The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy Book 1)

by Rick Atkinson

A mile from Basking Ridge, perhaps alerted to Lee’s presence by loyalist informants, Harcourt sent half a dozen scouts ahead under a young firebrand officer named Banastre Tarleton, the son of a prosperous slave trader who had served as the mayor of Liverpool. Tarleton spotted two rebel sentries, captured them without gunplay, and soon learned that Lee was in a nearby hostelry with paltry security. Colonel Harcourt quickly sketched a plan, and at ten a.m. dragoons edged through the orchard and woodlot bracketing Widow White’s tavern. Inside Lee had dressed, finished his correspondence, and ordered his horse saddled for the short ride to rejoin his corps. Major James Wilkinson, who had arrived in the small hours with dispatches from General Gates, had just eaten a late breakfast when he peered from the window to see redcoats thundering down the front lane. “Here, sir, are the British cavalry!” he yelled. Lee leaped to his feet. “Where? Where is the guard?” he demanded. “Damn the guard, why don’t they fire?” Garbled shouts, whinnying horses, and sporadic gunshots could be heard through the walls. Tarleton clattered up to the front entrance—“making all the noise I could,” he later reported—then fired into the door, bellowing, “I know General Lee is in the house!” Sixty or seventy British bullets riddled the tavern. Lee paced upstairs, brusquely dismissing a suggestion that he hide in his bed. “If the General does not surrender in five minutes,” Tarleton shouted, “I will set f...