George Washington

by Stephen Brumwell

  By pushing just a mile or more westward across Manhattan to the Hudson River, Clinton could have trapped about 3,500 Continentals still remaining in and around New York City under General Putnam. Unsure of the opposition and lacking orders to advance, Clinton instead consolidated his bridgehead until reinforcements arrived. By 5 p.m. Howe had come ashore with a further 9,000 men, but by then the city’s defenders had already escaped. Jettisoning their cumbersome cannon, they had headed up the Hudson shore to rendezvous with Washington’s main army at Harlem Heights that evening. Meanwhile, the British marched into New York, marveling at the strength of its fortifications and relieved that they had fallen without a fight. Washington’s new position at Harlem was naturally strong, and he had no doubt of rebuffing an enemy attack—provided his troops showed “tolerable bravery.” To his “extreme affliction,” however, recent experience had only reinforced his growing conviction that such conduct was “rather to be wished for than expected.”37

  Here, at least, Washington was soon to be pleasantly surprised. On September 16, the day after the Kip’s Bay stampede, his men went far to redeem themselves. During a sprawling engagement, several companies of impetuous British light infantry pushed forward against Washington’s Harlem lines, leaving their supports far behind. These elite troops used bugle horns rather than drums to transmit orders; according to Colonel Joseph Reed, when they emerged from the woods into the open, they sounded the hunting call “in the most insulting manner,” as if celebrating a kill. To Reed, this braying seemed to “crown” their “recent disgrace.” For a passionate fox hunter like Washington, it must have been the final straw. Here at last was a chance to vent pent-up frustrations and hit back at the enemy. Rather than adopt a defensive stance in accordance with his recent assurances to Congress, he authorized several units to advance, engage, and surround the rash and impertinent redcoats. The plan failed to unfold precisely as envisaged, but it was effective enough all the same: outnumbered by determined Marylanders and Virginians, the light infantrymen were pushed back. Their retreat was covered by more redcoats, including Highlanders from the 42nd Foot, a famed regiment destined to become better known by its unofficial title, the “Black Watch.” Dismissed by the British as no more than a scrimmage, in which the cocksure “Light Bobs” had gallantly fought their way out of a scrape, the so-called Battle of Harlem Heights was undeniably significant for Washington and his army. The Americans had not only faced some of Howe’s best soldiers but had seen their backs. Morale soared accordingly; as the exultant Reed reported, they had “recovered their spirits and feel a confidence which before they had quite lost.”38

  Nathanael Greene, who had commanded the front line at Harlem Heights, downplayed his first battlefield engagement as a “skirmish” rather than an “action.” But, like Reed, he knew that its results far outweighed its scale: the Americans “had advanced upon the plain ground without cover,” driving the British before them. General Putnam, Colonel Reed, and the other officers present had acted with noble spirit. If all the colonies could field such fine leaders, Greene believed, there would be no need to doubt the rank and file: indeed, there “never was troops that would stand in the field longer than the American soldiery. If the officers were as good as the men, and had only a few months to form the troops by discipline, America might bid defiance to the whole world.”39

  Aptly enough, on the very day Washington’s soldiers demonstrated their fighting spirit at Harlem, Congress authorized a major expansion and reorganization of the Continental Army along lines that he had been lobbying for since the previous summer. Shocked by the debacle on Long Island and further swayed by Washington’s urgent pleas in its wake, delegates voted for what many patriots still considered unthinkable—a standing army of long-service troops. Congress resolved that eighty-eight battalions, each of 738 officers and men—a total force of 65,000—should be recruited forthwith, with state quotas based upon population: hence Massachusetts and Virginia were each required to raise fifteen battalions, Delaware and Georgia just one apiece. Crucially, given Washington’s diatribes against the bane of short-term enlistments, recruits for this new army would serve “during the present war.” As Washington knew from hard experience, it was one thing to authorize an army on paper, quite another to raise it. Above all, it was necessary to recognize that, for all the fine talk of liberty and freedom, men required to risk their lives for the cause of American independence had the right to expect realistic, concrete rewards. In line with another appeal from Washington, which had deplored the existing $10 bounty as derisory—especially when a man could get twice as much for a month or two in the militia—any Continental soldier who signed up for the duration would receive a bounty of $20. As Washington the land-hungry former surveyor appreciated only too well, a chunk of the country that they were fighting to defend would offer recruits an even stronger reason to shoulder a musket for American liberty. Congress agreed with his reasoning, adding 100 acres of land to each man’s bounty. After debate, Congress decided to extend the land deal to men prepared to enlist for three years. Once he had heard the new recruitment terms Washington pushed for further incentives, including the annual issue of a suit of good clothes to each noncom and soldier.40

  No less crucial was the question of the army’s leadership, another long-standing Washington gripe and one underlined by Greene’s pointed comments following the unexpected success at Harlem Heights. Before Washington received news of Congress’s resolutions to form the new army, he had written to Hancock pleading for changes that would permit a reformation of the officer corps. Employing what he casually dismissed as “a few moments” borrowed from “the hours allotted to sleep,” but which must have been a lengthy stint of brow-furrowing toil, he composed a long and closely argued letter.41

  Washington believed that the “general run of the officers which compose the present army” fell far short of the ideal; great care must be taken in choosing those for the new army, even if it took twice as long to complete the regiments. The type of officer Washington had in mind was described in a letter to his Virginian friend Patrick Henry: when selecting the officers for the fifteen battalions to be raised by Henry’s state, pains should be taken to guard against “the soldier and officer being too nearly on a level.” In Washington’s opinion, a clear distinction was necessary: when previous military experience was not an issue, he advised, “the true criterion to judge by . . . is to consider whether the candidate for office has a just pretension to the character of a gentleman, a proper sense of honor, and some reputation to lose.”42 In other words, men like Washington himself.

