4. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 111–12; Dominick Mazzagetti, Charles Lee: Self Before Country, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2013), 140–48; Fleming, 299–301.
5. W. Wallace Atterbury, Elias Boudinot: Reminiscences of the American Revolution, New York (1894), 21; Elias Boudinot, Journal or Historical Recollections of American Events During the Revolutionary War, Philadelphia: Frederick Bourquin (1894), 78–79; Nathanael Greene to Gov. William Greene, 25 May 1778, in Showman, Greene Papers 2:408; Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 114; Charles Lee to Henry Laurens, 17 April 1778, in Chesnutt and Taylor, Laurens Papers 13:133.
6. Council of War, 9 May 1778, GWP; to Nathanael Greene, 8 June 1778, GWP; General Orders, 9 June 1778, GWP; to John Augustine Washington, 10 June 1778, GWP.
7. From Lafayette, 17 June 1778, GWP; from Nathanael Greene, 18 June 1778, GWP; Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 103.
8. Willcox, Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative, 90; Tustin, Captain Johann Ewald’s Diary, 135 (lost more than 200 men to the heat on 26 June); Brown and Peckham, Journals of Henry Dearborn, 125 (26 and 27 June 1778); Martin, Notes of a Revolutionary Soldier, 71; from Philemon Dickinson, 23 June 1778, 11:30 p.m., GWP.
9. Lender and Stone, Fatal Crisis, 93–94; to Philemon Dickinson, 24 May 1778 and 5–7 June 1778, GWP; Fleming, Washington’s Secret War, 311–12; “Journal of John Charles Von Krafft,” Collections of the New York Historical Society for the year 1882, New York (1883), 45 (24 June 1778); Tustin, Captain Johann Ewald’s Diary, 134–35; Benedict Arnold to Henry Laurens, 24 June 1778; in Chesnutt and Taylor, Laurens Papers 13:511–12; from Benedict Arnold, 22 June 1778, GWP; from Philemon Dickinson, 19 June 1778, GWP; “Joseph Plumb Martin Diary,” in Commager and Morris, Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, 714; Martin, Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier, 71; Greene to Jacob Greene, 2 July 1778, in Showman, Greene Papers 2:449.
10. Council of War, 24 June 1778, GWP; Lafayette, Memoirs, in Commager and Morris, Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, 710–11; Hamilton to Elias Boudinot, 5 July 1778, PAH.
11. From Nathanael Greene, 24 June 1778, GWP; from Lafayette, 24 June 1778, GWP; from Anthony Wayne, 24 June 1778, GWP.
12. Proceedings of a General Court-Martial Held at Brunswick, in the State of New Jersey, . . . for the Trial of Major-General Lee, privately reprinted (1864), 27 (Wayne).
13. “Journal of John Charles Von Krafft,” 47; Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 157–58.
14. To Major General Lafayette, 26 June 1778, GWP; from Major General Charles Lee, 25 June 1778, GWP; Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 178–83. A Washington aide, James McHenry, described Lafayette as “in raptures with his command and burning to distinguish himself.” James McHenry, Journal of a March, a Battle, and a Waterfall, Greenwich, CT (1945), 4; from Major General Charles Lee, 25 June 1778, GWP.
15. Mazzagetti, Self Before Country, 171; to Charles Lee, 30 June 1778.
16. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 194–95; Lee Court-Martial, 5 (General Scott), 6, 25–26 (General Wayne), 9 (Lt. Colonel Meade); Mazzagetti, Self Before Country, 164–67.
17. Lengel, General George Washington, 297–99; Middlekauf, Washington’s Revolution, 191; Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 253–54; Lee Court-Martial, 14–16 (Lafayette).
18. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 261–68, 271–72; Lee Court-Martial, 18 (Lafayette), 31–32 (General Forman), 39 (Colonel Scilly), 93 (Tench Tilghman); Brown and Peckham, Journals of Henry Dearborn, 127–28 (28 June 1778).
19. To Henry Laurens, 28 June 1778, 11:30 a.m., GWP; Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 236, 282; Lee Court-Martial, 61 (Lt. Colonel Lawrence), 72–73 (Lt. Colonel Meade).
20. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 284–85; Lee Court-Martial, 91–92 (Tench Tilghman).
21. Lee Court-Martial, 90 (McHenry), 128 (Colonel Mercer), 164 (Lt. Colonel Brooks), 74 (Lt. Colonel Meade), 93 (Tilghman), 129 (Colonel Mercer); Martin, Notes of a Revolutionary Soldier, 72; Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 289–90. A legend that grew around this confrontation portrayed Washington turning the air blue with his curses, calling Lee a “damned poltroon” and riding off in a rage. That the commander was angry is unquestioned. The evidence that he swore and raged is extremely weak. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 290–91.
