Volume I Part 15 (2/2)

Soon, however, other inspiriting tidings came--the British, it was said, were about to quit Philadelphia. The gayety in that city had continued throughout the winter, and just before the evacuation, reached its climax in a festival of almost unbelievable opulence and splendor.

Processions of flower-decked boats, choruses, spectacles, and parades crowded the day; dancing and music came with sunset, and at midnight, lighted by hundreds of wax candles, twelve hundred people sat down to a dinner of Oriental luxury served by negroes clad in the rich costumes of the East ”with silver collars and bracelets.”[442]

When, on June 18, the Royal forces abandoned the city, the Americans were quick in pursuit. On June 28, a day of blistering heat, the battle of Monmouth was fought. That scorching Sunday ”was long remembered all over the United States as the most sultry day which had ever been endured since mankind learned to read the thermometer.”[443]

It must have been very hot indeed, for Marshall himself speaks of ”the intense heat”;[444] and he disliked extreme terms. Marshall was one of the advance guard[445] under Wayne, with Lee in command of the division.

In a previous council of war most of the higher officers were decidedly against risking the action; but Was.h.i.+ngton overruled them and ordered Lee to attack the British force ”the moment it should move from its ground.”[446]

The Commander-in-Chief, with the main body of American troops, was to come to Lee's support. It is unnecessary to go over the details of Lee's unhappy blunder, his retreat, Was.h.i.+ngton's Berserker rage and stinging rebuke on the battlefield in sight and hearing of officer and private, the turning of the rout into attack, and attack into victory by the sheer masterfulness of the mighty Virginian. From ten o'clock until nightfall the conflict raged, the Americans generally successful.

The overpowering sun made the action all but insufferable. Many died from the effects of the furnace-like heat. The fighting was heavy and often hand to hand. Throughout the day Was.h.i.+ngton was the very soul of battle. His wrath at Lee's retreat unleashed the lion in him. He rode among the troops inspiring, calming, strengthening, steadying. Perhaps at no time in his life, except at Braddock's defeat, was his peculiar combination of cool-headed generals.h.i.+p and hot-blooded love of combat so manifest in a personal way as on this blazing June day at Monmouth.

”Never,” testifies Lafayette, who commanded part of the advance and fought through the whole battle, ”was General Was.h.i.+ngton greater in war than in this action. His presence stopped the retreat. His dispositions fixed the victory. His fine appearance on horseback, his calm courage, roused by the animation produced by the vexation of the morning, gave him the air best calculated to excite enthusiasm.”[447]

When Was.h.i.+ngton was preparing the final stroke, darkness fell. The exhausted Americans, their clothing drenched with sweat, slept on their arms upon the field of battle, their General-in-Chief himself lying on the ground among the living, the wounded, and the dead. Somewhere on that hard-fought ground, Captain-Lieutenant John Marshall stretched himself by his comrades. Was.h.i.+ngton was determined to press the attack at break of day. But at midnight the British stole away so silently that the Americans did not hear a sound from their retreat.[448] The Americans lost eight officers and sixty-one privates killed, one hundred and sixty wounded, and one hundred and thirty missing. The British left more than two hundred and fifty dead upon the field.[449]

Upon Charles Lee most accounts of the battle of Monmouth have placed the brand of infamy. But John Marshall did not condemn Lee utterly. There were, it appears, two sides of the business--the difficulty of the ground, the mistake made by Scott, a reinforcement of the British rear, and other incidents.[450] These appealed even to Was.h.i.+ngton when the calm of judgment returned to him after the battle was fought and his blazing wrath had cooled; and had Lee not sent insulting letters to the Commander-in-Chief, it is probable that no further action would have been taken.[451]

Marshall had been in the fight from first to last; he had retreated unwillingly with the other five thousand men whom Lee commanded; he was a fighting man, always eager for the shock of arms; he cherished a devotion to Was.h.i.+ngton which was the ruling attachment of his life--nevertheless, Marshall felt that more was made of Lee's misconduct than the original offense deserved. Writing as the chosen biographer of Was.h.i.+ngton, Marshall gives both sides of this controversy.[452]

This incident throws light upon Marshall's temperament. Other historians in their eulogy of Was.h.i.+ngton, have lashed the memory of Lee naked through the streets of public scorn. Marshall refuses to join the chorus of denunciation. Instead, he states the whole case with fairness.[453]

Three days after Monmouth, he was promoted to a full captaincy;[454]

and, as we have seen, he had been made Deputy Judge Advocate at Valley Forge. Holding these two offices, Marshall continued his military service.

The alliance with the French King, followed by the American success at Monmouth, lulled the patriots into an unwarranted feeling of security.

