A Handsome Flogging: The Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778

By William R. Griffith

Place yourself in the boots of the Continental Army and the British forces as they march towards a pivotal Revolutionary War battle.

June 1778 was a tumultuous month in the annals of American military history. Somehow, General George Washington and the Continental Army were able to survive a string of defeats around Philadelphia in 1777 and a desperate winter at Valley Forge. As winter turned to spring, and spring turned to summer, the army—newly trained by Baron von Steuben and in high spirits thanks to France’s intervention into the conflict—marched out of Valley Forge in pursuit of Henry Clinton’s British Army making its way across New Jersey for New York City.

What would happen next was not an easy decision for Washington to make. Should he attack the British column? And if so, how? “People expect something from us and our strength demands it,” Gen. Nathanael Greene pressed his chieftain. Against the advice of many of his subordinates, Washington ordered the army to aggressively pursue the British and not allow the enemy to escape to New York City without a fight.

On June 28, 1778, the vanguard of the Continental Army under Maj. Gen. Charles Lee engaged Clinton’s rearguard near the small village of Monmouth Court House. Lee’s over-cautiousness prevailed and the Americans were ordered to hasty retreat. Only the arrival of Washington and the main body of the army saved the Americans from disaster. By the end of the day, they held the field as the British continued their march to Sandy Hook and New York City.

In A Handsome Flogging: The Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, historian William Griffith retells the story of what many historians have dubbed the “battle that made the American army,” and takes you along the routes trekked by both armies on their marches toward destiny. Follow in the footsteps of heroes (and a heroine) who, on a hot summer day, met in desperate struggle in the woods and farm fields around Monmouth Court House.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781611214963

Book preview

Introduction

In their 1982 study, A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763–1789, James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender tackled the myth of the ragged Continental who waged war against the professional British soldier. Since the days of the Revolution, they wrote,

The myth has persisted that provincial Americans, like the great Cincinnatus of republican Rome, fully exercised their obligations of citizenship by voluntarily leaving the plow or bellows, shouldering muskets, and following Washington in defense of liberty and property . . . . Even as the war ended, these citizen-soldiers became idealized as the legendary embattled farmer or the enduring and proud ragged Continental. To this day, the legend of the dedicated citizen-soldier epitomizes for most Americans the spirit of the Revolutionary generation. Perhaps, the strength and endurance of the image may explain why many historians, until recently, have not contradicted but have accepted and enshrined the legend.

Certainly, the Continental soldier who faced off against His Majesty’s forces along the Brandywine, at Germantown, and outside of Monmouth Court House was not the ragtag warrior that history has come to remember. He was a battle-hardened veteran and a soldier in a continuously evolving professional army.

When Washington’s army took the field against Sir Henry Clinton on June 28, 1778, it finally got the chance to face the British on equal terms. Its combat experience from prior campaigns added to its training that winter at Valley Forge came into fruition. By the time the sun began to set, the Americans had shown their mettle and fought some of King George III’s best men to a standstill. Clinton ordered his army to continue its march to New York City, and the not-so- ragged Continentals held the field.

Combs Hill, which the park visitor center currently sits atop, was an important artillery platform utilized by the Continental Army during the battle of Monmouth.(

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On June 29, 1778, the day after the battle of Monmouth Court House, Washington penned a letter to Gen. Benedict Arnold in Philadelphia: I have the honor to inform you that about seven o’clock yesterday morning, both armies advanced on each other. About twelve they met on the grounds near Monmouth court-house, when an action commenced. We forced the enemy from the field. He continued, hinting at the urgency of deciding his army’s next move, I cannot at this time go into a detail of matters. When opportunity permits, I shall take the liberty of transmitting congress a more particular account of the proceedings of the day. They had indeed forced the enemy from the field.

This book is not at all meant to be a definitive study of the battle of Monmouth Court House. That can be found in Mark Edward Lender and Gary Wheeler Stone’s Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle. This work is meant to serve as an accessible tool for those interested in an overview of the battle and its context, as well as a simple-to-use guidebook for touring the field and some associated sites. My colleagues and I at Emerging Revolutionary War hope that this book will spark interests and inspire pilgrimages to the site of what British Brig. Gen. Sir William Erskine so aptly dubbed, a handsome flogging.

George Washington (1732–1799) understood that in order for the patriot cause to sustain, his army needed to remain intact. This did not mean he would sit idle, however. The Monmouth Campaign was a testament to Washington’s ability to strike his enemy whenever a favorable opportunity presented itself.(

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Defeat and Victory

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You are fighting for what you can never obtain, and we are defending what we never mean to part with.