22. Lee Court-Martial, 32 (General Forman), 85 (Lt. Colonel Harrison), 68 (Hamilton), 93 (Tilghman), 129 (Colonel Mercer); John Laurens to Henry Laurens, 30 June 1778, in Chesnutt and Taylor, Laurens Papers 13:532–35; Nathanael Greene to Jacob Greene, 2 July 1778, in Showman, Greene Papers 2:449–51. Much of this battle narrative is informed by the masterful study of the Monmouth battle in Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 282–347.
23. Brown and Peckham, Journals of Henry Dearborn, 127 (28 June 1778).
24. Brown and Peckham, Journals of Henry Dearborn, 127–28 (28 June 1778).
25. Samuel Smith, Memoirs of Samuel Smith, a Soldier of the Revolution, New York (1860), 15; “Journal of John Charles Von Krafft,” 47 (28 June 1778); John Laurens to Henry Laurens, 30 June 1778, in Chesnutt and Taylor, Laurens Papers 13:534; Martin, Notes of a Revolutionary Soldier, 73–74; Greene to Jacob Greene, 2 July 1778, in Showman, Greene Papers 2:451.
26. Greene to Jacob Greene, 2 July 1778, Showman, Greene Papers; James McHenry to George Lux, 30 June 1778, in James McHenry, “The Battle of Monmouth,” Magazine of American Hist. 3:355–63 (1879). Writing to his father, John Laurens gave Washington full credit for any American success. “The merit of restoring the day is due to the General, and his conduct was such throughout the affair as has greatly increased my love and esteem for him.” John Laurens to Henry Laurens, 30 June 1778, in Chesnutt and Taylor, Laurens Papers 13:545.
27. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 366–68, 375; Tustin, Captain Johann Ewald’s Diary, 136 (28 June 1778).
28. General Orders, 29 June 1778, GWP; General Orders, 30 June 1778, GWP; James McHenry to George Lux, 30 June 1778, in McHenry, “The Battle of Monmouth,” 356; Brown and Peckham, Journals of Henry Dearborn, 130 (4 July 1778); Fleming, Washington’s Secret War, 328; General Orders, 4 July 1778, GWP.
29. JCC 11:673 (7 July 1778); Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 389.
30. From Major General Charles Lee, 30 June 1778, GWP.
31. To Major General Charles Lee, 30 June 1778, GWP; from Major General Charles Lee, 30 June 1778, GWP.
32. Lee Court-Martial, passim; JCC 12:1195 (5 December 1778).
33. Lender and Stone offer a sturdy defense of Lee’s conduct at Monmouth; they insist that he performed at a high level throughout the day. In view of Lee’s very limited preparation to attack and his repeated failure to control his vanguard through the morning, plus Lee’s retort to Washington that he never wanted to attack in the first place, that defense feels thin. Mazzagetti, in Self Before Country, argues that Lee’s erratic behavior flowed from his vulnerability to exposure by the enemy as a traitor. Christian McBurney, George Washington’s Nemesis: The Outrageous Treason and Unfair Court-Martial of Major General Charles Lee During the Revolutionary War, El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie (2020). (Lee acted treasonably while in British captivity.) Though that contention is not readily provable, it warrants consideration.
34. Willcox, Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative, 98; Richard Henry Lee to Francis Lightfoot Lee, 5 July 1778, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 420–21; Greene to Jacob Greene, 2 July 1778, in Showman, Greene Papers 2:451; John Laurens to Henry Laurens, 30 June 1778, in Chesnutt and Taylor, Laurens Papers 13:536. Among those works concluding that Monmouth was a draw are Middlekauf, Washington’s Revolution, 190–92, and Lengel, General George Washington, 304–5. This book concurs with Lender and Stone in Fatal Sunday that “it was on the political front that Monmouth had the greatest significance. There, the [Americans’] victory was decisive.” 425–26.
35. JCC 11:591 (11 June 1778). A week after the Monmouth battle, Pennsylvania militia general John Cadwalader provoked Conway to challenge him to a duel, at which Cadwalader sh
ot him through the mouth. Fleming, Washington’s Secret War, 328–29.
36. Greene to Jacob Greene, 3 January 1778, in Showman, Greene Papers 2:244.
37. JCC 11:631–658 (22 June 1778) and 11:662–670 (27 June 1778).
37. THE LONG, BUMPY VICTORY LAP
1. To John Augustine Washington, 6 June–6 July 1780, GWP.
2. Excellent accounts of this final campaign of the war are in Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown, New York: Viking (2018), and Richard M. Ketchum, Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution, New York: Henry Holt and Co. (2004).