  Just as the rank and file deserved decent bounties, so their officers should receive enough pay to allow them to live like “gentlemen.” They, too, needed something more to fight for than a patriotic belief in the worthiness of their cause. As Washington emphasized to John Hancock, only this financial independence would encourage “men of character to engage; and till the bulk of your officers are composed of such persons as are actuated by principles of honor, and a spirit of enterprise, you have little to expect from them.” After all, he added, surely something was “due to the man who puts his life in his hand, hazards his health and forsakes the sweets of domestic enjoyments.” Recalling his frustrations at the unequal status of redcoats and provincials during the last war, he wondered why a Continental captain should receive half the pay of his British counterpart for performing the same duties. As soon as Washington received Congress’s decision to place its faith in the new standing army he repeated his plea for higher officers’ pay, enclosing an estimate covering all ranks from colonels to surgeons’ mates.43

  Alongside his calls for a well-led and reliable force of long-service regulars, Washington had consistently appealed for his army to be placed under tougher discipline. As he had informed Hancock on September 25, the sanctions available under the original Articles of War agreed by Congress in June 1775 were laughably weak. With one or two exceptions, for “the most atrocious offenc
es” the maximum punishment was a mere thirty-nine lashes. Even when properly inflicted, this failed to intimidate offenders, with “many hardened fellows” boasting that they would endure it again for a bottle of rum. In consequence, desertion was rife, with thirty or forty men slipping off together; likewise “the infamous practice of plundering,” which was pursued so indiscriminately that it threatened to alienate the civilian population—with consequences “fatal both to the country and army.”

  Here again Washington’s persistent lobbying had already hit home. On September 20, Congress approved new and far stricter Articles of War. John Adams was a key player, egged on by his friend William Tudor. As judge advocate, Tudor shared Washington’s view that the existing Articles were toothless: far from “making soldiers,” they were “breeding highwaymen and robbers.” Indeed, men who’d joined the fight from a sense of virtue had now lost their enthusiasm and were “sinking into an army of mercenaries” who must be restrained “by a fear of punishment.” Adams, who recalled that he and Thomas Jefferson had formed a committee to thrash out the revisions, readily acknowledged that they had used the British Army’s regulations as a template. Anticipating opposition within Congress regardless of what was proposed, Adams therefore resolved to forward “a complete system at once” and let it “meet its fate.” As there was already a set of articles in existence “which had carried two empires to the head of mankind” (the British rules were no more than a literal translation of the Roman Army’s, he claimed), they had been copied “totidem verbis.” In fact, there had been some changes, not least the substitution of “the Congress” for “the King,” but, as Adams proudly recalled, the Articles of September 1776 were essential for the new modeling of the Continental Army: “They laid the foundation of a discipline, which in time brought our troops to a capacity of contending with British veterans, and a rivalry with the best troops of France.”44

  The revised Articles came close to what Washington wanted to impose his notions of discipline. Now deserters and plunderers, as well as mutineers and cowards, could face the death penalty, while the maximum number of lashes for less heinous offenses was upped to 100. This was less than Washington had often inflicted upon the men of his Virginia Regiment, while the redcoats regularly faced far heavier floggings: that January, for example, a British court-martial in Boston had sentenced private Thomas MacMahan to a thousand lashes for receiving stolen goods; his wife, Isabella, received a hundred lashes at the “cart’s tail” for the same crime.45 The stiffening of the Continental Army’s discipline nonetheless signaled a commitment to increased order and professionalism; it also acknowledged that many recruits for the new, long-service army would be a different breed from those who had flocked to the siege of Boston, driven primarily by patriotic zeal: as the new Continentals increasingly resembled the soldiers of traditional European armies, not least the British, they would need to be kept in line by tough discipline akin to that customary within those organizations.46

  Coming after all of that summer’s humiliations and frustrations, Washington’s success in persuading Congress to recognize that the real advantages of a disciplined “standing army” far outweighed the remote “evils to be apprehended from one” was a significant victory, as important for the future of American independence as any scored on a battlefield. In the autumn of 1776, however, Congress’s new model Continental Army existed only in theory. Until it materialized, Washington was left with soldiers whose enlistments mostly expired at the end of the year or earlier. As he complained to his cousin Lund on September 30, the army’s strength was “fluctuating, uncertain, and forever far short of report—at no time, I believe, equal to twenty thousand men fit for duty.” That day, the hale men numbered 14,759, with another 3,427 detached “on command,” and that with the “enemy within stone’s throw of us.” It was driving Washington to distraction: “In short, such is my situation that if I were to wish the bitterest curse to an enemy on this side of the grave, I should put him in my stead with my feelings; and yet I do not know what plan of conduct to pursue.”47

