Evening Star Newspaper, March 6, 1932, Page 84

12 = THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 6, 1932, Was Gen. Charles Lee a Traitor? How the Question, Which Had Re- mained Unsettled Until 1856, Was Answered by Dis- covery of a Long- Hidden Document. BY R. WALTON MOORE. ROM the time Charles Lee, who had held no higher rank in the British Army than lieutanent colonel, became a major general in the Army of the Revolution, until and even long after his death, opinion was much divided as to the value of his services to the cause of independence and whether or not he meritd the treatment he reccived after the battle of Monmouth, Following the battle, which occured on June 28, 1778, Lee, stung by the remarks made to him by Gen. Washington, when the latter found the American forces retreating, engaged in a sharp correspondence with Washington, and finally expressed a desire that a court-mar- tial should be convened to pass on his con- duct; that, this being done, he was tried on three charges: (a) Disobedience of orders in not attacking the enemy; (b) misbehavior be- fore the enemy “by making an unnecessary, disorderly and shameful retreat,” and (c) dis- respect to the commander in chief by his let- ters to him subsequent to the battle; that, h®ving heard the testimony of a large number of witnesses, Lee was found guilty on the first and third charges exactly as framed, and also on the second charge to the extent of “making ai: unnecessary and, in some few in- stances, disorderly retreat,” and was sentenced “to be suspended from any command in the armies of the United States of North America for the term of 12 months”; and that, although the sentence was pronounced on August 12, it did not receive the approval of the Con- gress until December 5, having meanwhile been the subject of much debate in the ses- sions which were always held in secret. The Congressional Journal shows that Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and South Carolina voted to sustain the sentence; that Massachusetts and Georgia voted in the negative and that Virginia, Mary- land and New Jersey did not vote, as the mem- bers present from each of those States were equally divided. So far as Virginia is con- cerned, it appears that only two members were present, Francis Lightfoot Lee, who voted “aye,” and Meriwether Smith, who voted “no.” On December 4, 1779, the Congress, to which in the interval Lee had written an offensive letter, resolved, “That Maj. Gen. Charles Lee be informed that Congress has no further occasion for his services in the Army of the United States of America.” It appears from the journal that the only States voting “no” on this occasion were Con- necticut, New Jersey and Maryland, and that the oniy member present from Virgina, Cyrus Griffin, was recorded in the negative. It was ndcessary that a State should vote by at least two members. A moment may be taken to inquire what was the language actually used by Washington when he rode up to Lee and found a retreat in progress, of which everybody seems to have agreed the commander in chief should have been given prompt notice. That his appear- ance when he encountered Lee strongly in- dicated his displeasure is left beyond doubt by the evidence submitted at the trial, but that he made use of any such language as several writers have imputed to him is not proven. On that point here is what Lee himself told the court-martial in the course of his very lengthy statement: Saying that he was “dis- concerted, disturbed and confounded by the words and manner” of Washington, he went on to say, “The terms, I think, were these: ‘I desire to know, sir, what is the reason whence arises this disorder and confusion?’ The manner in which he expressed them was much stronger and more severe than the ex- pressions themselves.” Had Washington de- nounced him as a “damned poltroon,” as some of the historians assert, or had he even ex- claimed, as was reported to Judge Robertson in 1840 by a veteran of the Revolution when Pcbertson was a student at Hampden-Sid- ney College, “My God, Gen. Lee, what are you about?” Lee would naturally have so in- formed the court. Prior to the battle of Monmouth, in December, 1776, in consequence of disregarding orders and reguests to move which he had received from Washington Lee was captured by. the British and carried to New York. There a threat Lo transport him to England, in accordance with instructions from London, to be tried as a deserter from the British Army would probably have been executed but for Washington inform- ing the British commander in chief at New York that he was holding officers which he had taken as hostages for Lee’s personal safety. This had the desired effect of maintaining Lee’s status as simply a prisoner of war, and thus after held a year and a half in New York, he exchanged and rejoined the American Army at Valley Forge, May 20, 1778, a little more than & month before the battle of Mon- msouth. ¥ YA aEs T it not without significance that while in New York, Lee made a strenuous effort to bring about the appointment by Congress of an official commission or committee to go there and confer with him about matters he declared to be of the utmost importance, urging all “possible expedition, as expedition in the present crisis of affairs is of very material con- sequence.” Precisely what was in his mind we cannot know, thcugh we may at least believe he had hecome hopeless of the success of the American cause. But we do know that on March 29, 1778, it was “Resolved, That Congress still adjudge it improper to send any of their members to confer with Gen. Lee upon the subjects mentioned in his letter.” It is a rather curious coincidence that the date of that resolution corresponds with the apparent date of a document of pivotal interest to which reference will in a moment be made. As I have said, there was a sharp difference of opinion about the character and merits of Lee. There were Americans of ability and patriotism, as, for example, Lighthorse Harry Lee, who, notwithstanding they were devoted friends of Washington, retained their friend- ship for Lee, and were convinced that the court-martial sentence was far too severe. They thought that a mild punishment for fail- ing to give Warshington timcly notice of the