The general also forbids in the most positive terms [Greene had written in his orders of July 28] the troops easing themselves in the ditches of the fortifications, a practice that is disgraceful to the last degree. If these matters are not attended to, the stench arising from such places will soon breed a pestilence in the camp.
It was thought that anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 men were sick. “The numbers of his [Washington’s] men are daily diminishing,” wrote an English visitor who had recently “escaped from the provincials” at New York.
They desert in large bodies, are sickly, filthy, divided, and unruly. Putrid disorders, the small pox in particular, have carried off great numbers. When I left the city there were six thousand in their hospitals, to which use they have converted King’s College.
General Heath would later estimate that 10,000 of the army were ill. “In almost every barn, stable, shed, and even under the fences and bushes, were the sick to be seen, whose countenances were but an index of the dejection of spirit and the distress they endured.” And those who had not yet been “taken down” lived with the constant dread that their turn could be next.
“These things are melancholy, but they are nevertheless true,” Washington reported to John Hancock. “I hope for better.”
Under every disadvantage my utmost exertions shall be employed to bring about the great end we have in view, and so far as I can judge from the professions and apparent disposition of my troops, I shall have their support. The superiority of the enemy and the expected attack do not seem to have depressed their spirits.
It had been a long time waiting. By mid-August it had been more than four months since the army had set off from Boston for New York, and hurry was the order of the day. The British had not arrived until the end of June and then, instead of attacking at once, as Washington expected, they had kept him watching and waiting week after week, as still more of their navy and more troops arrived. Whatever their plans or however little time remained in the “season for action,” they seemed, inexplicably, in no hurry whatever.
Washington’s quandary over where the British would strike, and how to apportion the strength he had, was no less extreme now than it had been at the start. Greene and Reed, whose judgment he valued most, were certain the enemy would attack Long Island, both because of the numbers of Loyalists there and the broad accessible beaches where troops could readily land under the protection of British ships.
But Washington worried that a landing on Long Island might be a diversion in advance of a full assault on New York. And with no way of knowing, he felt compelled now to violate one of the oldest, most fundamental rules of battle, never to divide your strength when faced by a superior force. He split his army in roughly equal parts on the theory that he could move men one way or the other over the East River according to how events unfolded.
In a long report to Washington dated August 15, Greene stressed a further cause for concern. The new troops coming over to Long Island, besides being undisciplined, inexperienced, poorly armed, and poorly equipped, were “strangers to the ground.” They had no familiarity with the lay of the land, a subject Greene considered of greatest importance. “They will not be so apt to support each other in time of action as those who have long been acquainted, and who are not only attached to each other but to the place.”
He confirmed that the troops were in “exceeding good spirits,” and that, like Washington, he took heart from this. Only at the conclusion did he acknowledge with regret that he was confined to his bed with a raging fever. Greene, the officer who had been the most concerned of all about the health of the troops, was himself stricken at the crucial hour.
AT MEETINGS of the British high command, General Henry Clinton had been making a case for an attack at the northern end of York Island, up the Hudson, but in one conference after another found he could get nowhere with William Howe, who had other plans.
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. At one point during their sojourn upriver, the Americans had sent a fireship—a ship set ablaze—against the Phoenix, but to no avail; and on the return passage, American guns had blasted away as before, “like incessant thunders,” and again without much effect.
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.
The day after, August 19, Washington had a number of old ships sunk at the mouth of the East River, between the Battery and Governor’s Island, in the hope they would stop the British fleet from any attempt at getting between New York and Brooklyn.
Captain William Tudor, the judge advocate, described the whole army as impatient for action. Spade and pick had been so well employed, wrote “Billy” Tudor, that there was “scarce a spot” left undefended. “From the advantage we now possess, I think General Howe must be repulsed whenever he attacks, but should he be able to carry the island, it must be with so prodigious a loss that victory will be ruin.” At the least, in other words, it would be Bunker Hill all over again.
On August 20, Washington learned that Nathanael Greene, upon whom he counted more than anyone, had taken a turn for the worse. Knox, in letters to his wife, reported that “poor General Greene” was “dangerously ill,” “sick nearly to death.” Left no choice, Washington relieved Greene of command, and the stricken general was moved from Brooklyn Heights across the river to the “airy” safety of a house several miles above New York.
In Greene’s place, Washington put the headstrong John Sullivan, who had recently returned from Canada and who had nothing like Greene’s ability or judgment. Further, Sullivan was, in Greene’s expression, a complete “stranger to the ground” on Long Island.
Writing to John Hancock earlier, Washington had offered a candid appraisal of Sullivan as “spirited and zealously attached to the Cause,” but also a man touched with a “tincture of vanity” and too great a “desire of being popular.” Then, generously and realistically, Washington conceded that everyone in command of the army suffered from a greater, more serious failing, himself included. “His wants,” Washington said of Sullivan, “are common to us all; the want of experience to move upon a large scale.”
