As the British entered New Jersey, their baggage train stretched out a full twelve miles, making a long and enticing target for American militiamen.17 Meanwhile, Washington’s regulars caught up with the departing British forces in the middle of New Jersey, in a messy encounter now remembered as the Battle of Monmouth. In a kind of combined arms operation of the eighteenth century, the regulars charged the British while the militias hung on their fringes, especially denying them safe access to watering holes. This would be Washington’s last battle until Yorktown, more than three years later.
