Though he was a latecomer to the cause of independence who had worked tirelessly in London to effect a reconciliation, his conversion was as complete as it was sudden. He was convinced that the decision by George III and the British ministry to, in effect, declare war on the American colonies would go down as the biggest blunder in the history of British statecraft, and he had apprised Richard Howe of that conviction. It was a measure of Franklin’s prestige that Lord Richard, instead of feeling insulted, attempted to sustain the friendship. He hoped that “the dishonour to which you deem me exposed by my military situation in this country has effected no change in your sentiments of personal regard towards me; so shall no difference in political points alter my desire of proving how much I am your sincere and obedient humble servant.” Franklin wrote back to reiterate his view that Howe’s hopes for a reconciliation with America and with him were illusions. But he chose not to send the letter. He conveyed the impression of a prophet who knew which way history was headed. And if you were on the wrong side, as Howe clearly was, no sentimental attachment could bridge the gap between the two political camps.38
Franklin applied the same rigorous standard to his own son, William, an illegitimate child whom he had raised as a full-fledged member of his family. William Franklin had been appointed the royal governor of New Jersey, then sided with Great Britain when the Anglo-American argument widened into a war. He was arrested as a dangerous Tory in the spring of 1776 and was eventually sent to Connecticut for safekeeping. William’s wife, Elizabeth, wrote to Franklin, begging him to intercede and have William paroled to New Jersey so they could be together. “Consider my Dear and Honored Sir,” she wrote, “that I am now pleading the Cause of your Son, and my beloved Husband.” Franklin did not respond. His son had chosen sides and would have to live with the consequences. At this fateful moment, political commitments were thicker than blood.39
On the more controversial issues about the future American government raised by the Dickinson Draft, Franklin was a staunch advocate for proportional representation and therefore a neonationalist who thought that an independent America should become more than a confederation of sovereign states. But he was not willing to insist on the proportionality principle in the face of united opposition from the smaller states. Just as he thought that history was on the American side in the war for independence, he thought that time would prove a state-based confederation inadequate to the task of governance. If that political fruit had to ripen before it could be picked, so be it. If you knew how the journey was going to end, you could afford to be patient along the path.40
The same combination of prescience and patience shaped his response to the drafting of the Pennsylvania constitution. Like Jefferson, he took a personal interest in the framing of his own state’s constitution. But unlike Jefferson, Franklin enjoyed the advantage of proximity—the Pennsylvania Convention was meeting in Philadelphia, indeed in the same building as the Continental Congress.
In meetings with Pennsylvania delegates on August 13 and 15, he lent his considerable weight to two of the most distinctive and conspicuously democratic provisions of the Pennsylvania constitution, namely the insistence on a bill of rights and the creation of a one-house legislature to be elected by a citizenry that included artisans as well as property owners, thereby giving Pennsylvania the most egalitarian government in the United States. But he let others take the lead in the debates and receive the credit when the final draft was ratified. His suggested revisions were almost entirely stylistic. Given his prestige, his most important contribution was being present to lend legitimacy to the enterprise. In both the Pennsylvania Convention and the Continental Congress, Franklin was an invaluable trophy, more revered and renowned at this stage than Washington; he was the Delphic Oracle of the American Revolution.41
It was a role that Franklin took to instinctively, since he was a genius at sensing what the political imperatives of the moment required. In this instance, they required a sagacious pose, embodying the conviction that the cause of American independence had providential winds at its back. They also required him to become involved in the political debates at a higher altitude that preserved and protected his special status by not being drawn into damaging arguments. This made him an intriguing combination of Adams’s omnipresence and Jefferson’s distancing. He was a singular figure.
But even Franklin, who believed the British course was doomed, recognized that the military outcome in New York would determine whether the eventual American victory would occur quickly—obviously the preferred conclusion—or slowly, in a more drawn-out war that Great Britain would eventually abandon. He lacked the full flow of information that Adams enjoyed about troop strength and the doubts about the fighting prowess of the militia, but one informant serving in the batteries along the Hudson assured him that the British invasion would be repulsed: “Every circumstance here is cheerful and if our Enemies dare attack, they will undoubtedly procure themselves a severe drubbing.” Franklin did not believe that a defeat in New York would kill the American cause, but neither did he believe that patriotic estimates of the odds were reliable. He was confident that America would win the war but uncertain that the Continental Army would win the battle for New York. “While I am writing,” he told Horatio Gates on August 28, “comes an account that the armies were engaged on Long Island, the event unknown, which throws us into anxious suspense. God grant success.” As it turned out, God was not listening.42
6
The Fog of War
In general, our Generals were out generalled.
—JOHN ADAMS TO ABIGAIL ADAMS, October 8, 1776
Ever since Lord Richard Howe’s fleet had landed on Staten Island in early July, Washington had been expecting an attack. But over the ensuing weeks, as additional waves of troops and ships arrived, it became apparent that Lord Germain and the British ministry intended to assemble a strike force much larger than Washington expected. And the Howe brothers saw no reason to launch an invasion until all of Germain’s reinforcements, most especially the highly professional (and very expensive) Hessians, showed up in mid-August.1
The delay meant that the military campaign would begin late in the season, leaving the Howes only about three or four months to capture New York and vanquish the Continental Army before going into winter quarters. It also meant that the size of the American force opposing the invasion would grow considerably, because militia units from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland would flow into New York in early August, latecomers who had harvested their crops before shouldering their muskets.
