March 29, 1777

A Revolutionary General’s Plan for Crushing the Revolution

Sketch of Major General Charles Lee by American artist John Trumbull.

General Charles Lee, who fought on the American side during the Revolution, is a rather problematical figure, in my view. Among other things, a few months after he had been captured by the British, he submitted to the British commanders a “scheme for putting an end to the war” — by defeating the Americans. He said that although America might be able to draw out the war for a while, she (people generally referred to nations as “she” back then) had “no chance” of winning the war and gaining independence. So, to prevent America from inevitably suffering “great desolation havock and slaughter,” and to spare Britain the “serious expence both in blood and money” that would be required to finally defeat America, he gave his suggestions on how the British could “unhinge or dissolve…the whole system or machine of resistance, or in other terms, Congress Government”.

According to Lee, the Congressional “machine” depended “entirely on the circumstances and disposition of the People of Maryland Virginia and Pennsylvania”. In his plan, which he submitted to the British on March 29, 1777, he said that if they would occupy or intimidate those states, then the whole Revolutionary government, and therefore the army, would fall apart, and within two months every last “spark of this desolating war” would be extinguished.

Although Lee had been a prisoner of war for a few months and didn’t have the most up-to-date intelligence from either side, he was so confident that he repeatedly said he would stake his life on the success of his plan.

Why would he, who had recently been fighting for the Americans, suddenly start giving their enemies advice on how to beat them? According to what he himself said in his plan, it was for their own good: they didn’t stand a chance of winning anyway, and his plan, if followed, would end the war with “no bloodshed or desolation” for the Americans. But nobody can guarantee “no bloodshed” in war; and if he hadn’t been captured, would he, as a general in the Revolutionary army, still have taken such a stance — would he have given the British his recommendations on how to beat them? No.

To make things even stranger, before submitting this plan to the British commanders, Lee had been trying to get some members of the Continental Congress to visit him in New York, where he was being held as a prisoner of war. He assured them that the British would give them safe conduct (which I believe was true) to come and “converse with me on subjects of so great importance not only to myself but the Community I so sincerely love”. What he had to tell them that was so important, why he couldn’t put it in a letter, what he hoped would come of it, and why he shortly thereafter proposed a scheme for bringing about the collapse of the “Congress Government”, is beyond me.

Perhaps, however, the whole thing was a ruse, and Lee was trying to trick the British into doing something that he believed would actually bring about their defeat.

Whatever his motives were for proposing this scheme, it didn’t make much difference: the British commanders were more interested in carrying out their own plans than in following the advice of someone who had recently been fighting against them, and they didn’t adopt Lee’s plan. The Americans, meanwhile, didn’t know (and Lee never told them) that he had given advice to the British; and the next year, Lee was freed as part of a prisoner exchange and went right back to fighting on the American side. Make sense? Not to me; as I said in the beginning, Charles Lee is a puzzle to me.

See what else happened in March 1777

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