September 6, 1780.
My Dear Sir:
The letter accompanying this has lain by two or three days for want
of an opportunity. I have heard since of Gates’s defeat: a very good
comment on the necessity of changing our system. His passion for
militia, I fancy, will be a little cured, and he will cease to think
them the best bulwark of American liberty. What think you of the
conduct of this great man? I am his enemy personally, for unjust and
unprovoked attacks upon my character; therefore what I say of him ought
to be received as from an enemy, and have no more weight than as it
is consistent with fact and common sense. But did ever any one hear
of such a disposition or such a flight? His best troops placed on the
side strongest by nature, his worst on that weakest by nature, and
his attack made with these. ’Tis impossible to give a more complete
picture of military absurdity. It is equally against the maxims of
war and common sense. We see the consequences. His left ran away, and
left his right uncovered. His right wing turned on the left has in all
probability been cut off. Though, in truth, the General seems to have
known very little what became of his army.
Had he placed his militia on his right, supported by the morass,
and his Continental troops on his left, where it seems he was most
vulnerable, his right would have been more secure, and his left would
have opposed the enemy; and instead of going backward when he ordered
to attack, would have gone forward. The reverse of what has happened
might have happened.
But was there ever an instance of a General running away, as Gates
has done, from his whole army? And was there ever so precipitous a
flight? One hundred and eighty miles in three days and a half. It does
admirable credit to the activity of a man at his time of life. But it
disgraces the General and the soldier. I always believed him to be very
far short of a Hector, or a Ulysses. All the world, I think, will begin
to agree with me.
But what will be done by Congress? Will he be changed or not? If he is
changed, for God’s sake overcome prejudice, and send Greene. You know
my opinion of him. I stake my reputation on the events, give him but
fair play.
But, above all things, let us have, without delay, a vigorous,
government, and a well constituted army for the war.
Adieu, my dear Sir,
A. Hamilton.