  It was the old story that Washington had faced in 1756–57 on the raid-lashed frontiers of Virginia, but now writ large: “I see the impossibility of serving with reputation,” he told Lund, “or doing any essential service to the cause by continuing in command, and yet I am told that if I quit the command, inevitable ruin will follow, from the distraction that will ensue.” Washington had accepted the trust that Congress had placed upon him; he was honor-bound to uphold it while he could. Despite being “wearied to death all day with a variety of perplexing circumstances,” he was now resolved to stand his ground at Harlem while he’d breath to do so. As the enemy could not afford “to waste the season that is now fast advancing,” a few more days should bring matters to a head.

  The three weeks following the clash at Harlem Heights had seen another halt in Howe’s operations as he took stock before making his next move. Howe was clearly wary of Washington’s latest position and unwilling to risk his precious men in an all-out assault that was likely to incur heavy casualties. According to Lord Howe’s well-informed secretary, Ambrose Serle, on September 17, when the general came on board the Eagle, he told how the rebels had been “driven back to some immensely strong works . . . on very advantageous ground.”48

  It is also possible that Howe was hoping to coordinate his next offensive move with a British advance against Albany from Canada. Intelligence from Quebec certainly suggested the likelihood of a link-up. In the days after the action at Harlem Heights, Serle noted optimistic reports that the “Northern Army” was rolling south down the Hudson Valley. Indeed, a rebel deserter from that front maintained that General Burgoyne had taken several of their armed vessels, was passing over lakes Champlain and George, and expected to reach New York “very shortly.”49

  In fact, there would be no junction between Britain’s New York and Canadian armies that year, or in any other. Despite Burgoyne’s promising beginning in shunting the demoralized rebels out of Canada, by late summer his offensive had lost momentum, owing largely to the courage, drive, and initiative of the ever-resourceful Benedict Arnold. As Arnold had hastily assembled a ramshackle fleet on Lake Champlain, Britain’s commander in chief in Canada, Governor Guy Carleton, was obliged to construct a flotilla capable of facing it. The miniature navies clashed on October 21, and, although the British blasted Arnold’s fleet into splinters, its dogged resistance bought enough time to discourage Carleton from pushing on from Crown Point to Ticonderoga and to halt his campaign by pulling back to the northern end of Lake Champlain. Because of Arnold, another fine opportunity to snuff out the rebellion was lost.50

  Following William Howe’s capture of New York City, his brother had built on that success to play another conciliatory card. Rebuffed by Congress, he now tried a direct appeal to the colonists at large. On September 19, the Howes issued a joint declaration. In vague terms, it invited Americans to discuss ways by which peace and unity could be restored to the empire, indicating that King George III was inclined to revise the legislation that had sparked the rebellion in the first place. Not surprisingly, this latest initiative was greeted with derision, not only by the rebels, but also by Loyalists and, not least, by British Army officers. Everyone—save, it seemed, for the Howe brothers themselves—could see that the time for talk was over. Hostilities would cease only if Washington and his generals were pounded into submission by hard fighting. Yet General Howe continued to favor a war of maneuver, methodically reclaiming territory rather than seeking a decisive battle that might inflict unhealable wounds, while Lord Howe maintained his hopes for a negotiated settlement. In doggedly pursuing reconciliation, the brothers seemed untroubled that this approach was utterly at odds with the objectives of the strategists in London, who sought decisive victories that would crush the rebellion.51

  Washington knew that the enemy’s command of the waterways around New York gave them the mobility to land wherever they chose, and high enough up Manhattan Isla
nd to sever his own retreat route to the north, via King’s Bridge. Yet he still stayed put at Harlem Heights, now seemingly fixated on the idea of fighting a defensive action that would oblige Howe to risk a bloody frontal assault; instead of preempting him by abandoning the Harlem lines and moving north, he awaited his attack. Given his amphibious capacity, Howe had other, less costly options. On October 12, Richard Howe’s ships disembarked 4,000 troops at Throg’s Neck, on the East River and above Washington’s position.

  The peninsula selected for the landing was a poor choice, too constricted and marshy for a rapid breakout in the teeth of determined defenders ensconced behind stone walls. Howe would have to strike elsewhere. Abortive or not, the Throg’s Neck landing left Howe’s intentions beyond doubt. Washington must withdraw his troops from Manhattan Island while he still could. On October 16, he urged retreat to another council of war and was forcefully seconded by Major General Charles Lee, who had now returned from South Carolina. The next day, most of the army began falling back from Harlem Heights. However, it was also agreed that Fort Washington in northern Manhattan should be “retained as long as possible.” This dubious decision was justified on the grounds that the fort would maintain communications with New Jersey and block further British efforts to push ships up the Hudson.52