Everybody seemed to think the war was over. Congress became more lethargic than ever, the States more torpid and indifferent. The British had seized the two points commanding King's Ferry on the North River, thus cutting the communication between the small American forces on opposite sides of the Hudson.[455] To restore this severed connection was important; and it was essential to arouse once more the declining interest of the people. Was.h.i.+ngton resolved to take Stony Point, the then well-nigh impregnable position dominating King's Ferry from the New Jersey side.

A body of light infantry was carefully selected from all ranks. It was the flower of Was.h.i.+ngton's troops in health, stability, courage, and discipline. Upon this ”_elite_ of the army,” says Dawson, ”the safety of the Highlands and, indirectly, that of the cause of America, were dependent.”[456] This corps of picked soldiers was intended for quick and desperate enterprises of extra hazard. John Marshall was one of those selected.[457] Their first notable task was to take Stony Point by a.s.sault. Anthony Wayne was placed in command. ”I have much at heart,”

Was.h.i.+ngton told Wayne, in the capture of this position, ”the importance of which ... is too obvious to need explanation.”[458]

Yet even to these men on missions of such moment, supplies came tardily and in scant quant.i.ties. Wayne's ”men were almost naked.”[459]

Finally, on June 15, 1779, the time came for the storming of the fort.

It was washed on three sides by the waters of the Hudson and a marsh separated it from the solid land on the west. Heavy guns were on the great hill of rock; lighter batteries were placed on its slope; two rows of abatis were farther down; and the British s.h.i.+ps in the river commanded almost every point of attack.[460]

A party of Wayne's men was detailed to remove obstructions, capture the sentries, and, in general, prepare the way for the a.s.sault by the first detachment of the Light Infantry, which was to advance with unloaded muskets, depending exclusively on the bayonet.[461] The fort was taken by those a.s.signed to make the initial attempt, Colonel Fleury being the first to enter the stronghold. Below at the edge of the marsh waited the major part of Wayne's little force, among whom was the future Chief Justice of the United States.

If the state of Wayne's nerves is an indication, we know how the young Virginia captain felt, there in the midnight, holding himself in readiness for the order to advance. For early in the evening Wayne thus wrote to his brother-in-law: ”This will not reach your eye until the Writer is no mor^e--the Enclosed papers ... [will] enable [you] to defend the Character and Support the Honor of the man who ... fell in defense of his Country.... Attend to the Education of my Little _Son & Daughter_--I fear that their tender Mother will not Survive this Stroke.”[462] But the British were overcome more easily than anybody had thought possible,[463] and, though wounded, Wayne survived to give more displays of his genuine heroism, while Providence spared John Marshall for a no less gallant and immeasurably greater part in the making of the American Nation.[464]

But the brilliant exploit went for nothing. The Americans failed to take Verplanck's Point on the eastern bank of the river and the patriot forces were still separated. Unable to spare enough men to garrison Stony Point permanently and since the Ferry remained under the British guns, Was.h.i.+ngton moved his army to the Highlands. The British at once reoccupied the abandoned fort which Wayne's men had just captured.

A detail from the Light Infantry was placed under Major Henry Lee of Virginia, who was instructed to watch the main forces of the enemy.

Among Lee's flying detachment was Captain John Marshall. For three weeks this scouting expedition kept moving among the ravines, hills, and marshes, always in close touch with the British. ”At Powles Hook, a point of land on the west side of the Hudson, immediately opposite the town of New York, penetrating deep into the river,”[465] the enemy had erected works and garrisoned them with several hundred men. The British had made the Hook an island by digging a deep ditch through which the waters of the river flowed; and otherwise had rendered their position secure.

The daring Lee resolved to surprise and capture the defending force, and Was.h.i.+ngton, making sure of lines of retreat, approved the adventure. All night of August 18, 1779, Lee's men marched stealthily among the steep hills, pa.s.sed the main body of the British army who were sleeping soundly; and at three o'clock in the morning crossed the ditch, entered the works, and carried away one hundred and fifty-nine prisoners, losing in the swift, silent effort only two killed and three wounded.[466] This audacious feat fired the spirits of the patriot forces and covered the British with humiliation and chagrin.

Here, except for a small incident in Arnold's invasion of Virginia, John Marshall's active partic.i.p.ation in actual warfare ended. He was sent home[467] because of the expiration of the term of enlistments of the regiments in which he had commanded and the excess of officers which this created.[468] The Revolution dragged along; misfortune and discouragement continued to beat upon the granite Was.h.i.+ngton. The support of Louis XVI was a staff upon which, substantial as it was, the people of the States leaned too heavily. Their exertions relaxed, as we have seen; Jefferson, patriot and reformer, but not efficient as an executive, was Governor of Virginia; and John Marshall waited in vain for the new command which never appeared.

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