Had Howe pressed on the afternoon of the 27th, the British victory could have been total. Or had the wind turned earlier, and the British navy moved into the East River, the war and the chances of an independent United States of America could have been long delayed, or even ended there and then.
WHEN NEWS OF THE BATTLE, together with Howe’s exaggerated estimates of American losses, at last reached London, it caused a sensation. A victory so grand, said the press, “fully controverted” all the “full-mouthed predictions” of the opponents of the war. Edmund Burke, Charles Fox, and others in Parliament opposed to the war were as downcast as prominent Tories were jubilant. News to “enliven our countenances,” the Tory historian Edward Gibbon called it.
All Britain was in “an ecstasy which I cannot express,” a friend wrote to Henry Clinton. Bells were rung in London and in rural hamlets, windows lighted with candles. The King was reported to have paused during a stroll in Kew Gardens to express his “great satisfaction” with the report of General Howe, upon whom he was to confer the Order of Bath.
IN CONGRESS the defeat was spoken of privately as an “unfortunate beginning” at best, and more candidly as a “disaster.” But there was no panic.
Elsewhere in the country early reports of the battle were taken at first as “Tory news.” Afterward, great anxiety, if not panic, set in. “All in solicitude,” recorded the Reverend Ezra Stiles at his home in Newport. “Tories rejoicing. Sons of Liberty dejected.”
Newspapers put heavy emphasis on Washington’s daring night retreat, calling it renewed cause for confidence in the army and in Washington most of all. The escape from Brooklyn was “a masterpiece,” read a report in the New England Chronicle. “The manner in which our retreat was performed,” reported the Virginia Gazette, “reflects the highest credit upon our commander-in-chief, and the officers in general.”
While one writer in the New England Chronicle declared, “Providence favored us,” another in the Massachusetts Spy assured his readers that the defeat on Long Island and consequent distress were “loud speaking testimonies of the displeasure and anger of Almighty God against a sinful people.”
We have thought God was for us, and had given many and signal instances of his power and mercy in our favor, and had greatly frowned upon and disappointed our enemies; and verily it has been so. But have we repented and given him the glory? Verily no. His hand seems to be turned and stretched out against us—and strong is his hand.
In New York the gloom of defeat hung heavy. The high spirits of the soldiers that had been counted on for so long to compensate for, even overcome, whatever advantages the enemy might have, were gone. The army that had crossed in the night from Brooklyn was, in the light of day on August 30, a sorry sight to behold—filthy, bedraggled, numb with fatigue, still soaked to the skin, many of them sick and emaciated. The army that had gone off to Brooklyn cheering was no more.
“It was a surprising change,” Pastor Shewkirk noted in his diary, “the merry tones on drums and fifes had ceased…. It seemed a general damp had spread, and the sight of scattered people up and down the streets was indeed moving.”
They had been swiftly, overwhelmingly defeated. “A hard day this, for us poor Yankees” was young Enoch Anderson’s unadorned summing up of the Battle of Brooklyn.
But as resounding as the British victory had been, it was not a decisive victory. The war had not been ended at a stroke by a superior force of professional soldiers. Washington and his 9,000 troops had survived to fight another day.
FOR THE FIRST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS in New York, nearly all were collapsed in sleep, including the commander-in-chief. Not until Saturday, August 31, could Washington summon the strength even to notify Congress of the escape. He had been “entirely unfit to take pen in hand,” he explained. “Since Monday scarce any of us have been out of the lines till our passage across the East River was effected yesterday morning, and for forty-eight hours preceding that I had hardly been of[f] my horse and never closed my eyes.”
Presently he was “much hurried and engaged in arranging and making new dispositions of our forces,” he said. He would save for another letter the extremity of the concern he felt.
Part III
The Long Retreat
These are the times that try men’s souls.
—Thomas Paine, The Crisis
December 1776
Chapter Six
Fortune Frowns
We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged.
—Colonel Henry Knox
I
IHAVE ONLY TIME to say I am alive and well,” Joseph Reed reported to his wife Esther. His spirits, however, were but “middling.”
The justice of our cause, the hope of success, and every other circumstance that can enliven us, must be put into the scale against those of a contrary kind, which I allow to be serious…. My honor, duty, and every other tie held sacred among men, call upon me to proceed with firmness and resolution…. My country will, I trust, yet be free, whatever may be our fate who are cooped up, or are in danger of being so, on this tongue of land, where we ought never to have been.
It was “a mere point of honor which keeps us here,” he had written earlier to a friend. Now, in the dismal aftermath of defeat, the idea of risking the fate of America in defense of New York seemed so senseless that submitting to the “dispensations of Providence,” as he said, was about the only recourse left.
The army that had shown such remarkable discipline and unity through the long night of the escape from Brooklyn had rapidly become engulfed with despair, turned surly and out of hand. Gangs of soldiers roamed the streets of New York breaking into houses and taking whatever they wanted. Even Lord Stirling’s mansion, at the corner of Broad and Beaver streets, was wantonly ransacked.