Though mystified by the delaying tactics of the Howes, Washington welcomed the opportunity to even the odds: “They [the British troops] have been stronger than the Army under my Command, which will now, I expect, gain greater strength than theirs, as the Militia are beginning to come fast, and have already augmented our numbers … to about 23,000 men.” A week later, on the eve of the battle, they totaled about 28,000.2
The militia surge bolstered the confidence of several American officers, including even Greene, despite his skepticism about the fighting prowess of militia. Writing from the front lines on Long Island, Greene assured Washington that all was under control: “I have the Pleasure to inform you that the Troops appear to be in exceedingly good Spirits, and have no doubt that if they should make their attack here we shall be able to render a very good account of them.” Lord Stirling, who was supervising the defensive preparations on Long Island, concurred with Greene. The forts, redoubts, and trenches were so formidable that Stirling actually hoped, as he put it, “that General Howe would come here in preference to any other spot in America.” Eight months earlier Charles Lee had rendered the judgment that New York was indefensible. Now Stirling thought it impregnable.3
Stirling’s excessive enthusiasm often made it difficult to distinguish between bravado and confidence. But subsequent testimony from British and Hessian officers confirmed that the layered defensive scheme on Long Island was sufficie
nt to repel a frontal assault by 50,000 troops. And even Germain had not seen fit to gather a British force that large.
Given the capacity for carnage building up on both sides, the final exchange of letters between William Howe and Washington seemed to suggest that Howe deeply regretted the whole bloody business. “I cannot close this letter,” he confided to Washington, “without expressing the deepest Concern that the unhappy state of the colonies, so different from what I had the Honor of experiencing in the Course of the last war, deprives me of the Pleasure I should otherwise have had in a more personal Communication.”4
Washington recognized this as a nostalgic postscript to the failed effort at reconciliation a month earlier. But he felt obliged to respond in the same aristocratic style, maintaining the etiquette of honor between two gentlemen who wished to disassociate themselves from the looming slaughter they were about to oversee. “Give me leave to assure you, sir,” Washington replied, “that I feel myself greatly obliged by the polite conclusion of your letter … and have a high sense of the honor and satisfaction I should have received from your personal acquaintance. The different state of the colonies from what it was in the last War & which has deprived me of that Happiness, cannot be regretted by any one more than Sir Your Most Obedt Servt.” The courtesies having been properly exchanged, the bloody work could now begin.5
ANTICIPATING JUST WHERE that work would occur was Washington’s primary dilemma. On August 14, two British deserters reported that the main British attack was aimed at Long Island. Another intelligence report a few days later predicted coordinated attacks on Long Island and the northern tip of Manhattan. Although one of the cardinal principles of military tactics was never to divide your army in the face of a superior force, Washington was forced to violate it because he was defending two islands against an opponent with total naval supremacy. He chose to regard any British attack against Long Island as a likely diversion; placed 6,000 troops, only a third of his men “fit for duty,” there; and kept the remainder on Manhattan, which after all was the ultimate British objective.6
Meanwhile, over on Staten Island, a lively debate was occurring between Howe and Henry Clinton, his second-in-command, over their strategic options. In truth, Howe had little respect for Clinton either as a general or as a man, so there was never a serious chance that Clinton’s preference would prevail. They had served together at Bunker Hill and in the Boston Siege, where Clinton had displayed his lifelong tendency to make enemies of all his superiors, who never seemed to appreciate his advice as much as he thought it deserved. Clinton, it seems, possessed a truly unique talent for making himself obnoxious; he was the kind of insufferable character who always knew he was right. In this instance, however, all the advantages of hindsight make it abundantly clear that, in fact, he was.7
Clinton favored a British invasion at King’s Bridge, at the northern end of Manhattan, where the Harlem River separates the island from the mainland. If successful, this option would block the escape of the Continental Army on both Manhattan and Long Island, presuming British naval control of the Hudson and East rivers. Once trapped, the Continental Army could be gradually eroded and eventually annihilated in a single campaign. Clinton’s strategy was based on the assumption that the proper target was not the city and port of New York but the Continental Army itself. If it ceased to exist, the American rebellion would follow suit.8
Howe disagreed. He believed that the Continental Army had to be decisively defeated but not destroyed. His orders from Germain were to capture New York, which would then become the base of operations for the British army and navy for the decisive campaign to close the Hudson corridor and isolate New England. If the city and port of New York were the target, then Long Island was the obvious avenue to reach it, since command of Brooklyn Heights would render southern Manhattan indefensible. If the Continental Army was sufficiently humiliated in the process to break the will of the rebellion, so much the better. But the strategic goal was the occupation of New York, not the annihilation of the Continental Army. Howe had the final say, of course, so the invasion on Long Island was scheduled for August 22, by which time the recently arrived Hessians should be ready to go.9
In hindsight, Howe’s decision to reject Clinton’s preferred strategy may have meant that Great Britain lost a golden opportunity to end the American rebellion at its very inception. We can never be sure about this might-have-been, because we cannot know whether the total destruction or capture of the Continental Army would have broken the will of the rebellion. Perhaps, as both Adams and Franklin sincerely believed, the Continental Congress would have defiantly raised another army and appointed another version of Washington to lead it. What is clear is that both armies would have been better served if their respective commanders had exchanged places. For Howe, in targeting the territory rather than the Continental Army, pursued the cautious strategy when he should have been bold. And Washington, in his very decision to defend New York, pursued the bold strategy when he should have been cautious.
