28 June 1778, morning
Monmouth: Lee’s advance
Clinton’s army begins to leave Monmouth Court House at 2 am on 28 June, heading north-east on the road to Middletown. The last troops leave by 9:15, covered by a rearguard of light infantry, dragoons and the Queen’s Rangers, 1,550 to 2,000 men. Charles Lee, commanding the American vanguard, has told his officers only to be ready to attack once Clinton moves.
The vanguard advances along the Englishtown road. Wayne, with about 550 men and four guns, repulses a charge of dragoons, and Lee tries to envelop the rearguard on a hill where the Middletown and Shrewsbury roads meet. Clinton turns his first division back, Guards on the right, Grenadiers on the left and the artillery between them, to strike the American right.
Charles Lee, major general of the Continental Army, engraving by Johann Michael ProbstWikimedia Commons, Johann Michael Probst, Public domain (Charles Lee Esq'r. - major general of the Continental-Army in America.jpg)
Charles Scott and William Maxwell, out of touch with Lee and seeing British troops marching towards their rear, pull back. Lee loses control of the vanguard and orders a general retreat, first to a line a mile west of the court house and then across the Spotswood Middle Brook. The retreat is orderly at unit level and costs only about a dozen casualties.
Sources
- Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone, Fatal Sunday (2016).
- Joseph G. Bilby and Katherine Bilby Jenkins, Monmouth Court House (2010).
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