Volume 4, Chapter 6, Charles Lee, Champion of Liberty and Guerrilla War
If the choice of Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army had been made on the basis of ability,
genius, military experience, erudition, ardor for the cause of liberty, or for a combination of these qualities,
This crucial appointment would not have gone to Washington, but to one Charles Lee. But political considerations ruled, and Lee, a native of Britain, had no political base.
Mere merit was submerged, though some delegates did favor Lee for the job. George Washington and Charles Lee.
No greater contrast could be found in their confrontation, and no more fateful choice of appointment could have been made.
A decision which would bear heavily on the future course of the history of the United States.
Washington, a half-educated, blunt, practical man, a highly conservative landed oligarch
of Virginia, orthodox in his military and political views, a loser in his few previous
battles, longed to become the head of a regular state army on the conventional European model.
Lee, a brilliant, articulate, learned, déclassé, English intellectual, an ardent, witty, pungent
individualist, personally and politically dedicated to liberty and deeply influenced
by libertarian thought, an authentic military genius, had seen a great deal of fighting
on the European model and saw its deficiencies for the American scene. It was almost inevitable
that two such deeply contrasting figures, Lee was chosen by Congress as third in command
of the army after Washington and Ward, would come to an irreparable clash. That clash came
to pass, and since the seemingly inescapable verdict of history was to give the victory
to Washington, Lee sank into disgrace and oblivion, from which historians are only now
The Major Event in the Emerging Historical Rehabilitation of Lee is the work of John R. Alden, Charles Lee, Traitor or Patriot, the first sympathetic biography of Lee since the mid-19th century. The Alden volume is indispensable. A growing appreciation of the value of guerrilla warfare has greatly aided in this reevaluation of Lee.
Lee was that exceedingly rare combination, a brilliant soldier and a gifted intellectual.
He was also the only general on the American side, with the exception of his old English-born
friend Horatio Gates, to have had substantial military experience. Affluent linguist and
learned in political and military theory as well as in classical and English literature,
Lee had been influenced by the strongly pro-whig history of England, written by a French Huguenot,
Paul de Rapin, and later by the writings of Rousseau. After serving as an officer in the
French and Indian War, where he picked up the apt sobriquet, boiling water, Lee performed
with brilliance in the British expedition against the Spaniards in Portugal. Despite
Despite his distinction, Lee was retired from the British Army after the Seven Years' War
because of his outspoken criticism of British political and military leaders, and his increasingly
radical Whig views had lost him favor with the Crown.
In England, Lee was received with warmth in important Whig circles and became a friend
of the Liberal Lords Thanet and Pembroke, of Charles York, and especially of the ardent
liberal Colonel Isaac Barre. Thwarted in his military career at home, Lee became personal
aide de camp to the rather liberal King Stanislaus of Poland. His letters from Poland reflected
increasingly radical and libertarian views, denouncing the aggrandizement of George III,
Granville and the Tories, toying with the idea of a republic and praising natural rights
and the American Resistance Against the Stamp Act.
He wrote, May God prosper the Americans in their resolution, that there may be one asylum
at least on the earth for men who prefer their natural rights to the fantastical prerogatives
of a foolish, perverted head because it wears a crown.
Lee returned to England the following year, but his increasing radicalism again kept him
came from military preferment. Befriended by General Sir Henry Conway, he became an ardent
supporter of the Rockingham Whigs and of radical leader John Wilkes. By 1768, he was contemplating
running for Commons to effect a glorious revolution in Britain. He was also increasingly attracted
to the American Cause and habitually referred to America as that last asylum of freedom.
At this time, Lee, Horatio Gates and other pro-American British officers began to gather
periodically for an exchange of views. In 1769, Lee was made an honorary major general
in the Army of the Pro-Russian King of Poland. The same year, he joined the Russian Army
against Turkey, and had the opportunity to observe guerrilla warfare by Turks and Polish
rebel forces. Ill and failing to be granted a command, Lee traveled widely through Central
and Southern Europe, visiting such luminaries as Emperor Joseph II of Austria, and growing
ever more bitter in his correspondence against the Tory policies at home. He blasted the
The Prime Minister, the Duke of Grafton, as a man without conscience or honor, and wrote
that, if the axe is not applied to his neck, it is laid to the root of our liberties, national
honor and inheritance, there is no medium.
More and more he spoke of being free in exile rather than submitting to the domination of
George III.
Excuseing his lack of urbanity on the subject, for the weak cause he ardently wished for
triumph over tyranny, corruption, Grafton, North and the Devil, my puny dagger shall
contribute its might of annoyance to the breast of despotism and wickedness. And he passionately
conjured up the spirits of Cato, Brutus, Hampton and Sydney for the cause of liberty. George
King George III was a reptile and a despicable, stupid dolt, while lords and commons were
dens of thieves.
Returning to England in the spring of 1771, Lee published in the press, though more circumspectly,
a criticism of King George III, and also composed a lengthy, though unfortunately unpublished
and Vanished, Critique of David Hume's History of England. He was irked at Hume's Tory apologetics
for the Stuart Kings, and he projected a satirical whitewashing history of the emperors Claudius
and Nero, which he bitingly dedicated to David Hume. In the introduction to this critique,
which has survived, Lee again attacked the Tory policies of George III, the use of pecuniary
and the large standing army as instruments of oppression. Disapproving of capital punishment
in general, he wished to preserve it for kings and their families since the eradication of
a royal house was surely preferable to the loss of a people's freedom. It is little
wonder that the manuscript could not find an English publisher. In these final years
Finally, Charles Lee, a Major General in the Polish Army and a Lieutenant Colonel in the British, consummated the exile for which he had long been heading. Eager to help the burgeoning American cause, he arrived at New York in the fall of 1936.
