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We
are pleased to present the following
excerpt from the book
Adopted Son:
Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship
that Saved the
Revolution
by David A. Clary
Bantam - January
2007
Prologue
An
Inexplicable Charm
(June 28, 1778)
And the most glorious exploits do
not always furnish us with the clearest
discoveries of virtue or vice in men;
sometimes a matter of less moment . . .
informs us better of their characters and
inclinations, than the most famous sieges,
the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest
battles whatsoever.
--Plutarch
The air smelled like rotten eggs. The
gunsmoke had settled since the end of the
fighting, but its sulfurous stench hung on
in the hot, humid atmosphere. To the
officers of the Continental Army, it was a
further reminder of an opportunity lost,
thanks to the bungling (some said it was
treachery) of Major General Charles
Lee.
This was the aftermath of the Battle of
Monmouth Court House, June 28, 1778, among
the hills and hollows of central New
Jersey.
More than 700 men, about half
Continentals and half redcoats and
Hessians, were missing or lay scattered,
wounded or dead, across the sprawling
battlefield. It had been the longest
action of the war, over nine hours, and
one of the largest. For the Americans it
was also the most frustrating day's work
of the whole struggle for independence. A
chance to strike a real blow against the
enemy, by mauling his rear guard on its
retreat across New Jersey, had been thrown
away, or so the American officers
believed.
As night fell over the ghastly scene,
the Americans did not know that the
British were already planning to creep
away. They muffled the wheels of their
wagons, abandoned their dead and many of
their wounded, and themselves were soon
abandoned by hundreds of deserters. When
the sun rose the next morning -- to
produce another savagely hot, suffocating
day with temperatures in the upper
nineties -- the Continental Army would
hold the field. According to the customs
of war, that made the Americans the
winners.
The last cannonade ended at about five
in the afternoon. The major generals
ordered their brigade commanders to round
up stragglers, reorganize their troops,
and place them in defensive positions. Men
fanned out to plunder the dead and to
retrieve American and British wounded and
take them to the rear. That night everyone
who had fought collapsed on the ground.
Soldiers and officers alike were
exhausted, not so much by the fighting as
by the brutal heat -- many of the
casualties on both sides had fallen to
sunstroke and thirst rather than
gunfire.
The division commanders trudged toward
headquarters, which meant wherever the
commander in chief happened to be. He was
atop a steep rise overlooking the scene of
the last stages of the action. One of them
was Nathanael Greene, a sturdy, fighting
Quaker and the army's most dependable
major general.
Greene found the commander in chief as
dusk was turning into dark. General George
Washington was asleep on a cloak spread on
the ground. The boy, Major General
Lafayette, lay curled up beside him, also
asleep on the general's cloak.
The middle-aged man and the teenage boy
had met less than a year before, at the
end of another hot, stifling day --
Philadelphia in August. In the months
since, they had drawn together like two
orphans in a storm, which had first blown
over them in different places -- one in
the Old World, the other in the New -- in
1775.
The Quaker soldier shared the opinion
of the American commanders that this day
would have gone better if the original
plan had been followed. The young,
aggressive Lafayette should have remained
in command of the advance force rather
than being superseded by Lee. Washington
should not have been forced to charge onto
the scene and take personal command.
Instead, Lafayette's energies had been
wasted. Washington had found a disaster in
the making and turned it into, at best, a
tactical draw.
But any regrets about what might have
been were banished by the touching scene
before him, Washington and Lafayette
asleep together. Having watched the
attachment grow between these two over the
months, Greene also found the youngster
endearing. He had once told his wife that
the boy was irresistible, owing to "an
inexplicable charm." Nothing could be more
charming, in these grisly, stinking
surroundings, than this affectionate,
familial picture -- not so much two
exhausted soldiers as a father and son
sharing the innocent comfort of sleep.
Greene spread his own cloak under a
nearby tree, vowing to drive off anyone
who might disturb the slumbering pair. But
the day and battle just past proved to be
too much even for his iron constitution.
Sleep soon settled over him, as it already
had over Washington and Lafayette,
together in peace amid the madness of
war.
David
A. Clary, former chief historian of the
U.S. Forest Service, is the author of
numerous books and other publications on
military and scientific history. He has
been a consultant to several government
agencies and has taught history at the
university level. He lives in New Mexico
with his wife, Beatriz.
Copyright
© 2007 by David A. Clary. Reprinted
with permission.
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