General Lee was tried for disobedience of orders in not attacking the enemy; for misbehavior before the enemy; a disorderly retreat; and insolent letters sent to the Commander-in-Chief, after the battle, and was sentenced to “suspension from command for twelve months.” A reasonable self-control, which he never had exercised, might, even at this crisis of his history, have saved him his commission. He died ignominiously, and even in his will perpetuated his hatred of religion and his Maker. An abstract of the testimony taken upon his trial shows that the adjustment of the advance troops by General Lafayette was admirable; that up to the time when Lee ordered a retreat without consulting him, all the troops were steady in their positions, awaiting some systematic orders from Lee, who had just taken command; that Lee did not intend to force the battle which Lafayette had organized; that brigades and detachments had no information of adjoining commands, or supports; that when Lee’s orders for a general retreat reached brigades, each brigade moved more through example than instructions, without direction or intimation of any new formation, or any reason for the retreat. Recent writers have revived the tradition as to Washington’s alleged profanity at the Battle of Monmouth. It would seem that either Charles Lee, or his witnesses, or the witnesses of the United States, under cross-examination, immediately after the occurrence, would have testified to such words, if spoken, for the sake of vindicating Lee, when his commission and honor were in jeopardy. Every witness agrees with Lee as to language used; but none imply _profanity_. Silence in this respect is, _prima facie_, the strongest possible legal evidence in disproval of the charge. One of the most eminent of American historians, in a footnote, thus attempts to verify this vague tradition respecting Washington: “It is related that when Lafayette visited this country in 1825, he was the guest of Chief Justice Hornblower at Newark, N.J., and that while seated on his front porch, one evening, Lafayette remarked that the only time when he ‘ever heard Washington swear, was when he rebuked Lee at meeting him on his retreat at Monmouth.’” The late Justice Bradley, who married a daughter of Judge Hornblower, in a letter, thus meets this statement: “Nothing of the kind ever occurred. Lafayette did not stay at Mr. Hornblower’s, but at the principal public house of the city. There he was visited; but the subject of the Battle of Monmouth was not mentioned.” Lafayette does not, in his Memoirs, make such a charge; nor in letters to his wife, which were voluminous in sketches of his beloved commander. Invariably, he exalts the character of Washington, as “something more divine than human.”