. ton, and beef and other essentials, in this proportion.“32
In the temporary stalemate, the British barricaded themselves in New York while the patriot army stationed troops in a forty-mile semicircle around the enemy. Knox moved with Washington in late November 1778 to Pluckemin, New Jersey. Lucy was again pregnant and spent the winter in Boston.
While the troops prepared winter quarters, Congress asked Knox and Greene to return to Philadelphia to help reorganize the ordnance department, which funneled supplies and weapons to men in the field. Washington also returned to the capital to meet with Congress over the war effort. The government was still learning as it went along and groping for ways to build a more efficient army to match the British. As Washington observed in a letter to one of his generals, "We are young in the business in which we are engaged.“33 Knox, who was just twenty-eight years old, oversaw the Continental ordnance. He laid out a detailed plan to organize America's war arsenal, streamline operations, and invigorate the flow of critical weapons and supplies. Around January 28, 1779, he paid a visit to delegate James Duane of New York, a member of the committee conferring with Washington, and unveiled his recommendations while offering guidance. Knox's knowledge left Duane feeling "not sufficiently master of the subject to decide,“34 and he referred Knox's plan to the committee and Washington.
While in Philadelphia, Knox saw Benedict Arnold, who introduced him to the woman he planned to wed. Two years earlier Arnold had appealed for Lucy's help during fruitless efforts to court another young woman. Arnold's fiancée was the beautiful Margaret Shippen, daughter of a former chief justice of Pennsylvania, who attracted a bevy of suitors for her charm and vivacity as well as a keen gift for eliciting protective instincts in men, especially men in uniform. Although she was from one of the most prominent families in Philadelphia, she was socially ambitious. During the British occupation, she was a favorite among British officers, including Major John Andre. Arnold courted her with full ardor. Knox was impressed with Peggy and seemed willing to forgive her former attentions to British officers. To his brother William, he wrote: "The girls are the same everywhere—at least some of them: they love a red coat dearly. Arnold is going to be married to a beautiful and accomplished young lady—a Miss Shippen, of one of the best families in this place.“35
Shortly thereafter, Benedict Arnold was charged by the state of Pennsylvania with war profiteering and with snubbing civilian officials by overstep-ping his authority and granting unwarranted passports while in command of Philadelphia. Knox refused to believe the accusations and held a steadfast belief in Arnold's character. The earlier criticisms against Knox, Washington, and several of the military brain trust had made Henry skeptical of attacks against Continental generals. To William, he wrote: "You will see in the papers some highly colored charges against General Arnold by the State of Pennsylvania. I shall be exceedingly mistaken if one of them can be proven. He has returned to Philadelphia, and will, I hope, be able to vindicate himself from the aspersions of enemies."
Knox left Philadelphia with Washington on Tuesday, February 2, as the members of Congress were preparing to host a lavish public celebration to commemorate the first anniversary of the French alliance. Knox returned to his artillery corps, which had set up winter quarters in Pluckemin. Huts had been constructed on the high ground of a hill in what one correspondent called "a very pretty manner as you approach," and said of the camp: "Its regularity, its appearance, and the ground on which it stands, throws over it a look of enchantment, although it is no more than the work of a few weeks.“36 Mobile field guns, howitzers, mortars, and cannons formed the front wall of the square-shaped park, which was marked off by smartly arranged barracks, military laboratories, and a military school. Ever since Knox had entered the army, he had tried to impress Congress and American leaders of the need for a military academy similar to those in Europe to train the Continental officer corps the principles of fighting a war. At Pluckemin, Knox ordered such a school to be built. It was the first military academy in America and a direct forerunner of what would later be the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, which would open in 1802. This military school was simply known as the academy. Knox took great care in the design and look of the building, as if, from its very conception and creation, to instill it with an aura of tradition. It stood several feet higher than any other building in camp and was adorned with a small cupola. The fifty-foot-by-thirty-foot lecture hall could hold several hundred students. At the end of the hall was an elevated enclosure, from which Knox and other speakers lectured.
For the most part, Knox was the school's sole professor. He wrote up a curriculum and demonstrated every kind of weapon in the American arsenal and the methods used in the laboratories for preparing munitions. He explained battle tactics and logistics, military principles, the considerations a commander had to make before engaging the enemy, the common errors and traps that officers fell into on the battlefield. Knox firmly believed that battles were won and lost in the planning and felt that the officers of Continental Army needed to be as knowledgeable as their counterparts in the British army and their comrades from France.
On February 18, Congress resolved to put the country's ordnance under the official control of Knox and granted him an additional $75 a month to be used expressly for his duties. He would be in charge of telling Congress the needs of the army and dispersing weapons and munitions throughout the continent. Congress was sensitive to the democratic ideal of civilian control of the country's stockpile of weapons. Arms and munitions could be removed from the permanent magazines only by express orders from the Board of War: a civilian, democratically elected body. But the delegates, acknowledging that the contingencies of war often demanded a quick response, gave Knox and Washington the exclusive power to pull weapons from the arsenals as needed. In t
he reworked regulations for the ordnance department, Congress followed several of Knox's recommendations, including plans to improve the preservation of ammunition and arms. A colonel from his artillery corps would be assigned to regularly inspect weapons throughout the army, check procedures, and survey the arsenals. During lulls of activity in the war front, artillery officers would be sent to the military laboratories to learn more about munitions manufacturing and gain knowledge that might be helpful in the field. Knox also was ordered to make regular reports to Congress, to assess and project the army's needs.37
The scope of the responsibilities for which Congress placed their faith in Knox is remarkable for a young man not yet thirty years of age and who had been a professional soldier less than four years. He was responsible for the army's entire artillery corps, and had to maintain a full grasp of all the of battlefronts of the war to supply every regiment with arms.
By early 1779, Knox realized that the tiresome war would drag on for some time to come. The British shifted their focus to the southern states, invading Georgia and South Carolina. Knox's close friend, General Benjamin Lincoln, faced the enemy along the Savannah River near Augusta, Georgia. His men suffered a devastating defeat at Briar Creek on March 3, with many of the troops fleeing to the river and some drowning. The British were left in complete control of Georgia, and the Continental Army was helpless to send reinforcements as the English pushed farther toward Charleston, South Carolina.
As the spring weather brought rising temperatures, Knox expected the British to launch an offensive within weeks. Congress had let an opportunity to draft soldiers slip away, Knox believed, by resolving on March 15 to allow individual states to recruit artillery or cavalry regiments to fill their quotas but stopped short of giving the states the power to conscript men. As a result, the most educated and talented men either were pursuing business opportunities created by the war or were serving in posts to defend their states. Knox, like Washington, thought in national terms rather than provincial ones and was more concerned about the country's needs than state rivalries.
