Monmouth Courthouse 1778: The Last Great Battle in the North (Campaign, 135)

Rating:
Summary: Was Charles Lee Unfairly Relieved of Command? Who Cares!
Review: Brendan Morrissey's Monmouth Courthouse 1781 is his fourth addition to the Osprey Campaign series on the American War of Independence. Morrissey has a decent grasp of his subject and he has honed his narrative style in each succeeding volume. However, Morrissey's coverage of the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse suffers from two inter-related problems: an over-focus on the question of American Major General Charles Lee's role in the battle and an ambiguous battle narrative. Essentially, much of this volume revolves around the question - was Charles Lee unfairly relieved of command - rather than a true analysis of the battle itself.

Morrisey's introduction and campaign chronology starts out decently, but starts to thin out in the section on opposing commanders, which only covers well-known figures such as Clinton, Cornwallis, Lee and Washington. What about some of the brigade commanders? The section on opposing armies is also decent, highlighting the introduction of brigades and light infantry in the increasingly professional American army. Oddly, there is no section on opposing plans. Morrissey provides five 2-D Maps: North America in January 1778; New England and the Mid-Atlantic colonies; action at Barren Hill 20 May 1778; Two roads to Monmouth; Monmouth Battlefield. Unfortunately, the map of the Barren Hill skirmish adds nothing to the campaign narrative, and this volume is sorely lacking a decent 2-D map zoomed in to the actual battlefield area at Monmouth. After recently visiting the Monmouth battlefield, I found the maps in this volume were not very useful for someone standing on the actual terrain. The three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps are: Lee's advance; Lee's Retreat; and Clinton's withdrawal. The three color battle scenes by Adam Hook are: the capture of Lieutenant Colonel Ramsay; the 42nd Foot in the Sutfin Orchard; the guns on Comb's Hill.

Morrissey' campaign narrative meanders through a variety of disparate events in early 1778 until he finally moves into the British withdrawal from Philadelphia that initiated the sequence of events that culminated at Monmouth Courthouse. It is apparent that Washington's pursuit of the withdrawing British army was hardly rapid, even a bit sluggish (Washington had lost most of one field army in 1776 and was probably reticent to risk his main army unless sure of the outcome). However, the Americans were able to catch up with the British army near Freehold, New Jersey on 27 June 1778. After much debate, Washington gave the mission of attacking the British rearguard to Charles Lee. According to most accounts, Lee botched the attack in a half-hearted effort and was relieved by Washington, who was able to turn the battle into a draw. In Morrissey's version of the battle, Lee was unfairly relieved.

I think Morrissey has stuck his neck out pretty far in attempting to defend Charles Lee and to base his assessment of the battle in terms of whether or not the America advance guard commander was unfairly relieved. First, what did Charles Lee ever really do for the Patriot cause? At Charleston, he provided advice that the locals didn't need. In the 1776 New York campaign, he managed to disobey orders and then get himself captured, probably collaborating with his British hosts. Morrissey suggests that Lee was court-martialed after the battle due to Washington's "popularity," which ridiculously equates the man who almost single-handedly welding together America's war effort in the Revolution to some modern-day celebrity. Morrissey claims that Lee was neither disrespectful nor treacherous, but merely undone by adverse circumstances and unruly subordinates. This is hogwash. Washington was not a capricious sort of commander who acted on whimsy; historians should give him the benefit of the doubt that the reasons were justified. What would Morrissey have us believe - that Washington acted out of rage or petty jealousy?

It is also difficult to evaluate how well (or badly) Lee performed his mission of attacking the British rearguard given Morrissey's hard-to-follow tactical narrative. Morrissey writes: "[Lee] ordered Grayson to proceed with caution, he sent Jackson to join him at the front of the column and asked Wayne to take charge of those two detachments and a third unit (taken from Scott's command) under fellow Pennsylvanian Colonel Richard Butler." Huh? I can't tell who is doing what here. The American command structure of the advance guard was jumbled, with a variety of units provided detachments of their best troops, but Morrissey lumps them into a potpourri of poorly-identified names, with little attempt to distinguish the size or relationship of these detachments. Morrissey claims that the terrain and the sudden re-appearance of the British rearguard frustrated Lee's efforts to mount a coherent attack. I think the more likely reasons for Lee's discomfiture were simply military incompetence and poor leadership skills. When the Revolution started, Lee was one of several foreign officers who impressed Congress with his resume and secured a commission, but close examination of his record indicates that his command experience at high level was negligible. It is interesting that both Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, who had been majors in the British army, performed poorly on the battlefield and were poor leaders of men. When Lee botched a straightforward attack and let his picked troops rout, it was too much for Washington. Most of all, Morrissey's over-focus on Lee misses much of the significance of the first battle involving von-Steuben-trained American continentals and British regulars. One of Washington's goals was to test the efficiency of these new troops and it must have been galling to see them running away with hardly a fight. As every officer knows, a commander is responsible for everything his troops do or fail to do, and Lee was thus responsible for not only failing his mission, but allowing a disgraceful rout to occur after only minor skirmishes.


Rating:
Summary: One of the few comprehensive looks at this important battle
Review: Throughout my education (even into college), any study of the American Revolution usually started at Boston, talked about the Declaration of Independence, and then skipped over to Yorktown. Trenton, Saratoga, and Valley Forge were some times thrown in for good measure, however none were ever covered in great detail.

Most of the major battles of the war have largely been ignored, such as New York, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Charleston or Camden. This is likely because they all tended to be complex actions and resulted in either an American loss or at very least a draw. Monmouth was one of the largest battles of the American Revolution and was the last major battle fought by Washington's Main Army until Yorktown, yet to date the best book on the subject was William Stryker's "Battle of Monmouth", which was written at end of the 19th century and time has exposed several flaws.

This book does an excellent job of translating this complicated battle, with all of its various stages and political drama, into a narrative of how the stage was set, how the battle unfolded, and what aftermath resulted. Starting in Philadelphia and Valley Forge, the author traces the progress of the two armies across New Jersey and their engagement outside of Monmouth Courthouse. This battle had several stages, which is skillfully articulated and supplemented by full color maps showing the action and how it developed.

The author is extremely sympathetic to Charles Lee, which is a point I may disagree with. While Lee may have executed the letter of Washington's orders, he certainly did not execute their spirit. Coupled with his past behavior and track record (being captured in a New Jersey tavern away from his troops, politically challenging Washington with Congress, etc.), I think Lee exhausted any benefit of the doubt by the time of Monmouth.

All in all, this book is long over due, and hopefully the author will repeat this success by covering covering the Philadelphia Campaign, Camden, etc.