Joseph Hodgkins, already as downcast as he had ever been over the defeat, learned in a letter from his wife of the death of their small, ailing son. It was “heavy news,” he told her. He was trying hard not to be discouraged over the way the war was going.
But only consider a minute, we have been all this summer digging and building of forts to cover our heads and now we have been obliged to leave them and now we are here and not one shovel full of dirt to cover us…. I don’t write this to discourage you or to increase you[r] trouble, but only to let you know as near as I can of our circumstances.
Still concerned for her, he wrote again the next day to assure her he himself had suffered no real damage thus far. “I had my sleeve button shot out of my sleeve and the skin a little grazed, but through mercy, received no other hurt.” There was no mention of giving up and coming home.
But others by the hundreds were doing just that, many walking off with their arms and ammunition. (One soldier was found lugging a cannonball, to give to his mother, he explained, to use to pound mustard seed.) Entire Connecticut militia units were departing en masse, saying they had had enough. The roads in Connecticut and New Jersey were filled with soldiers heading home. Probably one in four carried disease, and those who did not spread their own corrosive discouragement.
Men in the ranks complained they had been “sold out.” Some were openly saying they longed for the return of General Lee. Washington’s leadership was in question. Colonel John Haslet wrote to Caesar Rodney, a delegate to Congress, “I fear General Washington has too heavy a task, assisted mostly by beardless boys.”
Henry Knox, whose faith in Washington never faltered, wrote to his wife that the pressing need was for great men “who when fortune frowns will not be discouraged.” If there was a grievous flaw in how things were being run, it was the “stupid parsimony” of the Congress.
Washington had concluded his general orders for September 2 with a call for steadfastness and valor in the defense of New York: “Now is the time for every man to exert himself and make our country glorious or become contemptible.” But by all signs his words had little effect. Indeed, in a letter to Congress written that same day, Washington portrayed m
uch of the army as plainly “contemptible.”
The militia, instead of calling forth their utmost efforts to a brave and manly opposition, in order to repair our losses, are dismayed, intractable, and impatient to return. Great numbers of them have gone off, in some instances almost by whole regiments.
Worse, their example had “infected” others to the point that he no longer had confidence in the army as a whole and for the first time questioned whether New York had become a lost cause.
He needed to know from Congress whether, in the event he had to abandon the city, it should be left to “stand as winter quarters for the enemy”—meaning, should it be burned? “They would derive great conveniences from it, on the one hand, and much property would be destroyed on the other.” The question, he wrote, allowed “but little time for deliberation.”
The letter went immediately off to Philadelphia, where, as it happened, General John Sullivan arrived that same day, September 2, having been temporarily paroled by Lord Howe to deliver a peace overture to Congress. Washington, who took a dim view of Sullivan’s mission, had nonetheless given his approval, feeling it was not for him to withhold whatever Howe had to say. As Sullivan reported, His Lordship, being “desirous of an accommodation with America,” wished to meet “almost any place” with a delegation from Congress.
British troops all the while were advancing on the opposite shore of the East River, heading north in the direction of King’s Bridge. Then, in the dark of night, September 3, the first enemy ship, the frigate Rose, towing thirty flatboats, started up the river with a north-flowing tide, anchoring ultimately in the mouth of Newtown Creek, directly across from a large cove on the New York side known as Kips Bay.
The day after brought a “mighty movement” of transports and more flatboats up the East River, while two more frigates, the Repulse and the Pearl, sailed into the Hudson.
In Philadelphia, Congress resolved that in the event General Washington found it necessary to withdraw from New York, there must be “no damage” done to the city, as Washington was informed in a letter from John Hancock. And as if to underscore how little the members of Congress comprehended the actual situation, it was further stated that they had “no doubt of being able to recover” the city, should the enemy “obtain possession of it.”
Where the British would strike was as uncertain as it had been from the start. What Washington feared most was an attack from the rear, in the vicinity of King’s Bridge, and having convinced himself that this was Howe’s intention, he began moving troops there. General Heath warned that the enemy might land on the coast of Westchester County, beyond the Harlem River. Everything depended on reliable intelligence, Washington told Heath, and he had none. He urged Heath to “leave no stone unturned” or spare any expense in finding out all he could as soon as possible.
“We think (at least I do) that we cannot stay,” Joseph Reed wrote again to his wife, “and yet we do not know how to go, so that we may be properly said to be between hawk and buzzard.”
Reed, who seemed older and wiser than his years, had tried always to take a large, philosophical view of life’s travails, and this, in combination with a natural cheerfulness and a strong, analytical mind, had put him at the head of the legal profession in Philadelphia while still in his early thirties. But it was a struggle now for him to offer even a fragment of hope. It was the sluggards and skulkers, the tavern patriots and windy politicians, who evoked a wrath he could not contain.
When I look round, and see how few of the numbers who talked so largely of death and honor are around me, and that those who are here are those from whom it was least expected…I am lost in wonder and surprise…. Your noisy sons of liberty are, I find, the quietest in the field…. An engagement, or even the expectation of one, gives a wonderful insight into character.
