First of Men

by Ferling, John;

  The two highest-ranking officers present were John Sullivan and Israel Putnam. It was an impossible as far as Washington was concerned. So certain was he of Sullivan’s liabilities that he had taken the highly unusual step of divulging to Congress his sentiments about the New Englander’s “foibles”; on the other hand, despite the facts that “Old Put” was a veteran of the French and Indian War who had commanded with valor and success atop Bunker Hill and that he was familiar with the terrain of Long Island, Washington was not comfortable with him. Finally, the commander leaned toward Sullivan, perhaps because he was younger and because he burned with a desire to erase the stigma of his recent setbacks in Canada.8

  That same day Washington told his army to expect the British assault as soon as the wind and tide were favorable. It was not an idle guess. Stirrings had been detected in the British fleet lying at anchor in The Narrows. Forty-eight hours later, at sunrise on August 22, the Americans could count an armada of four hundred transport and thirty-seven men-of-war in Gravesend Bay south of Brooklyn. This was it!9

  During the day vessel after vessel brought British and German troops to Long Island. They came ashore unopposed. Inasmuch as Washington based his plan of defense on the model prepared in the spring by General Lee, he never had intended to challenge the British landing. Since April his men had been digging an arcing line of five interconnected forts and entrenchments in the hilly Brooklyn Heights area, a district about six miles inland from Gravesend Bay. The site was ideal, for forward of these works, in the region where the British had moved into Long Island, the topography was table-top flat (thus the name of villages like Flatbush in that sector); immediately before the American lines a thick, virgin forest posed a forbidding obstacle to men and an impenetrable barrier to horse-drawn artillery. Hence, if the British reached these elevated abatis, they still could look forward to assaulting a Bunker Hill-like parapet. Keeping the adversary from this string of forts, however, meant controlling the many roads that radiated from the beach toward the hills. Lee and Washington believed they had planned for this too, and throughout that hot, dry summer troops had toiled to scratch earthworks out of the rock-hard soil in the zone where the littoral flatlands yielded to rolling woodlands. Washington’s plan, therefore, was to fight where he could use the terrain as an ally, and that was not on the beach.10

  Throughout the long day of the landing Washington’s headquarters was kept abreast of every British endeavor. The commander, however, did not cross over to Brooklyn, for it was possible that Howe’s landing was merely a feint. Indeed, Washington’s suspicions soon grew. For one thing, his agents told him that the British had landed just eight thousand men on Long Island, too few, he reasoned, to be their principal assault force. Daylight on the 23rd brought no strike. The day passed, and the next as well; other than some small arms fire around Flatbush Pass, the British remained inactive. By noon on the third day Washington was virtually certain that the landing was a ruse, although he now decided to cross to Long Island for a first-hand look. What he saw when he rode down to the earthworks south of the heights was staggering: his intelligence network had made a stupendous error: instead of eight thousand British and German troops, nearly twice that many adversaries had come ashore.

  Shaken by his discovery, Washington summoned reinforcements. He also was seized by a fit of indecision, choosing this moment to second-guess himself. With an attack likely at any moment, he removed Sullivan from command on Long Island, placing Putnam in control. He moved Sullivan over to command the left in the Continentals’ most forward line; Lord Stirling remained in charge of the right. Stirling was a New Jersey grandee who claimed a Scottish earldom, pretentiously affixing the title “Lord” to his more commonplace name—William Alexander; Stirling had served as an aide to Governor Shirley in the French and Indian War, but he had not become militarily active in the Revolution until months after Bunker Hill, and even then his chief claim to fame was that he had led the corps that captured New Jersey’s governor, William Franklin.11

  Washington returned to Manhattan and waited. Two more days and still Howe had not moved! But on August 26 information seeped into headquarters that indicated the attack was imminent. Late that afternoon he returned to Long Island. This time he did not have long to wait. That night, while Washington slept, his war finally began.

