The
names Washington and Lee of the twin forts on opposite sides of
the Hudson show how the two generals stood in the public mind.
While disaster was overtaking Washington, Lee had seven thousand
men at North Castle on the east bank of the Hudson, a few miles
above Fort Washington, blocking Howe's advance farther up the
river. On the day after the fall of Fort Washington, Lee received
positive orders to cross the Hudson at once. Three days later
Fort Lee fell, and Washington repeated the order. Lee did not
budge. He was safe where he was and could cross the river and get
away into New Jersey when he liked. He seems deliberately to have
left Washington to face complete disaster and thus prove his
incompetence; then, as the undefeated general, he could take the
chief command. There is no evidence that he had intrigued with
Howe, but he thought that he could be the peacemaker between
Great Britain and America, with untold possibilities of ambition
in that role. He wrote of Washington at this time, to his friend
Gates, as weak and "most damnably deficient." Nemesis, however,
overtook him. In the end he had to retreat across the Hudson to
northern New Jersey. Here many of the people were Tories. Lee
fell into a trap, was captured in bed at a tavern by a
hard-riding party of British cavalry, and carried off a prisoner,
obliged to bestride a horse in night gown and slippers.
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