—Thomas Paine, November 1777

The year 1777 saw dark defeats and bright victories for the American cause. It was complicated, to say the least. As a result of the year’s events, the military and political landscape in North America and throughout the world would shift dramatically.

General George Washington’s gambles at the end of 1776 had paid off in two stunning victories at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey. The tempo had been set for what the Americans hoped would be another year of success and, should the stars align, the year for complete independence. On the other side, the British hoped to recoup their losses, forget their missed opportunities from the previous year, and crush the rebellion once and for all. All the omens for 1777 forecast a vicious slugfest.

By the time Washington’s men hunkered down in winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, on January 6, 1777, the Continental Army was already undergoing a drastic transformation. The previous fall, the Continental Congress, at the commander in chief’s urging, had approved three-year enlistments for the coming year and state recruiting quotas that if met would amount to 75,000 men in arms—an unrealistic demand. Even at its peak in 1777, the army’s ranks throughout America swelled only to some 39,443 men. Regardless, this act signaled a shift in policy from short-term enlistments to the creation of a large, standing army of extended service.

Sir William Howe (1729–1814), a veteran of the French and Indian War, was no stranger to warfare in North America when he arrived in Boston in 1775. As commander of His Majesty’s Forces on the continent, however, he failed to recognize that the Americans’ true center of gravity was the Continental Army, and not their major cities.(

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At the time, the state of New Jersey between Perth Amboy and New Brunswick was at the mercy of Sir William Howe’s British army. Although the American victories at Trenton and Princeton had forced Howe to give up most of New Jersey, for the next five years bloody civil war raged as patriots battled their loyalist neighbors for control of the state. Patriot leaders permanently seized political control in 1777, and loyalists and the Crown were never able to gain a strong enough foothold in the state to support a counterrevolution. Guerilla warfare and terrorism were Howe’s soldiers’ only means of continuing the fight.

While doing so, Howe intended to feed his army from New Jersey’s stores of food and forage. Throughout that winter and early spring, the Americans and British waged what has come to be known as the forage war. Not eager to commit a large force to confront the enemy, Washington simply created havoc by using smaller detachments to continuously harass Howe’s hungry, foraging men. The British were eventually forced to give up their search for food locally and rely on shipments from overseas, which were expensive and time consuming. By June, Howe’s army was pulling out and on its way back to New York City. This period of the war has largely been forgotten, but it proved yet another success for the Continental Army and added to its experience in the field.

New Jersey thus was freed from His Majesty’s forces for the time being, but New York and Pennsylvania were then in the royal crosshairs. Britain’s plan in North America for 1777 was intended to be a combined effort between two major armies. In Canada, Gen. John Burgoyne was ordered to replace Sir Guy Carleton. With more than 8,000 men in his army, Gentleman Johnny was to strike south down Lake Champlain and into New York’s interior, bagging prized American fortifications like Fort Ticonderoga along the way. A smaller force of regulars and Indians under Col. Barry St. Leger was to move east through the Mohawk Valley, creating a diversion and uniting with Burgoyne somewhere south of Ticonderoga. The main objective was Albany. Capturing this key city would effectually, or in theory at least, sever New England from the rest of the King’s old colonies. George Germain, Secretary of State for the American Colonies, approved the plan and sent orders to Howe to cooperate accordingly with Burgoyne. The orders were somewhat discretionary though, and Howe already had his sights set on a different prize: Philadelphia.

Philadelphia was home to the Continental Congress and one of the most bustling cities in America. Howe believed that its capture, along with New York City’s the year prior, would have immense economic and political ramifications for the rebellion. An overland route to capture the city was deemed unfeasible, so Howe settled on an amphibious operation. With a fleet of 267 ships, the British army of 16,000 men would sail south and debark near Head of Elk, Maryland, 50 miles southwest of Philadelphia. On July 23, the armada weighed anchor but was forced to wait for more favorable sailing conditions. As Howe’s army dallied, Burgoyne’s campaign was well underway.

John Burgoyne arrived in Quebec on May 16, 1777, and assumed command of the army that was to move south from Canada. By June 20, his force was at Crown Point along the western shore of Lake Champlain, roughly 10 miles from Fort Ticonderoga. During this time, Burgoyne still believed that Howe was going to form a junction with him at Albany. Over the first week of July, his army invested the American force under Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair at Fort Ticonderoga. It capitulated on July 6, and everything was going according to the British plan.

