Battle of Monmouth Anniversary

Today, June 28, 2014, marks the 236th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth, in New Jersey.  I have noted Monmouth in a couple of prior posts.  Today we look at the spot, marked by this sign, on Perrine Hill where General George Washington rallied and reformed Continental forces in view of General Charles Lee's retreat.

General Henry Clinton was moving the British forces from Philadelphia to Sandy Point to depart for New York.  Washington paralleled his movements to the north across New Jersey, and sought what he hoped would be a dispositive encounter with Clinton.  They came together at Monmouth.  A long battle, it resulted in the Americans retaining the field and Clinton continuing his withdrawal--in short, a draw, though often hailed as an American victory.

Putting all that aside, this is my favorite spot on the battlefield, because we are standing in the place where Washington took charge and regained control of the troop.  We can see him on his horse moving back and forth here, and we can see what he saw as he looked out over the battlefield.  It is one of those places that remains close to how it was then, and transports us across time to see and feel (and, on a hot day like today, especially) gain a sense of place.

Second Battle of Trenton

So today was the reenactment of both the first and second battles at Trenton; I attended the second.  The actual battle occurred January 2, 1777, with the British essentially charging three times the bridge across the Assunpink Creek, and being repelled three times by the Continental forces.  In this interpretation, the British and Hessians battle the American forces on what is now called Broad Street (then, Queen Street).  I managed to get "flash" as they fired.

Here are the Americans:

And facing them, the British:

Mill Hill Park is where the main British assaults occurred; here is a representation of the British artillery firing on the American position:

The yellow house is the Douglas House.  It was originally on Queen Street south of the creek, and was eventually moved to its present location after other moves.  Washington held a council of war in this house on January 2.

Kudos to the reenactors; watching them and listening to the officers bark commands (in German, for the Hessians), and watching the process of loading and firing, in such close proximity, drives home just how personal this war was.  Unlike the drone operator moving around a joystick, these men looked, quite literally, into each other's eyes as they fired.

Washington's Crossing Reenactment, December 25, 2013

In temperatures ranging from 17 to 22 degrees, a hardy crowd turned out to watch the even hardier reenactors interpret the most iconic moment in American history, the crossing of the Delaware River by General George Washington on Christmas Day, leading to the successful attack on Trenton on December 26, 1776.

Here is the man himself, in the third of three boats that crossed today:

The river is as impressive in winter, even without the ice, and we get some sense of scale as the first boat makes its way across from Pennsylvania to New Jersey:

They would march along this road, still preserved in Washington Crossing Park in New Jersey, now called Continental Lane.

At the time, they left bloodstains in the snow.  This remains hallowed ground.

Nathanael Greene Monument

So this is where Nathanael Greene, brilliant, self-taught Revolutionary War General, spends eternity, his ashes below the monument to him in Johnson Square, Savannah, Georgia.  This is the man who said: "We fight, get beaten, rise, and fight again."

Greene settled in Georgia after the war, about fourteen miles north of Savannah.  He died suddenly of sunstroke at the age of 43.

The plaque on this memorial states: "General Greene's remains were originally interred in the burial ground now known as Colonial Cemetery. His exact resting place was a matter of doubt and speculation for many years. The remains of the famed Revolutionary hero were found in the Graham vault in 1901, and were reinterred beneath this monument the following year."

I find this spot compelling.  One of the themes of this blog has been the force of place.  Here, we are in the physical proximity of the one of the greatest military figures of the Revolution, the man Washington would have had succeed him were he killed. 

The Continental Lane and Contemporary Political Arrogance

Although I have lived in central New Jersey virtually entire life and made many visits to Washington's Crossing State Park, I never actually walked along the Continental Lane, the road on which Washington's troops marched after the Christmas night crossing in 1776.  Here is a view of one segment in the park:

David Hackett Fischer, in his book Washington's Crossing, describes the road as "climb[ing] upward through a dark wood, similar to a sweep of woodland that stands there today." Some 2400 officers and troops crossed to this point; the troops split into two forces under Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan, with the former more inland and Sullivan closer to the river as they approached Trenton.

The troops were ill, poorly clothed, hungry.  We know there were soldiers with no shoes whose bleeding feet left paths in the snow.  We know that many who enlisted in the Continental Army were from the bottom of the economic ladder.  We know that many of Washington's soldiers were incapacitated  and could not make the crossing; many others had died before the battle from illness.  And yet, those that remained, made that march on that bitter, sleeting night.

To understand how this country survived the defeats of 1776 and how the war was saved, walk the Continental Lane, particularly on a cold day.  Listen to the sounds of your footsteps and be alone with your thoughts.

Today we have political leaders who treat $1,000,000 with less respect and concern than the rest of us treat a penny.  They fly with entourages around the world; a recently reported stay of the vice-president for one night in London came in at around $500,000.  The lectures and the rhetoric are belied by a political class obsessed with itself, with its power and preservation of same.  We barely finished the 2012 elections when literally the next day we were into the 2014 season and already planning not only 2016 but 2020 and beyond.  Meanwhile, real people in this country are living and dying, struggling to survive and get on.  The rhetoric is not enough.  Do we really remember where we came from?

Every representative and senator should be made to walk the Continental Lane as a requirement to service.  They should be made to feel the same ground beneath their feet that absorbed the blood of real people who made this country happen.  There is no better reality check than that, to restore a sense of proportion and remove the insulation and arrogance that seems now to mark an increasingly out of touch political class.

The Veterans of the Revolution

With Memorial Day approaching, I visited some of the local spots where American Revolutionary War soldiers are buried.  At the Princeton Battlefield, there is the mass grave that includes British soldiers.  But in some of the churchyards, we find the individual graves, and at Washington's Crossing on the Pennsylvania side, there is the row of graves of "unknown soldiers."

This is the grave of an unknown soldier who died in camp, before the march on Trenton.  When I see a grave like this, and consider the individual buried here, I experience an overwhelming sadness.  Here was a man, a unique human being, born in all the pain of childbirth his mother experienced, someone who experienced infancy, a childhood.  We can know nothing of his life because we cannot know him.  Was he missed? Mourned in absentia? What made him join the Continental Army? Dead by December 1776--had he fought at the Battle of Brooklyn in August? Had he killed? What jokes did he enjoy? How did he sound when he laughed? 

Howard Peckham's study of American casualties, The Toll of Independence, estimates American camp deaths at 10,000.  Total "probable deaths in service," including the camp deaths, killed in battle, and death as prisoners of war, totals 25,324.  Here is one.