  About midnight a British column—ten thousand men strong—quietly moved out. Led by three local Tories, they took a circuitous route to the front; swinging far to the east of the Continental lines, their objective was the Jamaica Road, which would convey them behind America’s most forward emplacements. It was easier than ever they had dared imagine it could be. By 3:00 A.M. they had overpowered the lone American guards on the highway—five men who surrendered without firing a shot. At daybreak the British force back at The Narrows opened up on the Americans, though their attack, of course, was a diversion to draw attention away from the flanking brigades about to march down the Jamaica Road. The callow American command fell into the snare, however, and in mid-morning the trap slammed shut. Just as the Continentals were congratulating themselves for their steely conduct in the face of this initial British attack, the main British army waylaid them from the rear. It was worse even than the ambush of Braddock twenty years before! How could ten thousand men, marching in a column two miles long and felling trees along the way to clear a path for their cannon, arrive unnoticed?

  The New York Campaign

  Sullivan took the worst of it. Attacked from the rear while simultaneously under assault in front by blue-coated Hessians, his men had no chance. Their lines collapsed. Soldiers fled into the woods or along the roads that led to the principal American redoubts three miles away in Brooklyn Heights. Meanwhile, the British sledge hammer methodically fell upon the American right under Stirling. Some of his men fled the moment they saw a blue coat, so fierce was the reputation of the Hessians. But generally he held his troops together longer than Sullivan, then these men also broke and raced pell-mell to the rear; for many the only escape route was through a swampy salt marsh, then across Gowanus Creek, deep and more than a hundred yards wide. Scores did not make it to safety. In a half day of fighting more than three hundred Americans were killed, and three times that many were taken prisoner. Both Stirling and Sullivan were among the captives, the latter apprehended as he hid in a cornfield.12

  It was a long, stressful day for General Washington. With Reed always at his side, he had ridden here and there seeking accurate information, dispatching orders. That hard day was followed by a difficult night. The commander expected a British assault that evening, and he stayed up until early morning before he finally gave in to a few hours of fitful sleep. He awakened to find that there had been no attack. Indeed, the attack never came. Howe decided instead on a siege, overruling several of his battalion commanders who were eager to immediately storm the American redoubt. A siege would take longer, Howe knew, but he was confident that the result would be the same, and without the heavy losses that inevitably would accompany an attack. While he vainly sought sleep through much of that long, troubled night, Washington had guessed that Howe would opt for a siege operation. Sunrise brought confirmation. A British siege line was visible only six hundred yards away.13

  Washington was in a box. Half his army was on Long Island, trapped there, in fact, so long as his adversary’s navy patrolled the East River, his one conduit to safety. Yet, incredibly, Washington ordered still more men over.14

  Luckily for Washington a cold, dreary rain fell all the next day, silencing the guns. It still was raining the following day as well, when the commander summoned seven generals to a war council. At last he had made up his mind. Long Island had to be abandoned. Somehow the men had to be moved back to Manhattan. He had no difficulty convincing his officers of the wisdom of retreating.15

  He moved that night. The weather was favorable for that, if for nothing else. Late in the afternoon the rain had tapered off, then quit, jeopardizing the operation; at the mercy of
the elements, Washington had waited anxiously. But the murky, clouds had persisted, and as evening turned to night a fog stole in, dropping a thin white curtain about the redoubt and the Brooklyn beach. It was then that the operation commenced, a move to get twelve thousand men off Long Island in about eight hours. And without being discovered.

  The men were assembled and prepared to march. Sternly, they were ordered not to speak, not even to cough. They treked mutely to the beach, there to wait in silence for the vessels that would transport them across the broad river.16

  The maneuver was a stupendous accomplishment. Little went wrong. Boats were found. The men were moved stealthily, without panic. Meanwhile, Putnam had some Native Americans in his detachment set about wailing and bellowing war chants, which, in turn, seemed to induce every dog on Long Island to yowl and yammer until such a clamor resulted that the British could not hear the sounds made by their retreating foe.17 Howe awakened the following morning to discover that his bagged quarry had fled. Bunker Hill had paid still another dividend.

