Burying the Dead and Recovering the Wounded after the Battle of Monmouth

When the British Army withdrew from Freehold and headed for Middletown following the Battle of Monmouth, the Continental Army was left in possession of the battlefield. By European military tradition, possession of the battlefield gave the Continental Army the honor of claiming victory. With this honor came responsibility for considering the damages of the battle and cleaning up a battlefield strewn with the bodies of hundreds of dead and dying men.

Burying the Dead

George Washington called upon Lt. Colonel Cornelius Van Dyke to coordinate the grim task of locating and burying the dead. Early on June 29, the Army’s general orders included this notice: "a party of 200 men to parade immediately & bury the slain of both armies." Van Dyke divided the men into thirteen burial parties. After two days of burial duty, he compiled "A Report of the British and American Troops Fallen in the Action near Monmouth & Buried Under Care of Coll. Van Dyke and Different Officers.”

The report indicated his parties buried 190 British and 29 Continental bodies; 27 more British were buried "by different inhabitants." Van Dyke noted that additional British soldiers were buried by the enemy before it left Freehold and were not included in his tally. According to the British “Inventory of Losses by the British Army” compiled immediately after the battle, that was another 60 men. Combined, these sources suggest that 304 men were buried on the battlefield. This does not include men who died elsewhere during the Monmouth campaign, or wounded who died shortly after the battle.

Other Continental accounts offer similar, but not the same number, as Van Dyke’s 304 buried bodies. Continental Army Officer, Persefor Frazer, wrote that "258 have been buried by a party sent from our Army for that purpose.” Frazer also noted that “a great number were buried by” the British before they left Freehold “and numbers more have been interred by the Country people." 

Continental Army Officer James Chambers wrote on June 30 that the previous day "our fatigue parties were collecting the dead in piles and burying them." Chambers wrote that the parties buried 200 British and 30 Americans. A few days after the battle, Gen. Joseph Cilley wrote that “left on the field, about three hundred of the enemy's dead, with several officers.”

George Washington’s Secretary, James McHenry, wrote on June 30: “As we remained masters of the ground, of course the burying of the dead became our duty, the returns of the parties employed for that purpose amount to 233 killed.” All but 52 of the bodies were from the British Army. In addition to the battlefield dead, McHenry said that 30-40 British soldiers died from skirmishing during the Monmouth Campaign and 100 more British died from heat stroke during the march. Washington, in his report to Congress about the battle, avoided providing a precise figure: “By accounts from Monmouth more of the Enemy's dead have been found. It is said the number buried by us and the Inhabitants exceeds three Hundred."

Two accounts suggest a much larger body count. Dr. Samuel Adams of the New Jersey Line suggested that 300 British fell during the battle and 200 more Continentals. John Chittendon of Connecticut claimed that he "he helped berry [sic] 500 dead bodies." It is possible that Adams and Chittendon offered higher figures because they included the apparently large number of bodies found after Van Dyke’s burial parties quit the field.

Sgt. Enos Barnes wrote of being sent to gather up the dead on June 29: "Our next business was to gather the dead together in order to bury them, which we did, going about in wagons, loading them up, bringing them together and burying about twelve or fourteen a hole." Captain John Nice, wrote about finding dead bodies "on the field and strewn through the woods; more was found afterwards by the country people when they began to smell." Dr. William Read wrote about dead soldiers left in a bog, “mired to the waist and probably shot."

The “country people” of Freehold Township spent several days burying the dead. Richard Kidder Meade, a Continental officer, wrote from the Continental camp Englishtown on June 29 that "many of their dead have been buried by the country people, and other bodies since found." General Anthony Wayne wrote that while Continental burial parties “remained on the ground for two or three days after the action to bury the dead” the country people “discovered more bodies every day in the woods." And, as noted above, Persefor Frazer noted that many additional dead “interred by the Country people.”

Recovering and Caring for the Wounded

The British left, according to General James Pattison, 45 wounded men when they retreated from Freehold. They did so, because "we were under necessity of leaving a great part of our wounded officers and men behind, for want of a sufficiency of wagons to bring them off." David Griffith of Virginia offered a slightly more detailed account on the British wounded left behind.

They [the British Army] retreated in a great hurry in the night, leaving behind them at Monmouth Court House, four Captains & forty-nine Privates and Sergeants, with a surgeon to take care of them.  These were all too badly wounded to be moved. They left behind all the officers & prisoners they had taken in their march, which consisted chiefly of militia & people they had taken from their houses.

