ch the enemy
were advancing. But Lee protested violently that the Americans had not a
chance against that solid phalanx, and Hamilton, now convinced that he
meditated the disgrace of the American arms, galloped with all speed in
search of Washington.

The retreat, by this, was a panic. The troops fled like an army of
terrified rabbits, with that reversion to the simplicity of their dumb
ancestors which induces the suspicion that all the manly virtues are
artificial. In times of panic man seems to exchange his soul for a tail.
These wretches trampled each other into the shifting sand, and crowded
many more into the morass. The heat was terrific. They ran with their
tongues hanging out, and many dropped dead.

Washington heard of the retreat before Hamilton found him. He was
pushing on to Lee's relief when a country-man brought him word of the
disgraceful rout. Washington refused to credit the report and spurred
forward. Halfway between the meeting-house and the morass he met the
head of the first retreating column. He commanded it to halt at once,
before the panic be communicated to the main army; then made for Lee.
Lee saw him coming and braced himself for the shock. But it was a
greater man than Lee who could stand the shock of Washington's temper.
He was fearfully roused. The noble gravity of his face had disappeared.
It was convulsed with rage.

"Sir," he thundered, "I desire to know what is the reason of this?
Whence arises this confusion and disorder?"

"Sir--" stammered Lee, "sir--" He braced himself, and added impudently:
"I thought it best not to beard the enemy in such a situation. It was
contrary to my opinion--"

"_Your_ opinion!" And then the Chief undammed a torrent of profanity
Washingtonian in its grandeur.

He wheeled and galloped to the rallying of the troops. At this moment
Hamilton rode up. He had ridden through the engagement without a hat. It
seemed to him that he could hear the bubbling of his brain, that the
very air blazed, and that the end of all things had come. That day of
Monmouth ever remained in his memory as the most awful and hopeless of
his life. An ordinary defeat was nothing. But the American arms branded
with cowardice, Washington ignobly deposed, inefficient commanders
floundering for a few months before the Americans were become the
laughing-stock of Europe,--the whole vision was so hideous, and the day
so hopeless in the light of those cowardly hordes, that he galloped
thro