  The Continental army had survived its first battle, but its problems had not disappeared. Disillusioned troops, fearing that the debacle on Long Island might only be a cataclysmic preview of what was to come, deserted in droves. Moreover, discipline verged on collapse among the men who remained in camp. Soldiers seemed to come and go at will, the lawless plundering of civilians increased, and an extraordinary degree of pilfering erupted within the army. (Someone even took the opportunity of Lord Stirling’s captivity to burglarize his headquarters.) Washington threatened and cajoled, but his position was so tenuous that he was compelled to punish offenders in private, fearing that public floggings would provoke further defections.18

  Washington attributed these problems to the example set by the militiamen, and he was partially correct. But he was all too willing to overlook the possibility that the errors committed by the officers might have shaken the confidence of the men. He dumped some blame on Sullivan’s failure to secure the Jamaica Road, although that was as far as he was willing to go. He did not reproach himself.19

  Still, Washington had learned from his distasteful experience with Dinwiddie two decades before. This setback was not followed by a string of whining, complaining letters. Though his rancor toward the militiamen remained unaltered, he now took pains to be tactful, almost magnanimous, in explaining their shortcomings. In addition, despite his feelings toward certain officers, not to mention his exasperation at chronic supply shortages, he refrained from the irritation that he had exhibited while he was the callow commander of Virginia’s army.

  Defending Manhattan was his most pressing problem. An island just like the one he so recently had fled, Manhattan presented Washington with the same problems he had faced on Long Island. In fact, said Reed, it was akin to being “cooped up . . . between hawk and buzzard” all over again.20 If things went badly there were few escape routes to the mainland. One could cross King’s Bridge at Spuyten Duyvil on the northern tip of the island, or one could traverse the Hudson into New Jersey; then again, with Britain’s naval predominance egress through either artery was problematic. The commander had known since April of the adversities inherent in defending the place, yet he had remained the optimist, even in the face of the successful voyages of the Rose and Phoenix. However, the performance of his army on Long Island finally encouraged him to rethink the matter, as did a steady stream of advice, particularly from Reed and General Greene. Nevertheless, his views on strategy that September appear to have been muddled and confused, his thinking perhaps disjointed from fatigue and his bewilderingly hectic schedule.

  On the one hand Washington favored abandoning New York, then razing the city in order to prevent his adversary from using it for winter quarters. On the other hand, he denounced the notion of evacuating New York as likely to “dispirit the Troops and enfeeble our Cause.” At the same moment, however, an addled and uncertain—and obviously amateurish—General Washington spoke of the need to “avoid a general Action, or [to] put anything to the Risque.” Instead, he seemed to hint, he favored a Fabian strategy of cutting and running, of avoiding a direct clash. “On our Side,” he remarked, “the War should be defensive. It has even been called a War of Posts.” On September 7 the matter appeared to have been resolved. Having learned that Congress expected the city to be defended, a council of war voted to fight for New York.21

  Washington accepted his generals’ recommendation, only to reverse himself five days later and summon a second council of war. He now urged the evacuation of New York, but he continued to believe that he could win a pitched battle with Howe—if his men “would behave with tolerable resolution.” He had “never spared the Spade and Pick Ax,” he said, nor had he in the construction of the installations in the hills of Harlem above the city. “We are a strong Post,” he added. Harlem, not New York, was the place to fight.

  The council agreed with Washington. General Greene, who had worked tirelessly to convince both the commander and his colleagues to reconsider the decision to defend New York, was partially responsible. In addition, just after the initial meeting the British occupied Montressor’s Island at Hell’s Gate, thus permitting their navy to seal off the escape routes east of the city. Most importantly, however, word arrived that Congress had clarified its position. It now authorized the abandonment, if not the destruction, of New York.22 There was only one problem. The decision to quit the city was made too late.

  Actually, the languid Howe brothers had given Washington ample time to act, but in this instance it was the American commander who was indecisive and sluggish. Two weeks elapsed between the American escape from Brooklyn and Sir William’s next move, a period the British utilized to launch additional peace talks, nudging them into life by paroling General Sullivan, who agreed in turn to ride to Philadelphia and urge the Congress to negotiate. In the end, nothing came of the episode except that Stirling and Sullivan were exchanged and rejoined Washington—and, of course, Howe lost fifteen days of good weather.

