The Lfe & Work of George Washington. Вашингтон Ирвинг
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not be the least possible risk of losing them. Lee's reply explained that his idea of detaching troops from Heath's division was merely for expedition's sake, intending to replace them from his own. The want of carriages and other causes had delayed him. From the force of the enemy remaining in Westchester County, he did not conceive the number of them in the Jerseys to be near so great as Washington was taught to believe. He had been making a sweep of the country to clear it of the tories. Part of his army had now moved on, and he would set out on the following day.
The situation of the little army was daily becoming more perilous. In a council of war, several of the members urged a move to Morristown, to form a junction with the troops expected from the Northern army. Washington, however, still cherished the idea of making a stand at Brunswick on the Raritan, or, at all events, of disputing the passage of the Delaware; and in this intrepid resolution he was warmly seconded by Greene. Breaking up his camp once more, therefore, he continued his retreat towards New Brunswick; but so close was Cornwallis upon him that his advance entered one end of Newark just as the American rear-guard had left the other.
From Brunswick, Washington wrote on the 29th to William Livingston, governor of the Jerseys, requesting him to have all boats and river craft, for seventy miles along the Delaware, removed to the western bank out of the reach of the enemy, and put under guard. He was disappointed in his hope of making a stand on the banks of the Raritan. All the force he could muster at Brunswick, including the New Jersey militia, did not exceed four thousand men. Colonel Reed had failed in procuring aid from the New Jersey legislature. That body, shifting from place to place, was on the eve of dissolution. The term of the Maryland and New Jersey troops in the flying camp had expired. General Mercer endeavored to detain them, representing the disgrace of turning their back upon the cause when the enemy was at hand; his remonstrances were fruitless. As to the Pennsylvania levies, they deserted in such numbers that guards were stationed on the roads and ferries to intercept them.
Washington lingered at Brunswick until the 1st of December in the vain hope of being reinforced. The enemy, in the meantime, advanced through the country, impressing wagons and horses, and collecting cattle and sheep, as if for a distant march. At length their vanguard appeared on the opposite side of the Raritan. Washington immediately broke down the end of the bridge next the village, and after nightfall resumed his retreat. At Princeton, Washington left twelve hundred men in two brigades, under Lord Stirling and General Adam Stephen, to cover the country, and watch the motions of the enemy. Stephen was the same officer that had served as a colonel under Washington in the French war, as second in command of the Virginia troops, and had charge of Fort Cumberland.
The harassed army reached Trenton on the 2d of December. Washington immediately proceeded to remove his baggage and stores across the Delaware. In his letters from this place to the President of Congress, he gives his reasons for his continued retreat: "Nothing but necessity obliged me to retire before the enemy, and leave so much of the Jerseys unprotected. Sorry am I to observe that the frequent calls upon the militia of this State, the want of exertion in the principal gentlemen of the country, and a fatal supineness and insensibility of danger, till it is too late to prevent an evil that was not only foreseen but foretold, have been the causes of our late disgraces."
In excuse for the people of New Jersey, it may be observed that they inhabited an open, agricultural country, where the sound of war had never been heard. Many of them looked upon the Revolution as rebellion; others thought it a ruined enterprise; the armies engaged in it had been defeated and broken up. They beheld the commander-in-chief retreating through their country with a handful of men, weary, wayworn, and dispirited; without tents, without clothing, many of them barefooted, exposed to wintry weather, and driven from post to post by a well-clad, well-fed, triumphant force, tricked out in all the glittering bravery of war. Could it be wondered at that peaceful husbandmen, seeing their quiet fields thus suddenly overrun by adverse hosts, and their very hearthstones threatened with outrage, should, instead of flying to arms, seek for the safety of their wives and little ones, and the protection of their humble means, from the desolation which too often marks the course even of friendly armies?
Lord Howe and his brother sought to profit by this dismay and despondency. A proclamation, dated 30th of November, commanded all persons in arms against his majesty's government to disband and return home, and all Congresses to desist from treasonable acts: offering a free pardon to all who should comply within fifty days. Many who had been prominent in the cause, hastened to take advantage of this proclamation. Those who had most property to lose were the first to submit. The middle ranks remained generally steadfast in this time of trial.
In this dark day of peril to the cause, and to himself, Washington remained firm and undaunted. In casting about for some stronghold where he might make a desperate stand for the liberties of his country, his thoughts reverted to the mountain regions of his early campaigns. General Mercer was at hand, who had shared his perils among these mountains, and his presence may have contributed to bring them to his mind. "What think you," said Washington, "if we should retreat to the back parts of Pennsylvania, would the Pennsylvanians support us?" "If the lower counties give up, the back counties will do the same," was the discouraging reply.
"We must then retire to Augusta County in Virginia," said Washington. "Numbers will repair to us for safety, and we will try a predatory war. If overpowered, we must cross the Alleghanies." Such was the indomitable spirit, rising under difficulties, and buoyant in the darkest moment, that kept our tempest-tost cause from foundering.
1 [Colonel Reed, in a letter to General Lee, at this juncture had allowed himself, notwithstanding the devotion he had hitherto manifested for the commander-in-chief, to express himself with great critical freedom on the loss of Fort Lee. After alluding to the fact that Washington's own judgment was averse to the attempt of holding the fort, but that Greene's advice to the contrary had kept his mind in a state of suspense, he exclaims, "Oh, general! an indecisive mind is one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall an army; how often have I lamented it this campaign." Some days later a letter from General Lee came to head-quarters addressed to Colonel Reed, who at the time was absent. Washington supposing it to be on official business, opened it, as he was in the habit of doing on like occasions. To his surprise he discovered it to be a private note, the tenor of which indicated that he was the subject of critical correspondence between a member of his military family and one of his generals. He immediately enclosed the letter to Colonel Reed, explaining how it had been opened, but without further comment. Reed endeavored to explain away the remarks in Lee's letter; but Washington's affectionate confidence in him as a sympathizing friend had received a severe wound. Reed deeply grieved over the error he had committed, and his earnest appeals to Washington at a later date, restored, in a great measure, their relations of friendly confidence.]
Chapter XXXVII.
RETREAT ACROSS THE DELAWARE.—BATTLE OF TRENTON.
Notwithstanding the repeated and pressing orders and entreaties of the commander-in-chief, Lee did not reach Peekskill until the 30th of November. In a letter of that date to Washington, who had complained of his delay, he simply alleged difficulties which he would explain when both had leisure. It was not until the 4th of December that Lee crossed the Hudson and began a laggard march, though aware of the imminent peril of Washington and his army—how different from the celerity of his movements in his expedition to the South! [Lee evidently considered Washington's star in the decline, and his own in the ascendant. The loss of Fort Washington had been made a text by him to comment in his letters about the "indecision of the commander-in-chief." Instead now of heartily co-operating with Washington he was devising side-plans of his own, and meditating, no doubt, on his chances of promotion to the head of the American armies.]
In the meantime, Washington, who was at Trenton, had profited by a delay of the enemy at Brunswick, and removed most of the stores and baggage of the army across the Delaware; and, being reinforced by fifteen hundred of the Pennsylvania militia, procured by Mifflin, prepared to face about, and march back to Princeton