Monmouth, 28 June 1778

The battle, stage by stage

1. 18-27 June 1778

   Across New Jersey

   With France now in the war, Sir Henry Clinton is ordered to give up Philadelphia and concentrate at New York. The British evacuate the city on 16-18 June and march across New Jersey, about 20,000 strong including camp followers (the American Battlefield Trust's figure; the state park's marker counts 20,000 troops), with a baggage train that accounts put at roughly 1,500 wagons, by way of Haddonfield, Mount Holly and Crosswicks to Allentown, then east toward Monmouth Court House. Washington leaves Valley Forge on 19 June (the park's date) with an army trained over the winter under von Steuben, crosses the Delaware at Coryell's Ferry and shadows the British from the north through Hopewell and Kingston. The British reach Monmouth Court House (Freehold) on 26 June; on the 27th Washington's advance corps is at Englishtown, about six miles to the north-west. Routes are drawn as straight legs between the towns named in the sources.

2. 28 June, about 4-8 AM

   The British move off

   Before dawn on Sunday, 28 June, Clinton's army leaves Monmouth Court House in two divisions. Knyphausen's, about 4,000 troops guarding the baggage, starts between 3 and 4 AM north-east on the Middletown road; Clinton and Cornwallis follow at about 5 with roughly 6,000, mostly British, as the rear division (figures from the editors of the Washington Papers). Washington orders Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, who accepted command of the advance corps only at the last moment (NHL nomination), to attack the rear. Lee marches from Englishtown at about 7 with some 5,000 men (later estimates run to about 6,000), down the Freehold road past Tennent Meeting House. Washington's main army follows from its camps near Manalapan Bridge (the park brochure; the Washington Papers say Penelopen). New Jersey militia under Philemon Dickinson are already shadowing the British; the march order shown is schematic.

3. About 9-11:30 AM

   Lee strikes the rear guard

   At about 9 AM Dickinson's militia burst out of the East Ravine onto the Middletown road and plunder a few wagons before the guards drive them off. Lee's column leaves the road, crosses the Perth Amboy road and moves east along the ravine, leaving the court house to the south. By mid-morning his men, in a ragged line facing the Briar Hill road, are skirmishing with a British covering force of three brigades and the Queen's Rangers. The heat is already severe. After about two hours Lee tries to envelop the rear guard, but his columns become tangled and the plan collapses. Meanwhile Knyphausen and the baggage escape down the Middletown road and Clinton turns Cornwallis's whole division back toward Lee. Positions on this morning field are reconstructed from written descriptions and are approximate.

4. About 11:30 AM-12:45 PM

   Cornwallis turns; Lee's retreat

   Clinton sends the Guards, the two grenadier battalions, the 16th Light Dragoons, the light infantry and the 42nd Highlanders against Lee. As some American units shift position, others take the moves for a retreat and fall back, and soon the whole advance corps is withdrawing south-west through the village and then west along the Englishtown road, with Lee unable to control it. It was not a rout, by modern accounts (Lender and Stone): most regiments keep their order, and Wayne's battalions and Oswald's guns cover the rear. Wayne and Scott, furious with Lee, act largely on their own. The British follow, but in near-100-degree heat they can barely keep up. Washington, riding ahead of the main army past Tennent Meeting House, begins to meet stragglers who cannot tell him why they are retreating.

5. About 1-1:45 PM

   Washington meets Lee; the hedgerow

   Washington meets Lee, demands an explanation and takes charge. Tradition puts the meeting on the Rhea farm by Wemrock Road, where the 1928 marker stands; Gary Ecelbarger argues from court-martial testimony, backed by a 1778 map, that it was on Oswald's Knoll near the Middle Brook bridge, more than 600 yards to the west, at about 1:15. Stories that Washington cursed Lee are probably untrue. To buy time, Wayne's picked men, upwards of 700 with Stewart and Ramsey, fight the Guards and dragoons at close quarters at the Point of Woods, where Ramsey is cut down and captured. About 800 of Lee's men under Varnum's brigade and Livingston then hold a hedged fence for a few minutes of point-blank firing (the park's markers put the hedgerow fight at 12:45-1:00); the grenadiers lose heavily before dragoons break through south of the line. The 2nd Grenadiers push toward the bridge and are stopped by grapeshot; their commander, Lt. Col. Henry Monckton, is mortally wounded (Lender and Stone). Behind the brook, Washington and Lord Stirling form the army in lines on Perrine Hill, with Lafayette's reserve over the ridge, while Greene swings south. Lee's battered units are sent to the rear toward Englishtown.

6. About 1:30-4 PM

   The great cannonade

   Unable to cross the brook, Clinton brings up his guns along the hedgerow, and what the park calls the largest land artillery battle of the war begins. Ten Continental guns on Perrine Hill (the park's count; the Trust's Wickersty puts it near sixteen) duel with the British pieces across the valley for some two hours or more, while Washington rides the line. On the advice of Lt. Col. David Rhea, who grew up nearby, Washington sends Greene with a Virginia brigade (the park brochure) and four guns under the Chevalier du Plessis-Mauduit to Combs Hill, south of the hedgerow; archaeologists located the battery from nearly 50 recovered shot. Caught in the crossfire, the British guns pull back and their infantry follows. Temperatures are near 100 degrees in the fields, water is scarce, and heat kills men on both sides. Tradition holds that Mary Hays, the 'Molly Pitcher' of legend, brought water and served a gun of Proctor's artillery here; the private Joseph Plumb Martin describes an unnamed woman working a gun with her husband, and historians differ on how much of the story can be tied to one person.

7. About 4-6 PM

   Fighting on the flanks

   Older accounts describe British attacks on both American flanks in the late afternoon: Cornwallis tries to dislodge Greene from Combs Hill, and attacks swing back and forth across the brook for about an hour before both sides return to their positions. The state park's current interpretation stresses Washington's own cautious counteroffensive. Two light infantry battalions, including Cilley's, work round the valley against the 42nd Highlanders in the Sutfin orchard; about 300 Highlanders decline a needless firefight and withdraw across the brook. Near 5 PM Wayne takes about 400 men across the bridge and strikes the 1st Grenadiers; driven back, his men hold the parsonage buildings and yards until fire from Combs Hill forces the grenadiers to fall back. By 6 both armies are spent, and Clinton pulls back about half a mile out of range. Washington orders Poor's and Woodford's brigades round the British flanks, but darkness stops them.

8. Night of 28-29 June; 5-6 July

   Withdrawal to Sandy Hook

   The Continentals sleep on their arms on the field, Washington wrapped in his cloak, planning to attack at dawn. But at about midnight (the park says around 11 PM) Clinton leaves his campfires burning and marches off so quietly that Poor's men, lying close, do not notice. By sunrise the British are on the road to Middletown. A bridge of boats to Sandy Hook is laid on 1-2 July, and on 5-6 July the army is ferried to the transports for New York (Monmouth County Historical Association). Both sides claim the victory; the battle is usually judged a tactical draw, but the Continental Army has held the field against the best British regulars. Lee demands an apology, is court-martialed, found guilty on all three charges on 12 August and suspended for a year, a verdict Congress confirmed in December. Old Tennent Meeting House serves as the main American field hospital, and Monckton is buried in its churchyard.