I wish I could send you the trial, and will the moment I can obtain
one. I think myself, and I dare say you will think on the perusal,
that the affair redounds more to my honour, and the disgrace of my
persecutors, than, in the warmth of indignation, either I or my
aid-de-camps have represented it. As I have no idea that a proper
reparation will be made to my injured reputation, it is my intent,
whether the sentence is reversed or not reversed, to resign my
commission, retire to Virginia, and learn to hoe tobacco, which I find
is the best school to form a consummate _general_. This is a discovery
I have lately made. Adieu. Dear sir, believe me to be your most
Sincerely obliged servant,
C. LEE.
After the battle of Monmouth, in June, 1778, Colonel Burr was
constantly employed. His health, from the fatigues of that and the
subsequent day, was greatly impaired. Early in October, he found
himself, in a measure, unfit for active service. He left West Point,
where his regiment was stationed, and repaired to Elizabethtown, in
the hope that a few weeks of repose might prove beneficial; but in
these hopes he was sorely disappointed. He then determined to ask a
furlough, and retire from the army for a few months, provided the
furlough was granted without his receiving pay. On this point he was
very fastidious. By these feelings he was uniformly governed through a
long life. He never sought nor accepted an office for the emolument it
afforded.
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