Unfortunately (for him), the British general then made a terrible mistake. Rather than moving swiftly south along Lake George, he chose to sail and march his army in pursuit of the fleeing rebels to Skenesborough. This slowed his advance tremendously, but in the coming days he was able to win several more victories at Fort Anne and Hubbardton. With full confidence that his campaign would be a success, Burgoyne held his men at Skenesborough rather than continuing south. There, he worked vigorously to establish a supply line—this would prove to be the bane of his army’s existence in the coming months.

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—Britain’s grand strategy for 1777 was to capture Philadelphia and sever New England from the rest of the colonies by advancing on Albany, New York with three separate forces. From there, they would push east into Massachusetts. John Burgoyne, commanding the British army pushing south from Canada, anticipated a junction with William Howe’s forces at Albany. Howe thought it more prudent to capture Philadelphia, the home of the Continental Congress. Though Howe was successful, Burgoyne found himself abandoned. The two other armies, under Barry St. Leger and Henry Clinton, failed to push beyond the Mohawk River Valley and the Hudson Highlands. There was no junction at Albany, and Burgoyne surrendered his army at Saratoga in October 1777.

Burgoyne finally renewed his advance three weeks later. The trek southward was extremely slow and strenuous as a result of work that had been done by the retreating Americans to destroy bridges, block roads, and lay waste to provisions that could feed the British army. On August 16, a British detachment sent to gather horses and raid storehouses was defeated near Bennington, Vermont, by a force of New Hampshire militiamen and Vermonters under the command of Gen. John Stark and Col. Seth Warner. Things began to unravel quickly for Burgoyne. Less than a week later, St. Leger’s expedition was halted at Fort Stanwix, and it became clear that Howe’s army would not be moving north for a junction near Albany. Burgoyne was on his own, but the campaign would not be called off. Throughout September 13–15 he crossed his army over the Hudson near Saratoga and prepared to lock horns with the rejuvenated American army just four miles away under Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates.

During the first week of August, Horatio Gates assumed command of the Continental Army’s Northern Department. His predecessor, Maj. Gen. Phillip Schuyler, had been sacked as a result of the fall of Fort Ticonderoga. Gates, Massachusetts delegate Samuel Adams wrote to Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee, is the man of my choice; he is honest and true and has the art of gaining the love of his soldiers principally because he is always present and shares with them in fatigue and danger. The Americans were desperate for someone to rally their broken ranks in New York and halt Burgoyne’s invasion. They found their man in Horatio Gates.

The day before the British began crossing the Hudson River, Gates’s army of 9,000 men began to fortify a high eminence known as Bemis Heights, which blocked Burgoyne’s path south. On the morning of September 19, American riflemen under Col. Daniel Morgan advanced several miles to the farm of loyalist John Freemen. There they clashed with an advanced force of Burgoyne’s army. More troops were fed into the fray, and Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold, commanding Gates’s left wing, rushed into the madness to shore up the American line. As darkness fell, the Americans withdrew from the field back to Bemis Heights, but they had delivered a crushing blow to the British. Crown losses amounted to over 700—men a shrinking and ill-supplied army could not replace. For the next few weeks both sides fortified their positions and waited to see who would make the next move.

Gentleman JohnnyBurgoyne (1722-1792) arrived in Boston with Howe and Clinton in 1775. His failed campaign against Albany, New York in 1777 and the subsequent surrender of his army to Horatio Gates was one of the major turning points of the Revolutionary War.(

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Following the action at Freeman’s farm, George Washington, several hundred miles to the south, encouraged his men and reminded them of the cause for which they so nobly fought: This army, the main American army, will certainly not suffer itself to be outdone by our northern Brethren; they will never endure such disgrace; but with an ambition becoming freemen, contending in the most righteous cause rival the heroic spirit which swelled their bosoms, and which, so nobly exerted has procured them deathless renown. Covet! my Countrymen, and fellow soldiers! Covet! a share of the glory due to heroic deeds! Let it never be said, that in a day of action, you turned your backs on the foe; let the enemy no longer triumph. It was true that the Northern Department’s slight redemption at the first battle of Saratoga had done much to reinvigorate the American cause during what had been, so far, a dark summer. Gates’s ranks swelled to double the size of Burgoyne’s. Burgoyne’s chances of achieving a breakthrough to Albany were growing slimmer by the day.

There was a possibility of assistance, however. At New York City, Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, second in command of His Majesty’s Forces in North America, had mustered together a force of 4,000 men to make a push toward Albany. The advance was cautious and slow, and Howe ordered Clinton to return to New York in mid-October. By then, it was already too late. Burgoyne’s army was already