1776

by David McCullough

It would be six weeks before the news reached London, and on May 6, a storm of criticism and recrimination erupted in Parliament, led by the same ardent Whigs whose real power was no more than it had ever been.

He had kept his head, kept his health and his strength, bearing up under a weight of work and worry that only a few could have carried.

great political change was in the offing, Washington sensed, as he confided to Joseph Reed in one of the last letters written from his Cambridge headquarters. This he attributed in good part to the pamphlet Common Sense, published earlier in the year, the author of which, Thomas Paine, was as yet unknown.

Generals Heath and Sullivan and their forces had already departed. General Greene and five regiments followed on April 1. Three days later, on Thursday, April 4, Washington rode off from Cambridge.

Like the majority of Massachusetts men, Hodgkins had never been so far from home.

New York was not at all like Boston, geographically, strategically, and in other ways.

Here, with their overwhelming naval might and absolute control of the waters, they could strike at will and from almost any direction.

New York had “vast importance,” he wrote, because control of its harbor could mean control of the Hudson River and thus the whole Hudson–Lake Champlain corridor north to Canada, which if seized by the enemy could isolate New England from the other colonies—which, in fact, was exactly the British intention.

The city remained divided and tense.

Two-thirds of the property in New York belonged to Tories.

the potential for conspiracy, sabotage, or organized armed resistance was all too real.

new battalions had arrived from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and still more were expected from Maryland and Delaware. All were urgently needed, but they also compounded the threat of regional animosity and discord, which Washington still feared might tear the army and the country apart.

WASHINGTON HAD ARRIVED in the city with no ceremony at midday, Saturday, April 13,

Some days later, after Martha Washington arrived, they would establish a country residence at a beautiful estate overlooking the Hudson River, the Abraham Mortier house (later known as Richmond Hill)

No. 1 Broadway remained the commander’s base...

“It will require at least eight thousand men to put this place in any posture of defense,” Stirling had stressed.

Washington found the defenses only about half done,

only half were fit for duty and Washington worried exceedingly over what the toll from disease would be with the return of warm weather,

Washington had seen enough of New York on prior visits to dislike and distrust the city as the most sinful place in America, a not uncommon view.

GENERAL LEE, considered an expert on defense, had concluded that without command of the sea New York could not be held. Still, as he had said, it could be an “advantageous” battlefield. If the British were determined to take the city, they could be made to pay a heavy toll.

Washington agreed with the general outlines of the plan, including, most importantly, the premise that an effective defense of New York City would depend on the defense of Long Island. If New York was the key to the continent, then Long Island was the key to New York, and the key to the defense of Long Island was Brooklyn Heights.

Henry Knox was proud to report that 120 cannon were in place in and about the city and this time ample ammunition was standing by. The one glaring problem was an acute shortage of artillerymen.

The friendship of Knox and Greene that had begun in Knox’s Boston bookshop continued to grow, as the two officers found themselves increasingly important in the overall command and nearly always in agreement on matters of consequence. In their admiration of and loyalty to Washington, they were of one heart and both had begun helping Washington in his dealings with Congress.

in a letter to Adams of May 16, Knox expressed in the strongest terms his belief that it was time to declare American independence.

Washington had 8,880 men at hand, 6,923 of whom were fit for duty. At the same time, he received reliable word that no fewer than 17,000 hired German troops were on the way to serve under the British command, and that the full enemy force could number as many as 30,000.

The one positive development for Washington was that during his stay in Philadelphia he had convinced Joseph Reed to rejoin the army, to serve as the army’s adjutant general—its administrative head—with the rank of colonel,

Reed returned full of misgivings. He questioned his fitness for the job—“

To Washington his return was a godsend.

SUDDENLY, with the impact of an explosion, news of a Loyalist plot to assassinate the commander-in-chief burst upon the city. A

According to the accused themselves, the plan had been to recruit other soldiers to sabotage gun emplacements “when the fleet arrives,” in return for royal pardons and financial bonuses

The next morning, Saturday, June 29, officers with telescopes on the roof of Washington’s headquarters and other vantage points in the city and on Long Island, saw signals flying from the hills of Staten Island. The first of the British fleet had appeared.

The ships included the Centurion and the Chatham, of 50 guns each, the 40-gun Phoenix, and the 30-gun Greyhound with General Howe on board, in addition to the 64-gun Asia. In their combined firepower these five warships alone far exceeded all the American guns now in place on shore.

an additional 15,000 to 20,000 could be expected “hourly” on still more ships from England under the command of General Howe’s brother, Admiral Richard Lord Howe.

Many, like Henry Knox, saw at once that with the enemy massing for battle so close at hand and independence at last declared by Congress, the war had entered an entirely new stage.

on July 12. In a surprise move, the British demonstrated for all to see how much the defenders of New York had still to learn, and the larger, ominous truth that without sea power New York was indefensible.

His Majesty’s ships Phoenix and Rose, in the company of three tenders, cast off their moorings

Commanding the fire from Fort George was a nineteen-year-old captain of New York artillery, Alexander Hamilton, who had left King’s College to serve in the Cause.

Every battery along the Hudson fired away until cannon smoke lay thick and heavy over the city, and the air reeked of gunpowder.

The British ships, keeping close to the New Jersey shore, proceeded rapidly up the river

by evening they were safely anchored thirty miles above the city in the broadest part of the Hudson, the Tappan Zee at Tarrytown, where their mission was to cut off rebel supplies and rouse local Loyalists.

American gun crews had fired nearly 200 shots—more than 150 from the New York batteries alone—and to no apparent effect.

Knox’s guns had proven more deadly to his own men than to the foe. Six American artillerymen were killed, the only fatalities of the day, when their cannon blew up due to their own inexperience

On August 1, a swarm of forty-five ships carrying Generals Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis and some 3,000 troops were sighted off Sandy Hook,

On August 4, Nathanael Greene reported that another twenty-one had been counted on the horizon,

On August 12 the sea beyond the Narrows was filled with yet another one hundred ships or more bearing down on New York, a fleet so large that it took all day for them to come up the harbor under full canvas, colors flying, guns saluting, sailors and soldiers on the ships and on shore cheering themselves hoarse.

another 3,000 British troops and more than 8,000 Hessians had arrived after an arduous three months at sea.

The total British armada now at anchor in a “long, thick cluster” off Staten Island numbered nearly four hundred ships large and small, seventy-three warships, including eight ships of the line, each mounting 50 guns or more. As British officers happily reminded one another, it was the largest fleet ever seen in American waters. In fact, it was the largest expeditionary force of the eighteenth century, the largest, most powerful force ever sent forth from Britain or any nation.

All told, 32,000 troops had landed on Staten Island, a well-armed, well-equipped, trained force more numerous than the entire population of New York

On the morning of Sunday, August 18, taking advantage of a strong northeasterly wind, the Phoenix and the Rose “passed briskly” back down the Hudson to rejoin the fleet.

If anyone among the American command saw the return of the two enemy ships from upriver as a sign of trouble, there is no record of it.