still stronger. He therefore
resolved to attack the next morning, and gave Lee then and there
explicit orders to that effect. In the early dawn he dispatched
similar orders, but Lee apparently did nothing except move feebly
forward, saying to Lafayette, "You don't know the British soldiers;
we cannot stand against them." He made a weak attempt to cut off a
covering party, marched and countermarched, ordered and countermanded,
until Lafayette and Wayne, eager to fight, knew not what to do, and
sent hot messages to Washington to come to them.

Thus hesitating and confused, Lee permitted Clinton to get his baggage
and train to the front, and to mass all his best troops in the rear
under Cornwallis, who then advanced against the American lines. Now
there were no orders at all, and the troops did not know what to do,
or where to go. They stood still, then began to fall back, and then to
retreat. A very little more and there would have been a rout. As it
was, Washington alone prevented disaster. His early reports from the
front from Dickinson's outlying party, and from Lee himself, were all
favorable. Then he heard the firing, and putting the main army in
motion, he rode rapidly forward. First he encountered a straggler, who
talked of defeat. He could not believe it, and the fellow was pushed
aside and silenced. Then came another and another, all with songs of
death. Finally, officers and regiments began to come. No one knew why
they fled, or what had happened. As the ill tidings grew thicker,
Washington spurred sharper and rode faster through the deep sand, and
under the blazing midsummer sun. At last he met Lee and the main body
all in full retreat. He rode straight at Lee, savage with anger, not
pleasant to look at, one may guess, and asked fiercely and with a deep
oath, tradition says, what it all meant. Lee was no coward, and did
not usually lack for words. He was, too, a hardened man of the world,
and, in the phrase of that day, impudent to boot. But then and there
he stammered and hesitated. The fierce question was repeated. Lee
gathered himself and tried to excuse and palliate what had happened,
but although the brief words that followed are variously reported to
us across the century, we know that Washington rebuked him in such a
way, and with such passion, that all was over between them. Lee had
committed the one unpardonable sin in the eyes of his commander. He
had failed to fight when the enemy was upon him. He ha