d disobeyed
orders and retreated. It was the end of him. He went to the rear,
thence to a court-martial, thence to dismissal and to a solitary life
with a well-founded suspicion of treason hanging about him. He was an
intelligent, quick-witted, unstable man, much overrated because he
was an English officer among a colonial people. He was ever treated
magnanimously by Washington after the day of battle at Monmouth, but
he then disappeared from the latter's life.

When Lee bowed before the storm and stepped aside, Washington was left
to deal with the danger and confusion around him. Thus did he tell the
story afterwards to his brother: "A retreat, however, was the fact, be
the causes what they may; and the disorder arising from it would have
proved fatal to the army, had not that bountiful Providence, which has
never failed us in the hour of distress, enabled me to form a regiment
or two (of those that were retreating) in the face of the enemy, and
under their fire; by which means a stand was made long enough (the
place through which the enemy were pressing being narrow) to form the
troops, that were advancing, upon an advantageous piece of ground in
the rear." We cannot add much to these simple and modest words, for
they tell the whole story. Having put Lee aside, Washington rallied
the broken troops, brought them into position, turned them back, and
held the enemy in check. It was not an easy feat, but it was done, and
when Lee's division again fell back in good order the main army was in
position, and the action became general. The British were repulsed,
and then Washington, taking the offensive, drove them back until he
occupied the battlefield of the morning. Night came upon him still
advancing. He halted his army, lay down under a tree, his soldiers
lying on their arms about him, and planned a fresh attack, to be made
at daylight. But when the dawn came it was seen that the British had
crept off, and were far on their road. The heat prevented a rapid
pursuit, and Clinton got into New York. Between there and Philadelphia
he had lost at least two thousand men by desertions in addition to
nearly five hundred who fell at Monmouth.

It is worth while to pause a moment and compare this battle with the
rout of Long Island, the surprise at the Brandywine, and the fatal
unsteadiness at Germantown. Here, too, a check was received at the
outset, owing to blundering which no one could have foreseen. The
troops, confused and w