3. Freeman 5:401–3; to Jonathan Trumbull Jr., 6 November 1781, GWP; François Jean de Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782, London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson (1787), 96–97 (Trans. Note).
4. Chastellux, Travels in North America, 139–40; Evelyn M. Acomb, ed. and tr., The Revolutionary Journal of Baron Ludwig von Closen, 1780–1783, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1958), 102. Washington’s father died at forty-three; his half-brothers Lawrence at thirty-four and Austin at forty-two; and younger brother Samuel succumbed to tuberculosis at age forty-seven, just five weeks before Jack Custis died. Samuel had outlived four of his five wives and left behind several children for his elder brother George to see to adulthood, including George Steptoe Washington, Lawrence Augustine Washington, and Harriott Washington. The adult Washington had not been close to Samuel, who was known as a heavy drinker and had moved to western Virginia. Washington also disapproved of Samuel’s eldest child, Ferdinand Washington, and never supported him. From George Steptoe Washington, 2 March 1787, GWP; to Robert Chambers, 28 January 1789, GWP.
5. To Greene, 16 November 1781, GWP; to Lafayette, 15 November 1781, GWP. The other failed British generals were Gage, Burgoyne, Cornwallis, and Howe.
6. Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802, New York: The Free Press (1975), 19–20; Ebenezer Huntington to Andrew Huntington, 7 July 1780, in G.W.F. Blanchfield, ed., Letters Written by Ebenezer Huntington, 1774–1781, New York: C. F. Heartman (1915), 87; Head, A Crisis of Peace, 40–41.
7. James Thacher, A Military Journal During the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783, Boston: Richardson and Lord (1823), 295–97; Mary A. Y. Gallagher, “Reinterpreting the ‘Very Trifling Mutiny’ at Philadelphia in June 1783,” PMHB 119:3, 9–10 (1995).
8. An officer in the punitive expedition sympathized with the soldiers, who had “long suffered many serious grievances, which they have sustained with commendable patience.” James Thacher, A Military Journal, 302–4.
9. To Benjamin Lincoln, 2 October 1782, GWP.
10. Douglas A. Irwin and Richard Sylla, Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2011), 92; Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 21–22; JCC 24:284 (29 April 1783) (listing debts).
11. Gouverneur Morris to John Jay, 1 January 1783, in E. James Ferguson, ed., The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press (1973); Richard H. Kohn, “The Inside History of the Newburgh Conspiracy: America and the Coup d’Etat,” WMQ 27:187, 191 note 9 (1970); “Observations on the Present State of Affairs,” 13 January 1783, in Ferguson, Robert Morris Papers 1:305–6 (the “clamors of the army” could assist in acquiring approval of a tax); from Hamilton, 11 April 1783, GWP.
12. Ebenezer Huntington to Andrew Huntington, 9 December 1782, in Blanchfield, Letters Written by Ebenezer Huntington, 102; Head, A Crisis of Peace, 62–65, 73–77.
13. JCC 24:291–93 (29 April 1783); Edward Larson, The Return of George Washington, 1783–1789, New York: William Morrow (2014), 13; Alexander McDougall to Henry Knox, 9 January 1783, in Edmund Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution (1934) 7:14 note 2; Abner Nash to James Iredell, 8 January 1783, in Letters of Delegates 19:565; Minor Myers, Jr., Liberty Without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia (1983), 9; Alexander Hamilton to George Clinton, 12 January 1783, in Letters of Delegates 19:577–78.
14. Notes of Debates in Congress by James Madison, 25, 27, and 28 January 1783, Letters of Delegates; Charles Rappleye, Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution, New York: Simon & Schuster (2011), 338; G. Morris to Knox, 7 February 1783, in Burnett, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress 7:34 note 2; Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 195.
15. Pennsylvania Packet, February 11, 1782; Virginia Delegates to the Governor of Virginia, 11 February 1782, in Burnett, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress 7:39; Notes of Debates in the Continental Congress by James Madison, 13 February 1783, in JCC 25:898.
16. Hamilton to Washington, 13 February 1783, in GWP.
17. Rappleye, Robert Morris, 343; “Notes of Conversation with Colonel William Duer,” 12 October 1788, in Charles King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons (1894) 1:621–22; Gates to John Armstrong Jr., 22 June 1783, in George Bancroft, History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States, New York: D. Appleton and Co. (1882) 1:318.
18. JCC 24:295–97 (24 April 1783).
19. General Orders, 11 March 1783, GWP; to Hamilton, 12 March 1783, GWP; to Robert Morris, 12 March 1783, GWP; General Orders, 13 March 1783, GWP.