  Finally, on September 15, Howe was ready. His plan was to invade Manhattan at Kip’s Bay, about a third of the way up the east side of the island and well north of the city. Washington had expected the British to land about four miles further north, on the Plains of Harlem, but he did have men entrenched at Howe’s projected landing site. Howe anticipated a difficult fight. His men would have to wade ashore, struggling slowly through waist-deep water, all the while braving the fire of the Americans. Once on the beach, moreover, the invaders still would be faced with surmounting a steep, rocky eminence before they actually reached the entrenched defenders. The British knew that success was not guaranteed, and on the eve of the attack anxious Hessian Jägers, the cream of the assault force, huddled together in the holds of the invasion armada quietly singing hymns.

  The assault began on a Sunday, an unusually hot, muggy day for so late in September. Just after daybreak five British warships—one of them the hyperactive Phoenix—opened up on the coastal installations. The shelling did its work. Convinced that no one could survive the awesome bombardment, America’s green officers ordered a retreat. Soon, panic set in. No longer was anyone in control, as the terrified soldiers rushed pell-mell for the apparent safety of a nearby, dark forest. A few minutes later the Jägers landed unopposed. “This on the whole was an unfortunate Day to the American States,” a soldier from North Haven, Connecticut, noted in his journal that night.23

  Washington was several miles away in Harlem when the muffled blasts of the flotilla were heard. He sped to the scene immediately, but by the time he arrived the American panic was in full swing. No words could describe the towering, purple rage that gripped Washington when he saw the troops—officers as well as men—racing for safety. He rode among them, screaming, cursing, pummeling the frightened men with his riding crop, but nothing could stem the blind terror of the soldiers. Suddenly an aide spotted a party of seventy or so Hessians approaching; in their preoccupation with stopping the rout, the general and his me
n had forgotten the enemy. The aide shouted an alarm, but Washington, stupefied, immobilized by his seething fury, was heedless. One of his men grabbed the reins of his horse and hurried Washington to a safer place.24

  The Continental army’s second major battle in New York was a second debacle. Still, the Americans were fortunate that the morning’s disaster was not followed by an even more egregious calamity. With luck, and greater resolution, the British might have immediately severed the island, isolating the Continental force still in New York City. Certainly the British had the capability to do just that, for there was nothing to prevent the invasion force from driving all the way across Manhattan to the Hudson. But Howe, expecting stiff resistance, had ordered Sir Henry Clinton, the commander of the incursionary force to secure the beachhead and await reinforcements before moving inland. A daring, intrepid general might have seen the opportunity and seized it. Not Clinton. He followed orders. Within two hours of the initial landing the British had four thousand men ashore, but none were more than a few thousand yards inland; by that time Putnam had evacuated the city and was using a seldom-traveled road—thanks to a tip from his aide, Aaron Burr—to retreat to Harlem. He brought out five thousand men and a considerable portion of the Continental army’s artillery.25

  The gloom that General Washington experienced that night probably was unmatched on any other day of this long war. In less than twenty-four hours, however, he was dramatically “inspirited,” as he put it. The commander spent a busy night shoring up his lines on Harlem Heights, and early the next morning—at almost the same moment that the redcoats paraded down Broadway to take possession of New York—he dispatched patrols to discover what Howe had been up to. Garbled reports of British movements soon filtered back to headquarters. Reed, frustrated by his desk job amid all the action, volunteered to lead a party in quest of definitive intelligence. Washington consented. Not long thereafter the commander also rode out for a look. A few minutes later a contingent of Continentals on the left encountered a British advance party of three hundred, and a sharp fire fight erupted. Washington, joined now by Reed, hurried toward the sound of the shooting, arriving in time to hear an insolent redcoat bugler blow the call to a fox hunt. Reed was both enraged and embarrassed. The British impertinence “seemed to crown our disgrace,” he said of their effrontery. But if Washington was piqued, he did not show it. Instead, he reacted by busily hurling reinforcements into the skirmish, and he watched with grim satisfaction as his men stood and fought, and eventually compelled their foe to retreat. It had been a small, insignificant encounter, but its effect on Washington was like a magic elixir. At last, he thought, his untrained men had “persevered . . . with the greatest Resolution.”26