AN IMPROBABLE PIECE of bad luck then struck at the worst possible time, when Greene informed Washington that he was “confined to my Bed with a raging fever” on August 15. Washington’s ablest and most trusted officer, just appointed a major general, Greene had also designed and built the defensive network on Long Island and made himself thoroughly familiar with the terrain. Now he had to be evacuated to Manhattan. To replace Greene, Washington chose John Sullivan, not because he knew and trusted him but because he was the only senior officer without a command, having just come down from Albany after threatening to resign rather than serve under Horatio Gates. Sullivan was a former New Hampshire lawyer of boundless confidence, limited military experience, and total ignorance of the troops he was to command and the ground he was to defend.10
The British Army had been practicing amphibious operations on Staten Island for two weeks. On August 22, more than 300 transport vessels carried 15,000 troops into Gravesend Bay in southwestern Long Island without a hitch and without any appreciable resistance. Lord Howe’s secretary, Ambrose Serle, described the scene as breathtaking: “In a Word, the Disembarkation of about 15,000 Troops upon a fine Beach, their forming upon the adjacent Plain … exhibited one of the finest & most picturesque Scenes that the Imagination can fancy or the Eye behold.” Three days later another 5,000 Hessians were ferried across. Although Washington moved another 2,000 men over the East River to reinforce the Long Island garrison, the Americans were outnumbered more than two to one. Washington was still hedging his bets that the invasion of Long Island was a feint and the main British attack would come on Manhattan.11
In his General Orders the next day, Washington announced that the long-awaited testing time for the Continental Army had finally arrived: “The Enemy has now landed on Long Island, and 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 Freemen, 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.” In case these inspiring words proved insufficient, all the troops should also know that “if any man attempt to skulk, lay down, or retreat without orders, he will instantly be shot down as an example.”12
GREENE HAD DEVISED a three-tiered defensive scheme for Long Island designed to inflict an unsustainable level of casualties on the British as they moved through each killing zone. Sharpshooters would be positioned in the thickly wooded area north of Gravesend Bay, concentrated along the three passes that afforded space for British horses and artillery to advance. The American troops would then fall back to a necklace of trenches and redoubts on Gowanus Heights, a ridgeline running east to west across Long Island. Greene’s original plan envisioned a stiff but temporary stand on Gowanus Heights, then a retreat to the main defensive perimeter, which consisted of four forts on Brooklyn Heights, where he presumed the heaviest fighting would occur. It was a collapsible network of defensiv
e positions that took maximum advantage of the terrain and allowed the American troops to fight behind cover rather than engage the British on open ground, where the superior discipline and experience of British soldiers would be likely to prevail.13
Sullivan’s first, and last, act as a commander was to revise Greene’s plan by enlarging the garrison on Gowanus Heights to 3,000 men, nearly half his force. As events were to demonstrate, this was a costly mistake, making Gowanus Heights the focus of the battle, where the American force would be outnumbered seven to one.
Then, on August 24, Washington had second thoughts about Sullivan and appointed Israel Putnam as overall commander on Long Island, with Sullivan restricted to command of the troops on Gowanus Heights. “Old Put” had the torso of a bull, the head of a cannonball, and the mentality of a natural warrior. A veteran of Bunker Hill and a legendary Indian fighter in the French and Indian War—he had once escaped while being roasted by Indians over a fire—Putnam had requested the command once it became clearer that the main British attack would come on Long Island. “The brave old man was quite miserable at being kept here,” Joseph Reed wrote from the headquarters on Manhattan. While Washington’s change of mind conveyed a certain indecisiveness, putting his most battle-tested leader in charge also reflected his recognition, at last, that Long Island was the British objective. Despite that recognition, he kept over half his troops on Manhattan, thereby covering his bases, but at the cost of ensuring that the British would enjoy a vastly superior force at the point of attack.14
William Howe was reputed to be the finest student of light infantry tactics in the British Army. And his experience at Bunker Hill meant that he was perhaps the last British officer in America to mount a frontal assault against Greene’s formidable network of defenses. But the more he studied the maps, the more Greene’s defensive scheme seemed to defy evasion, making a battle with high British casualties unavoidable.
Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence Page 13