20. JCC 24:298–99 (29 April 1783).
21. From Joseph Jones, 27 February 1783, GWP; to Hamilton, 12 March 1783, GWP.
22. From Horatio Gates, 31 December 1782, GWP; Myers, Liberty Without Anarchy, 11; Kohn, “Inside History,” 209; Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1979), 332.
23. J. A. Wright to John Webb, 16 March 1783, in Worthington C. Ford, ed., Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb, New York: Wickersham Press (1894) 3:5; The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, Boston: Wm. Crosby and H. P. Nichols (1847), 103.
24. JCC 24:306–10 (29 April 1783).
25. Journals of Samuel Shaw, 103–4; Timothy Pickering to Samuel Hodgdon, 16 March 1783, in Octavius Pickering, ed., The Life of Timothy Pickering, Boston: Little, Brown & Co. (1867) 1:437–39; David Cobb to Timothy Pickering, 9 November 1825, in Life of Timothy Pickering 1:431–32.
26. JCC 24:310–11 (29 April 1783).
27. JCC 24:305 (29 April 1783).
28. JCC 24:207–10 (22 March 1783).
29. To Hamilton, 16 April 1783, GWP.
30. JCC 24:242 (15 April 1783); to Luzerne, 29 March 1783, GWP.
31. To Guy Carleton, 6 May 1783, GWP; “Account of a Conference Between Washington and Sir Guy Carleton,” 6 May 1783, GWP.
32. To Theodorick Bland, 4 April 1783, GWP (first letter to Bland of that date); JCC 24:253 (14 April 1783 report of visit to Newburgh camp), 24:269–70 (23 April 1783), 24:323–26 (2 May 1783), 24:358–61 (23 May 1783), 24:364–65 (26 May 1783); General Orders, 2 June 1783, GWP; Head, A Crisis of Peace, 189–90.
33. William Abbott, ed., Memoirs of Major General William Heath, New York: William Abbott (1901), 354; Mary A. Y. Gallagher, “Reinterpreting the ‘Very Trifling Mutiny’ at Philadelphia in June 1783,” PMHB 119:3, 17–27 (1995); Thomas Fleming, The Perils of Peace: America’s Struggle for Survival After Yorktown, New York: Smithsonian Books (2007), 291–92; to Elias Boudinot, 24 June 1783, GWP; Head, A Crisis of Peace, passim; Bowling, The Creation of Washington, D.C., 30–35. One army officer suggested that with better leadership, the mutineers would have been a potent force. John Armstrong Jr. to Horatio Gates, 9 May 1783, in Burnett, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress 7:175, note 3.
34. From Jedediah Huntington, 16 May 1783, GWP.
35. Rappleye, Robert Morris, 356–57; General Orders, 2 June 1783, GWP; Freeman 5:442.
/> 36. Martin, Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier, 158–60; Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 342; Abbott, Heath Memoirs, 351; from Henry Knox, 3 January 1784, GWP.
37. Colonel Walter Stewart to General Horatio Gates, 20 June 1783, Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, New York Public Library.
38. To William Stephens Smith, 15 May 1783, GWP; Freeman 4:450; to George Clinton, 12 August 1783, GWP.
39. To Hamilton, 31 March 1783; to Nathanael Greene, 31 March 1783, GWP.
40. “From George Washington to the States,” 8 June 1783, GWP; to William Gordon, 8 July 1783.
41. Ibid.
42. Henry Phelps Johnston, ed., Memoir of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, New York: Gilliss Press (1904), 95–96; Connecticut Journal, December 3, 1783.
43. Washington Irving, Life of George Washington, New York: J. B. Lippincott & Co. (1873) 4:470; Freeman 5:462–64; New Brunswick Political Intelligencer, December 9, 1783; Pennsylvania Packet, December 12, 1783; Connecticut Journal, December 17, 1783.
44. Fleming, The Perils of Peace, 257.
45. Johnston, Memoir of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, 96–97.
46. Larson, The Return of George Washington, 30.
47. James McHenry to Peggy Caldwell, 23 December 1783, in Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Co. (1907), 69–70; Fleming, Perils of Peace, 322; New Jersey Gazette, January 6, 1784.
48. John Trumbull to [Brother], May 10, 1784, in Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. (1984), 13.
49. Dorothy Twohig, “‘That Species of Property’: Washington’s Role in the Controversy of Slavery,” in Don Higginbotham, ed., George Washington Reconsidered, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia (2001), 121.
38. HOME, NOT RETIRED
1. To Lafayette, 1 February 1784, GWP.
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