The role of generals in 18th century warfare was one of organisation, planning and supervision, not literally physical fighting. They would accompany their army on campaign and find a good position to set up their command centre, usually in a town or village near to the location of the expected battle, and then ride with the army to the sight of the battle itself. The general would find a location with the best vantage point over the battlefield, e.g. the top of a hill or valley, because in this era before electronic communication, they had to be able to see everything going on to react to situations as they occurred and give accurate and relevant orders to their subordinates, who would then transmit these orders down the chain of command to the officers physically leading the troops in battle. This vantage point, despite not being in the thick of the fighting, would often still be in close proximity to it, and 18th and 19th century warfare is ripe with examples of generals being shot at or even killed by stray bullets or cannon balls. The distance was usually roughly around five hundred metres to a kilometre, although this was subject to change depending on geographic considerations and the size of the armies involved. Some generals preferred to get as close as possible to the actual fighting (such as Napoleon a few decades later) while some were content to remain in their original command centre in a nearby village and simply issue written orders for their aides-de-camps to carry out to the officers in the field (an approach vaguely more similar, but on a smaller scale, to how generals in the army operate today). Washington generally went with the former approach, both out of a sense of personal bravery and honour, and also because his army was generally quite small and easy to manage up-close. Washington never picked up a musket and shot at the British in the front lines with the rest of the infantry, as it were, because this simply wasn't the job of a general, but there are several examples of him personally riding out among the troops to rally them when they were broken and routing, putting himself at great risk of injury or capture. But generally if a retreat was necessary and was able to be conducted professionally and in an orderly fashion, he would not ride out in the front lines, because he would be needed at the rear of the army to coordinate the retreat and ensure the army retreated in the correct direction. He would not have been the last man on the battlefield, but would have rode with the bulk of the army as it retreated, often well before the enemy army could reach them.