James McHenry noted that other British wounded were recovered beyond those left at the Court House. McHenry wrote, "they left at Monmouth Court House 45 of their own, we found several others in the field… near some little brooks, we found a dozen of their soldiers.” The French officer Chevalier de Pontigibaud left Englishtown for Freehold and saw several corpses from heatstroke: "We found many soldiers dead without having received a wound.” On reaching Freehold, he wrote: “The enemy had left some of his baggage behind and his wounded; they were to be found in every house and in the [St. Peter’s] church."

Dr. William Read wrote vividly about finding wounded on the field. Read came upon a British officer in his final minutes:

Saw an officer lying a few yards from the morass, nearly cut in two by cannon shot; he was alive and spoke, implored Dr Read to lift him to a tree which stood near, alleging he had been all night trying to do so 'so that he might die easy'. The clotted blood was piled up several inches on his front and it had ceased to flow... they placed him against a tree, the blood now began to flow precipitately and in all probability terminated his life.

He came upon another British soldier calling for water and "uttering the most dreadful and severe imprecations of the rebels.” He brought water to this man and others. While helping the wounded, "some country people and Negroes coming to the field of carnage, Dr. Read enlisted their feelings, and hired them to assist in turning these wounded men, and at length in procuring wagons and straw to remove them to the Court House.”

The wounded were generally taken to two improvised hospitals at the Tennent Church in Manalapan and the county courthouse in Freehold. Captain John Shreve wrote about the activity at the Tennent Church on June 29:

I halted at the Presbyterian Meeting House & barn, both filled with wounded men of the American and the English; the surgeons of both armies (the enemy had left several), after having been twenty-four hours dressing the wounded, had not got through.

Dr. Read, as noted above, spent June 29 bringing 21 men from the battlefield to the county courthouse. He tended to the wounded, "aided by lint and bandages" supplied by locals. "Dr Read continued to dwell in the Court House, sleeping in the Judge's bench" and serving the wounded "at his own expense." Read continued to tend to the wounded at the courthouse until July 4 when he was relieved by two surgeons from New York.

Continental doctors stayed at Freehold into August. Dr. Samuel Adams of Continental Army worried that in the summer heat, the wounded were in "no very agreeable situation, the ground being rather low, and the air confined by surrounding woods, which makes fever and ague flourish here." It is unknown exactly how many men successfully convalesced and how many died in Freehold in the summer of 1778, but at least two men died.

Matthew Roads, a musician in the New Jersey Line, died at Englishtown shortly after the Battle of Monmouth (having fallen from heatstroke). Private John Sayre of the Essex County Militia, wounded in battle, fell into a coma on the 29th and died ten days later. Others recovered. Moses Etsey of Middlesex County recalled having a “wound that bled very freely, but not dangerously.” He received encouraging words from George Washington:

Whilst bleeding, General Washington rode up to him, inquired very kindly by the nature & entry of his wound, directing that he should be carried to a place where his wound could be dressed, enjoining him to be very careful of infection until his recovery.

Joseph Kelly of Middletown (serving in the Pennsylvania Line) recalled being wounded in the battle:

He [I] was wounded while at the cannon, two bullets or ounce balls entered into the sides of the calf of his leg and the big toe on the left foot, tore off, the balls were taken out afterwards, but a buckshot he received in his right knee is still in the joint of the knee, which has never been entreated. This deponent, after being wounded, was taken to a house near the battleground, where his wounds were dressed, he was then carried to the meeting house where the wounded was taken, and staid [sic] there until he was able to join the army. Cannot remember the date he returned to the army.

Joel Bower of New York was also wounded that day. He spent the night on the battlefield before being rescued: "The next day we were conveyed a few miles to a barn which was used as a kind of temporary hospital. From this place, we were sent to Morristown." Following the battle, different parties carried the wounded to hospitals in Princeton, Hightstown, and Morristown. June 29 Army orders noted that “A sergeant & 12 men from Genl. Maxwell's Brigade to guard the sick to Princeton." A party of Monmouth militia was sent “"to Hightstown with four wounded men, who were to be conveyed to the hospital."