Though an observer only through the Battle of Brooklyn, Reed had been with Washington throughout. For six days there had not been time even for a change of clothes, and, like Washington, he had had no sleep for several nights. Whether he could continue to bear up under the strain and fatigue, as Washington seemed able to do, remained to be seen.
Esther, as she wrote, hoped he would come home to be with her at the birth of their fourth child.
It was thought that the American army, spread now from the Battery to King’s Bridge, numbered 20,000, but with men deserting in droves, it was difficult to tell. Perhaps a quarter of the men were sick, and officers, as well as men in the ranks, often feigned sickness.
One of the most seriously ill had recovered, however, and with immediate consequences. On September 5, Nathanael Greene returned to duty and promptly submitted to Washington an emphatic, closely reasoned argument for abandoning New York at once. If illness had denied him the chance to play a part at Brooklyn, he had by no means let his mind drift from the fate of the army, or all that was at stake. While others, like Reed, were of the same mind, Greene alone committed his views to paper.
I think we have no object on this side of King’s Bridge. Our troops are now so scattered that one part may be cut off before the others can come to their support. In this situation suppose the enemy should run up the North River several ships of force and a number of transpo[rts] at the same time, and effect a landing between the town and middle division of the army. Another party from Long Island should land right opposite. These two parties form a line across the Island and entrench themselves. The two flanks of this line could be easily supported by the shipping. The center, fortified with the redoubts, would render it very difficult, if not impossible, to cut our way through…. Should this event take place, and by the by I don’t think it very improbable, your Excellency will be reduced to that situation which every prudent general would wish to avoid, that is of being obligated to fight the enemy to a disadvantage or submit.
It had been agreed, Greene continued, that without the possession of Long Island, New York could not be held. The army, dispersed as it was from one end of York Island to the other, could not possibly stop an attack, and another such defeat as at Brooklyn could be ruinous. “ ’Tis our business to study to avoid any considerable misfortune.” Besides, two-thirds of the city belonged to Tories. There was no sound reason to run any great risk in its defense.
“I give it as my opinion that a general and speedy retreat is absolutely necessary and that the honor and interest of America require it.”
Further, he would burn the city. Once taken by the British, it could never be recovered without a naval force superior to theirs. Left standing, it would guarantee them abundant housing, wharves, and a market for their every need. Greene could not conceive of a single benefit to the American cause that could come from preserving New York, and he urged Washington to summon a war council.
By the time the council convened, on September 7, at Washington’s headquarters at the Mortier house north of town, the letter from John Hancock had arrived saying Congress wanted no damage done to New York.
It was agreed by the council that if the British were to bring up their fleet and open fire, the city was untenable. Greene, Reed, Israel Putnam, and several others called for a total and immediate withdrawal from all of York Island. This, they argued, would deprive the enemy of the advantage of their sea power, “put nothing to the hazard,” and keep the army together.
But they were overruled by the majority, as Washington promptly reported to Congress. What Washington said at the meeting is not known, as no record survived, though it appears he thought the directive from Congress was an egregious mistake and that Nathanael Greene had the right idea. In a letter to Lund Washington he would later write, “Had I been left to the dictates of my own judgment, New York should have been laid in ashes.”
To Congress on September 8, Washington expressed his fear of being outflanked again by the enemy. “On every side there is a choice of difficulties,” he wrote. And with every decision went the possibility that his army would not fight. It was a fear that never left him. Young, inexperienced soldie
rs who were so greatly outnumbered ought never be drawn into an open conflict, he wrote.
“We should on all occasions avoid a general action or put anything to the risk unless compelled by a necessity.”
Yet he seemed unable to make up his mind. “On the other hand, to abandon a city which has been by some deemed defensible and on whose works much labor has been bestowed, has a tendency to dispirit the troops and enfeeble our cause.” Strong posts at Fort Washington and on the opposite side of the Hudson would secure the Hudson corridor. A retreating army was always “encircled with difficulties,” and “declining an engagement subjects a general to reproach.”
But then he held out the possibility that some “brilliant stroke” might save the cause, though who knew what that might be.
It did not help that the men were badly fed and unpaid—many had seen no pay for two months—while across the East River the British were well supplied with fresh provisions from the farms of Long Island, “a pleasing circumstance,” as Ambrose Serle noted, “both for the health and spirit of the troops.” The Hessians especially claimed they had never fared so well.
AT PHILADELPHIA, after days of debate, Congress decided to send a delegation of three—Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge—to meet with Lord Howe. The three men departed on September 9.
On September 10, advancing British forces crossed from Long Island to occupy Montresor’s Island at the mouth of the Harlem River.
Nathanael Greene pressed Washington to reconvene the war council. The situation was “so critical and dangerous” that a decision must be made, Washington read in a joint statement signed by Greene and six other general officers, this written September 11, the day the three-man congressional delegation crossed from New Jersey to Staten Island to confer with Lord Howe.
David McCullough Library E-book Box Set Page 23