Paul of 1773, where both he and the Americans were ripe for a revolutionary situation. For
over a year he traveled extensively throughout the colonies, making friends with all the
revolutionary leaders who were fascinated by his personality and by his military knowledge
and ardor for liberty. In America he was no longer a maverick but a leader in the American
and Struggles with the British Government.
It was no coincidence that those particularly attracted to Lee were the radicals George
Mason and Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, Alexander McDougall in New York, and Sam Adams and his
followers in Massachusetts.
He became an especially close friend of Virginia's Richard Henry Lee, no relation, who truly
Charlie wrote of him, a most true and worthy friend to the rights of human nature in general
and a warm-spirited foe to American oppression. Charles Lee lost no time in lauding Boston's
resistance to the Tea Act and in urging energetic boycotts in reaction to the Coercive Acts
of 1774. The crisis brought on by the Coercive Acts was obviously tailor-made for Lee's
He urged a boycott and attacked moderation as submission to Britain. America was the last asylum of liberty and therefore its defense of liberty was also a defense for the people of Britain and for the rest of the world. This was published in the Philadelphia Press and a similar hand bill was published in the New York Times.
published in New York and widely reprinted in the New England papers.
By this time, Lee's old friend and fellow radical, Horatio Gates, also forcibly retired
from British Army service after the Seven Years War, had also emigrated to America and
retired to a plantation in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.
Both men were clearly ready to take up arms for the American cause.
Lee wrote to Gates that it was incumbent on every man to contribute his might to the cause
of mankind and of liberty, which is now attacked in her last and only asylum.
And Gates, known as early as 1770 as a red-hot Republican, replied that he was ready to risk
my life to preserve the liberty of the Western world.
When the First Continental Congress met at Philadelphia in September 1774, Lee was there,
charming nearly everyone and, remarkably, writing the appeal which Congress sent to
the Canadians for support in America's struggle. He also began in secret to draw up a plan
for the Organization of American Battalions, a plan completed by the following February
and which impressed many American leaders.
Visiting Maryland in the fall of 1774, he induced the Maryland Provincial Congress to
adopt his plan for organizing its battalions and even stayed to drill some of the troops.
His plan of Lees impressed Washington, who persuaded Fairfax County to urge a similar
plan for Virginia militia and prevailed upon Patrick Henry to get the plan adopted by Virginia
Lee published several essays on behalf of American freedom that winter, one of which
pointed to King George's tyranny being exercised in Ireland and Menorca and warned of its advent
in America. In an uncompleted essay, he praised the Republican governments of Europe, citing
Leigh's most significant work, however, was one that called forth his military, as well as his ideological abilities.
The Tory Reverend Dr. Miles Cooper, Anglican President of King's College in New York City, had greatly disheartened the Americans with his pamphlet,
Friendly at Dr. Leigh's house.
The Tory Reverend Dr. Miles Cooper, Anglican President of King's College in New York City, had greatly disheartened the Americans with his pamphlet, Friendly Address to All Reasonable Americans.
Cooper had counseled that resistance was useless against the mighty and thoroughly disciplined British regulars, who would be aided by large numbers of American Tories and German mercenaries.
How could the undisciplined and untrained Americans even dream of opposing the British victors of the French and Indian War?
No one was more qualified to rebut Cooper's charge than Lee.
He had seen the highly disciplined Prussian battalions, the envied model of all the regular armies of the day, at first hand,
and was creative and individualistic enough to be unimpressed.
Lee leapt into the fray, publishing his strictures upon a friendly address to all reasonable Americans in Philadelphia in November 1774.
He pointedly deprecated the British regulars. Their showy and much admired massed formation, parade ground tactics were of no military importance,
And the British only won the French and Indian War after discarding this pattern. Moreover, he argued, the highly touted victories of Frederick the Great were largely won by the Prussian militia rather than by the formally trained regulars.
The Americans had numbers, zeal, and knowledge of the terrain on their side, and did not
the amateur militias of the parliamentary armies defeat the professionals of Charles
I during the English Civil War?
Lee's pamphlet proved to be by far his most popular work, as the radical Salem Essex Gazette
declared.
It removed the terror the people had had of the British troops and gave them the heart
to Resist.
Strictures was reprinted five times during the winter of 1774-75 in Boston, New York,
New London and Newport, and was also republished in American newspapers.
Alden has concluded that the strictures was probably one of the most influential pieces
of propaganda in the Revolutionary period.
After selecting Washington over Lee and Ward as commander-in-chief, the Second Continental
Congress had to select the other generals of the Continental Army. The next step was
to choose the major general who would be second in command, and the battle was rather naturally
between Lee and Ward. Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania enthusiastically backed Lee, but he was bitterly
But he was bitterly opposed by Thomas Johnson of Maryland and by almost all the highly conservative New York delegation.
As New England's candidate, however, Ward was the inevitable choice for first major general.
After Ward was chosen, the New England radicals, especially Sam Adams, fought ardently for Lee as second major general.
Though Hancock and the more conservative delegates from Massachusetts opposed Lee, the backing
of Washington, who had been impressed by Lee's military genius, carried the day.
All in all, Congress selected four major generals.
The others were Philip Shuler of New York's landed gentry and the veteran Israel Putnam
of Connecticut, and eight brigadier generals, seven of whom were New Englanders.
The preponderance of New England officers was natural, since the bulk of the troops
then in the field came from that region.
Chosen adjutant general with the rank of brigadier was Horatio Gates.