disrespectful language in Lee's letter to him weuld have been sufficient. But, on the other hand, there were those who gravely doubted his fidelity, among them John Laurens, Presi- dent of the Continental Congress, who spoke of him as “a Judas”; Alexander Hamilton, who spoke of him as a driveler or something worse,” and Elias Boudinot, who thought him false to the cause. More important than the suspicion entertained by others is the fact that Washing- ton himself seems to have been suspiclous. He did not testify at the trial, and while it was going on carefully refrained from expressing any opinion. But in a letter to Joseph Reed, then president of the Congress, dated July, 1779, referring to Lee’s attack on him, Washington says: “To be pursued, first under the mark of friendship and, when disguise would suit no longer, as an open cajumniator with gross mis- representations and self-known falsehoods, carries an alloy which no temper can bear with perfect composure: * * * What cause, then, is there for such a profusion of venom unless by an act of public duty in bringing him to trial at his own solicitation I have disappointed him and raised his ire; or, conceiving that in pro- portion as he can darken the shades of my character he illuminates his own; whether these, I say, or motives yet more dark and hidden govern him I shall not undertake to decide nor have I time to inquire into them at present.” But the time was to arrive for an inquiry and decision. In 1856, when the actors in the Monmouth transaction had passed away, there was brought to light the document to which I have just alluded. Lossing, the eminent historian, gives the story of how it came to be uncovered. He states that in the Autumn of 1856 Mr. Tomlinson, a dealer in rare manu- scripts, called on him in New York with manuscripts found among the papers of Gen. Sir William Howe, who was the British commander in chief at New York during a part of the time of Lee’s detention there. One of them was a manuscript consisting of nine foolscap pages, folded in form for filing, and indorsed in the handwriting of Henry Strachey,, the sccretary of Gen. Howe, “Mr. Lee’s plan, 29th March, 1777.” At Lossing’s request, this document was left with him and upon comparing it with known writings of Lee, he was completely satisfied of wen. washington at the Batile of Monmouth. its genuineness. He suggested that perhaps George H. Moore, then Librarian of the New York Historical Society, might purchase the manuscript, which Moote did, and later in his book on “The Treason of Lee” Moore incorporated a facsimile copy of several pages of the manuscript, along with a copy of & letter written by Lee to Gen. Gates on the very day the former was captured, and the authenticity of which is undisputed. In that letter, written by the same hand that wrote the plan, Lee says “entre nous a certain great man is damnably deficient,” this being an obvious reference to Washington. Lossing says of the plain: “The document was the first announcement to the world of the long- suspected fact that- Gen. Charles Lee was undoubtedly a traitor to the cause which he espoused.” The plan starts with the assertion that the American cause had no chance of success, that continuance of the war would be wasteful and injurious to both combatants and that steps should be taken to bring it quickly to an end. It then proposed that instead of be- ing content with holding New. York and tak- ing Philadelphia, 4,000 of the British troops, which at that time were supposed to total about 20,000, should be sent south so as to re- duce Maryland, and prevent Virginia from furnishing aid to the American Army in Penn- sylvania. The transports carrying the British troops southward were to disembark them at Annapolis and Alexandria, and the location of those points as suitable bases of operation was set forth. Lee had fairly full knowledge of conditions in Virginia. He knew it was the most pop- ulous and the richest of the States, and that Washington greatly relied upon it for soldiers and supplies. He was in Virginia after re- ceiving his commission as major general, and had been in Alexandria more than once, the first time as a lieutenant in the army com- manded by Braddock which set out from that town on its fatal expedition. He was, there- Jore, able to tell of the depth of the river at Alexandria, and suggest that other places on the river south of the town could be made use of if necessary. Lee concluded by stating, “I am so confident of the event that I will venture to assert with the penalty of my life, if the plan is adopted and no accidents, such as a rupture betwixt the powers of Europe, intervene, that in less than two months from the date of the proclamation not a spark of this desolating war remains unextinguished in any part of the continent.” OR nearly 75 years, so far as I can ascer- tain, this evidence of the treachery of Lee has been accepted by historians of the Rev- olution on both sides of the ocean. But it is proper to mention that shortly after its disclcsure there was one emphatic dissent as to its value. In 1860 a well known Virginia lawyer, Mr. Charles Carter Lee, a son of Light- horse Harry Lee, delivered a lecture before the Pennsylvania Historical Society in which he argued that the document “should be re- garded either as a forgery, because its con- fusion of ideas, its involved sentences, its bad spelling and grammar mark it as utterly un- like anything else krown to have been written by Lee, and that the scheme of operations pro- posed to the Howes, if indeed it was worthy to be called a plan at all, was too stupid to have emangted from Lee and too insulting to the understanding of the Howes to have been submitted to them with any view of seek- ing their approval.” Altcrnatively, he argued that if Lee wrote the paper, it was “in a moment of frantic and momentary ebullition of despair,” and without any intention of submitting it to the British authorities and that it must have been “afer- ward purloined and attempted to be perverted to iniquitous purposes.” It is difficult to be impressed by these suggestions put forth in Lee’s defense. Probably no man of that time ever wrote a lengthy paper without some spell- ing and grammar and awkwardness of style Continued on Eighteenth Page