AT SOME POINT in the course of Wednesday, August 21, Washington scratched off a quick note to John Hancock to say only that he had “nothing special” to communicate.
That same day, at a country estate near Elizabethtown, New Jersey, General William Livingston, a former member of Congress and newly in command of the New Jersey militia, wrote in “utmost haste” to Washington that a spy he had sent to Staten Island had just returned to report that the British were about to attack, both on Long Island and up the Hudson, and that the attack could come any hour, “this night at farthest.”
The reply from Washington, written in Joseph Reed’s hand, said, “We have made no discovery of any movement here of any consequence.”
Chapter Five
Field of Battle
Remember officers and soldiers that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty.
—General George Washington
I
ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 21, 1776, a terrifying storm broke over New York, a storm as vicious as any in living memory, and for those who saw omens in such unleashed fury from the elements—those familiar with the writings of the Roman historian Livy, say, or the plays of Shakespeare, of whom there were many—a night so violent seemed filled with portent.
Chroniclers Philip Fithian, Ambrose Serle, and Pastor Ewald Shewkirk called it “a storm like a hurricane,” “a most terrible storm,” “the most vehement I ever saw,” “an uncommon…awful scene.” A Connecticut officer on Brooklyn Heights, Major Abner Benedict, would describe how, at seven o’clock, a monstrous thundercloud rose in the west. Looming higher and higher, “it was surcharged with electricity, for the lightning was constantly searching it from limi
t to limit,” he wrote. It began to rain. “Then followed a crash louder than a thousand cannon…. In a few minutes the entire heavens became black as ink, and from horizon to horizon the whole empyrean was ablaze with lightning.” The thunder did not follow in successive peals, but in one “continuous crash.”
The storm raged for three hours, yet strangely the cloud appeared to stand still, “and swing round and round,” over the city. “The lightning fell in masses and sheets of fire to the earth, and seemed to strike incessantly and on every side.”
Houses burst into flame. Ten soldiers camped by the East River, below Fort Stirling, were killed in a single flash. In New York, a soldier hurrying through the streets was struck deaf, blind, and mute. In another part of town three officers were killed by a single thunderbolt. A later report described how the tips of their swords and coins in their pockets had been melted, their bodies turned as black as if roasted.
To Major Benedict the roar and bloodshed of battle were something to be expected. “But there seems hidden meaning, some secret purpose, when the bolt is launched by an invisible arm, and from the mysterious depth of space.”
He could not account for the cloud remaining stationary for so long, unless, he speculated, “the vast amount of arms collected in and about the city held it by attraction and drew from it such a fearful amount of electricity.”
BEFORE DAWN THE FOLLOWING DAY, Thursday, August 22, the sky was clear and cloudless, as if nothing unusual had happened. And with a fresh morning breeze and roll of drums, the long-awaited British invasion of Long Island got under way.
The frigates Phoenix (with Lord Howe aboard), Rose, and Greyhound, and two bomb ketches, the Carcass and the Thunder (vessels equipped for shore bombardment), swung loose from their moorings and stood down the Narrows to take their positions to cover the landing. Then, at approximately five o’clock, with day beginning to break, an advance corps—4,000 of the King’s elite troops led by Generals Clinton and Cornwallis—pushed off, the men packed aboard scores of flatboats (these built during the time on Staten Island) with British sailors at the oars.
Slowly but steadily, in glorious early sunshine, the invasion force proceeded across three miles of water, until, at precisely eight o’clock, at the flash of a signal gun from the Phoenix, all 4,000 troops went ashore on the long, flat, empty beach at Gravesend Bay.
Everything had been carefully prepared, every move of the army and navy carefully coordinated. The landing was as smooth as if it had been rehearsed, and there was no opposition. The comparative few of Colonel Edward Hand’s Pennsylvania riflemen posted near the shore had already withdrawn, driving off or killing cattle as they went, and burning wheat fields and farm buildings. The dense columns of smoke rising in the air could be seen in New York eight miles away.
As more troops followed, a naval spectacle of more than ninety vessels filled the Narrows. Wave after wave of soldiers came on, their red coats and polished bayonets gleaming in the bright sunshine. One battalion of blue-coated Hessian grenadiers was ferried over standing in ranks, muskets in hand and in order of battle. By noon a fully equipped army of 15,000 men and forty pieces of artillery had landed and rapidly, smoothly assembled in perfect formation on the adjacent plain. And still more would follow, including the women who were with the army.
Loyalists by the hundreds converged to welcome the invaders, many of them bringing long-hidden supplies of all kinds. The welcome was more effusive even than it had been on Staten Island. Meanwhile, Cornwallis and the advance guard pressed directly inland for six miles to establish a camp at the little Dutch village of Flatbush, near the wooded Heights of Gowan.
