CHAPTER XLII

LEE AT PEEK SKILL.STANCH ADHERENCE OF HEATH TO ORDERS.-LEE CROSSES THE HUDSON. WASHINGTON AT TRENTON. LEE AT THE HEELS OF THR ENEMY.-HIS SPECULATIONS ON MILITARY GREATNESS.-FORCED MARCH OF CORNWALLIS.-WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE.-PUTNAM IN COMMAND AT PHILADELPHIA.-BAFFLING LETTERS OF LEE.-HOPES TO RECONQUER THE JERSEYS.-GATES ON THE MARCH.-LEE QUARTERED AT BASKINGRIDGE. — SURPRISED AND CAPTURED.-SPECULATIONS ON HIS CONDUCT.

OTWITHSTANDING the repeated and pressing orders and entreaties of the commander-inchief, 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. His scheme to entrap Rogers, the renegade, had failed; the old Indian hunter had been too much on the alert; he boasted, however, to have rendered more service by his delay, than he would have done had he moved sooner. His forces were thereby augmented, so that he expected to enter the Jerseys with four thousand firm and willing men, who would make a very important diversion. "The day after to-morrow," added he, "we shall pass the river, when I should be glad to receive your instruc

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tions; but I could wish you would bind me as little as possible; not from any opinion, I do assure you, of my own parts, but from a persuasion that detached generals cannot have too great latitude, unless they are very incompetent indeed."

Lee had calculated upon meeting no further difficulty in obtaining men from Heath. He rode to that general's quarters in the evening, and was invited by him to alight and take tea. On entering the house, Lee took Heath aside, and alluding to his former refusal to supply troops as being inconsistent with the orders of the commanderin-chief. "In point of law," said he, “you are right, but in point of policy I think you are wrong. I am going into the Jerseys for the salvation of America; I wish to take with me a larger force than I now have, and request you to order two thousand of your men to march with me."

Heath answered that he could not spare that number. He was then asked to order one thousand; to which he replied, that the business might be as well brought to a point at once-that not a single man should march from the post by his order. "Then," exclaimed Lee, “I will order them myself." "That makes a wide difference," rejoined Heath. "You are my senior, but I have received positive written instructions from him who is superior to us both, and I will not myself break those orders." In proof of his words, Heath produced the recent letter received from Washington, repeating his former orders

that no troops should be removed from that post. Lee glanced over the letter. "The commander-in-chief is now at a distance, and does not know what is necessary here so well as I do." He asked a sight of th return book of the division. It was brought by Major Huntington, the deputy adjutant-general. Lee ran his eye over it, and chose two regiments. "You will order them to march early to-morrow morning to join me," said he to the major. Heath ruffling with the pride of military law, turned to the major with an air of authority. "Issue such orders at your peril!" exclaimed he then addressing Lee, "Sir," said he, "if you come to this post, and mean to issue orders here which will break the positive ones I have received, I pray you to do it completely yourself, and through your own deputy adjutant-general who is present, and not draw me or any of my family in as partners in the guilt."

"It is right," said Lee; "Colonel Scammel, do you issue the order." It was done accordingly; but Heath's "I have one punctilious scruples were not yet satisfied.

more request to make, sir," said he to Lee, "and that is, that you will be pleased to give me a certificate that you exercise command at this post, and order from it these regiments."

Lee hesitated to comply, but George Clinton, who was present, told him he could not refuse a request so reasonable. He accordingly wrote, "For the satisfaction of General Heath, and at his request, I do certify that I am

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commanding officer, at this present writing, in this post, and that I have, in that capacity, ordered Prescott's and Wyllis' regiments to march."

Heath's military punctilio was satisfied, and he smoothed his ruffled plumes. Early the next morning the regiments moved from their cantonments ready to embark, when Lee again rode up to his door. "Upon further consideration," said he, "I have concluded not to take the two regiments with me-you may order them to return to their former post."

"This conduct of General Lee," adds Heath in his memoirs, "appeared not a little extraordinary, and one is almost at a loss to account for it. He had been a soidier from his youth, had a perfect knowledge of service in all its branches, but was rather obstinate in his temper, and could scarcely brook being crossed in anything in the line of his profession."*

It was not until the 4th of December that Lee crosseď 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!

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

* The above scene is given almost literally from General Heath's Memoirs.

hundred of the Pennsylvania militia, procured by Mifflin, prepared to face about, and march back to Princeton with such of his troops as were fit for service, there to be governed by circumstances, and the movements of General Lee. Accordingly, on the 5th of December he sent about twelve hundred men in the advance, to reinforce Lord Stirling, and the next day set off himself with the residue.

"The general has gone forward to Princeton," writes Colonel Reed, "where there are about three thousand men, with which, I fear, he will not be able to make any stand."

While on the march, Washington received a letter from Greene, who was at Princeton, informing him of a report that Lee was "at the heels of the enemy." "I should think," adds Greene, "he had better keep on the flanks than the rear, unless it were possible to concert an attack at the same instant of time in front and rear. I think General Lee must be confined within the lines of some general plan, or else his operations will be independent of yours. His own troops, General St. Clair's, and the militia, must form a respectable army."

Lee had no idea of conforming to a general plan; he had an independent plan of his own, and was at that moment at Pompton, indulging speculations on military greatness, and the lamentable want of it in his American

* Reed to the President of Congress.