Mark Lender and Garry Stone, in their exhaustive study of the Battle of Monmouth, noted that most of the wounded were transported to permanent hospitals in Princeton and Morristown, but the men who were too wounded to move stayed in Monmouth County, where they were cared for in private homes. The British Army assisted by sending two surgeons to Englishtown on June 30 and two more surgeons, along with a wagon of medical supplies, a few days later. Indeed, General Henry Clinton "thanked Gen Washington by flag for his humane and generous treatment of the wounded and for the honors of war paid Col. [Henry] Monckton and other officers who were killed and left on the field of action." A letter published in the London Gazette also praised the Continental Army’s treatment of wounded British soldiers:

We have accounts from Freehold that the four wounded officers of the Royal Army left with the soldiery, the flag, the surgeons, are as well as can be expected and are treated in a manner that does much honor to the American gentlemen whose protection and care they are under.

The humanity shown to British soldiers in July would not be reciprocated the next time British and Continental troops clashed near Monmouth County. In a nighttime attack in October, British and Loyalist regulars would slaughter dozens of Continentals camped on Osborn Island at the southern tip of present-day Ocean County. That is the subject of a different article.

Caption: The Battle of Monmouth raged around the Tennent Church in Manalapan. The church became an impromptu hospital as wounded were brought there throughout and after the battle.

Related Historic Site: Old Tennent Church

Sources: Ritchie, Carson I. A. “A New York Diary of the Revolutionary War.” in Narratives of the Revolution in New York (New York: New-York Historical Society, 1975) pp. 239-41; Jedidiah Huntington’s Orderly Book, New York Historical Society, Orderly Books Collection, reel 5, #60-61; Henry Lee, Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States. (New York: University Publishing Co., 1869), p 113; Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p 508; British Army Return, Monmouth County Historical Association, Collections Alphabetical, Revolution folder 1; Persifor Fraser, General Persifor Fraser (1907), pp. 182-3; Joseph Cilley’s letter in Elliott Cogswell, History of Nottingham, Deerfield and Northwood (Manchester: John Clarke, 1878) p 181; George Washington to Congress, July 7, 1778, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw120194)); Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application of John Chittendon of CT, National Archives, p5; Sgt. Enoch Barnes Diary, Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Battle of Monmouth files: folder - James Kochan; Albert Venderveer’s account in Three Generations from the Battle of Monmouth, Journal of the NY State Historical Association, vol. 9, n 3, July 1928, p 279-84; Report of Troops Fallen at Monmouth, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, series 4, roll 50, transcribed by Garry Wheeler Stone; John Thompson, Revolutionary Letters, The Southern Literary Messenger, vol. 28, April 1859, p 298; Robert Douglas, The Chevalier de Pontgibaud, a French Volunteer of the War of Independence (New York: Leopold Classic Library, 2015) p 56; Garrard, L. H., Chambersburg in the Colony and in the Revolution (Philadelphia, 1856) pp. 51-2; William Read’s account in John Rees, 'What is this You have been about Today?': The New Jersey Brigade at the Battle of Monmouth, www.revwar75/library/rees/monmouth/Monmouth.htm, p 32-3; Frederic Kidder, History of the First New Hampshire Regiment in the War of the Revolution (Albany, NY: Joel Munsell, 1868) pp. 42-3; The Battle of Monmouth, as Described by Dr. James McHenry, Secretary to Gen. Washington, with notes by Thomas H. Montgomery, Magazine of American History, June 1879, pp. 355-60; Copy: Letter of Capt. John Shreve, David Library, Battle of Monmouth Collection, #5; Robert Morris to Mr. Cooper, Monmouth County Historical Association, J. Amory Haskell Collection, folder "Battle of Monmouth"; Anthony Wayne, The Life and Services of Gen. Anthony Wayne (Philadelphia, 1845), p. 64; David Griffith to Hannah Griffith, Monmouth County Historical Association, J. Amory Haskell Collection, folder "Battle of Monmouth"; Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p199; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, Joseph Kelley of PA, www.fold3.com/image/# 26180227; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, Joel Bower of New York, www.fold3.com/image/#11092848; Orderly Book of the 8th Massachusetts Regt., Book 2, June-August 1778, Huntington Library, HM 719; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Samuel Burke; Samuel Adams to Sally Adams, letter, July 2, 1778; NYHS, Gilder-Lehrman Collection; Samuel Adams to Sally Adams, letter, David Library of the American Revolution, Sol Feinstone Collection, reel 1, #28-30; Return of Dead Bodies, Correspondence File: letter from The Friends of the Monmouth Battlefield; "Notes on the Battle of Monmouth" (orginally published in the London Gazette, September 17, 1778), reprinted in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 14, 1890, pp. 46-47.