It all made a picturesque scene, wrote Ambrose Serle—
15,000 troops upon a fine beach…[then] forming upon the adjacent plain…. Ships and vessels with their sails spread open to dry, the sun shining clear upon them, the green hills and meadows after the rain…. Add to all this, the vast importance of the business…and the mind feels itself wonderfully engaged.
British sailors who came ashore “regaled themselves with the fine apples, which hung everywhere upon the trees in great abundance,” Serle continued. “It was really diverting to see sailors and apples tumbling from the trees together.”
But other aspects of the scene were anything but picturesque. A Hessian officer, Lieutenant Johann Heinrich von Bardeleben, described burned-out houses, fields in ashes, roads lined with dead cattle, and old people looking with sadness at what “appeared previously to have been a paradise standing in blooming abundance.”
Our regiment was camped amidst orchards of apple and pear trees…. Here, too, the picture of destruction was to be seen on all sides. Almost everywhere there were chests of drawers, chairs, mirrors with gold-gilded frames, porcelain, and all sorts of items of the best and most expensive manufacture.
The Hessian and British troops alike were astonished to find Americans blessed with such abundance—substantial farmhouses and fine furnishings. “In all the fields the finest fruit is to be found,” Lieutenant von Bardeleben wrote after taking a walk on his own, away from the path of destruction. “The peach and apple trees are especially numerous…. The houses, in part, are made only of wood and the furnishing in them are excellent. Comfort, beauty, and cleanliness are readily apparent.”
To many of the English, such affluence as they saw on Long Island was proof that America had indeed grown rich at the expense of Great Britain.
In fact, the Americans of 1776 enjoyed a higher standard of living than any people in the world. Their material wealth was considerably less than it would become in time, still it was a great deal more than others had elsewhere. How people with so much, living on their own land, would ever choose to rebel against the ruler God had put over them and thereby bring down such devastation upon themselves was for the invaders incomprehensible.
WORD REACHED NEW YORK early in the day, but Washington was badly misinformed about the size of the enemy force that had come ashore. Told that there were 8,000 or 9,000, he quickly concluded the landing was the feint he had expected, and consequently he dispatched only 1,500 more troops across the East River to Brooklyn, bringing the total American strength on Long Island to something less than 6,000 men. The expectation of another, larger strike by the British at New York or up the Hudson persisted. But then no one seemed to know what was going on.
Lieutenant Jabez Fitch, whose Connecticut regiment was one of those ordered across the river, wrote in his diary of being marched forward at Brooklyn about a mile before being told to halt and wait for further orders.
While we are waiting we hear many various reports concerning the enemy, some say they are within four miles of us, others, two and a half. Others say they have not advanced more than a mile from where they landed, which is near ten miles. So on the whole we know not what to believe concerning them until we can see them.
Colonel Moses Little, whose information was remarkably accurate, reported to his son that the enemy was within three miles, and said in the same letter, “I have thought fit to send you my will.”
Meanwhile, impressive numbers of Connecticut reinforcements had been arriving in New York. Only that day, twelve Connecticut regiments paraded in the city. “Almost one half of the grand army now consists of Connecticut troops!” an officer boasted to his wife. The whole army, noted Joseph Reed, was in better spirits than he had ever seen.
Not until the following day, August 23, did Washington confirm in his general orders that the British had come ashore on Long Island. Leaving no doubt about the seriousness of the moment for every man in the army, he appealed to their pride and patriotism and love of liberty.
The hour is fast approaching, on which the honor and success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding country depend. Remember officers and soldiers that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty—that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.
Nor should they forget that they
faced an enemy who held them in contempt.
Remember how your courage and spirit have been despised and traduced by your cruel invaders, though they have found by dear experience at Boston, Charlestown, and other places, what a few brave men contending in their own land, and in the best of causes can do, against base hirelings and mercenaries.
They must be “cool but determined.” And again, as at Boston, he threatened instant death to any man who showed cowardice.
To General Heath, in command of defenses to the north at King’s Bridge, Washington sent a message saying he dared not weaken his forces in New York until he could be certain of the enemy’s real intentions.
“I have never been afraid of the force of the enemy,” Heath answered. “I am more so of their arts. They must be well watched. They, like the Frenchman, look one way and row the other.”
Joseph Reed, who was as close to Washington as anyone, expressed the same extreme concern. “The greatest vigilance is had to prevent a surprise,” he wrote, “which we have to fear more than anything.”
Washington crossed to Brooklyn that afternoon to confer with General Sullivan. There had been some minor skirmishing only, he was told, and he returned to New York still more convinced that Howe had yet to commit his full force.
If the British had made no advance on New York with their fleet since landing on Long Island, he reported to Congress, that could very well be because it was not in their power. For days the wind had either been head-on against them or too little when the tide served.
Washington was beset by second thoughts. On August 24, he reshuffled the command at Brooklyn, placing Israel Putnam over Sullivan, a move likely to unsettle the troops who had seen the stricken Greene replaced by Sullivan, and now Sullivan superseded by Putnam all in a matter of days.
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