Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence

by Joseph J. Ellis

  16. Pennsylvania Committee of Safety to GW, 11 July 1776, PWR 5:271–73; editorial note, PWR 5:569 and Thomas Mifflin to GW, 6 August 1776, PWR 5:580–81, for the sunken ships; Benjamin Franklin to GW, 22 July 1776, PWR 5:421–22, for the submarine proposal.

  17. See NG to GW, 27 June 1776, GP 1:243, for the livestock matter. Six letters were subsequently exchanged on this issue, which was not resolved until 12 August 1776.

  18. For the correspondence on the loyalists, see GP 1:241, 276–78, and PWR 5:252, 327–28.

  19. John F. Roche, Joseph Reed: A Moderate in the American Revolution (New York, 1957), 84–85.

  20. See the correspondence in PWR 5:232, 235, 439, 490–93, and GP 1:284–86.

  21. GW to John Augustine Washington, 28 July 1776, PWR 5:428–30.

  22. Lord Richard Howe to GW, 13 July 1776, PWR 5:296–97.

  23. GW to John Hancock, 14 July 1776, PWR 5:306.

  24. Journal of Ambrose Serle, 14 July 1776, LA 145; GW to John Hancock, 14 July 1776, PWR 5:306.

  25. GW to General Horatio Gates, 19 July 1776, PWR 5:380–81.

  26. Joseph Reed, Memorandum of Meeting Between George Washington and James Patterson, 20 July 1776, LA 152–55. See also PWR 5:398–403 for the same documentation.

  27. Among the many biographies of Franklin, four strike me as invaluable: Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1938); Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, 2002); Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York, 2003); and Gordon Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (New York, 2004). For Franklin’s London years, see David Morgan, The Devious Dr. Franklin: Benjamin Franklin’s Years in London (Macon, 1996). For a more critical view of Franklin’s character, see Robert Middlekauf, Benjamin Franklin and His Enemies (Berkeley, 1996).

  28. BF to Lord Howe, 20 July 1776, FP 22:518–21.

  29. Lord Howe to Lord George Germain, 6 August 1776, PWR 5:402, editorial note.

  30. GW to John Hancock, 22 July 1776, PWR 5:424–25.

  31. Most historical accounts put the British invasion force at 32,000, but I am including the naval complement in my estimate because they were an integral part of the ensuing combat.

  32. JA to AA, 20 July 1776, AFC 2:53.

  33. GW to Colonel Adam Stephen, 20 July 1776, PWR 5:408–9; GW to Brigadier General Willliam Levingston, 8 August 1776, PWR 5:632.

  34. GW to Militia Colonels in Western Connecticut, 7 August 1776, PWR 5:593–94; GW to Jonathan Trumbull, 7 August 1776, PWR 5:615–16.

  35. JA to AA, 27 July 1776, AFC 2:63; JA to AA, 3–4 August 1776, AFC 2:75–76.

  36. General Orders, 13 August 1776, PWR 6:1.

  37. GW to John Hancock, 8–9 August 1776, PWR 5:627.

  38. JA to AA, AFC 2:81.

  5. AFTER VIRTUE

  1. Two old but still valuable accounts are Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation (Madison, 1940), and Edmund C. Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York, 1941). More recently, Herbert James Henderson, Party Politics in the Continental Congress (New York, 1974), and Jack K. Rakove, The Beginning of National Politics: An Interpretative History of the Continental Congress (New York, 1979), see regional and sectional splits appearing in the summer of 1776 after the vote on independence. Rakove is best at suggesting the start of a new political chapter following over a year of improvised unity.

  2. TJ to Francis Eppes, 15 July 1776, JP 1:458–60; TJ to John Page, 30 July 1776, JP 1:482–83.

  3. See Anthony Wayne to BF, 31 July 1776, FP 22:539–40, for the rumor of 60,000 troops.

  4. Elbridge Gerry to JA, 3 August 1776, AP 4:431–34.

  5. BF to Anthony Wayne, 28 August 1776, FP 22:584.

  6. See LDC 4:233–50, for the Dickinson Draft.

  7. See LDC 4:251, note 1, for the quotations from Bartlett and Rutledge.

  8. LDC 4:233–34.

  9. LDC 4:239, 242–43.

  10. LDC 4:338–39.

  11. DA 2:245–46; JP 1:320–23.

  12. LDC 4:242.

  13. FP 22, 536–38, editorial note; DA 2:245.

  14. DA 2:247.

  15. DA 2:246; JP 1:323–27.

  16. DA 2:241–43, 249–50.

  17. Edward Pendleton to TJ, 15 July and 3 August 1776, JP 1:462–65, 484–85.

  18. JA to Joseph Hawley, 25 August 1776, LDC 5:60–62.

  19. See AP 4:260–78, for the full text of the Plan of Treaties, with an editorial note on the political context and diplomatic legacy.

  20. AP 4:265.

  21. AP 4:266. See DA 2:236, 3:337, for JA’s earliest articulation of restricting a treaty with France to commerce.

  22. AP 4:268.

  23. See AP 4:290–92, for the Plan of Treaties as adopted.

  24. TJ to Richard Henry Lee, 8 July 1776; Richard Henry Lee to TJ, 21 July 1776, JP 1:455–56, 471.

  25. JP 1:21–28.

  26. TJ to Edmund Pendleton, 30 June 1776, TJ to Richard Henry Lee, 29 July 1776, JP 1:408, 477.

  27. TJ to Edmund Pendleton, 13 and 26 August 1776, JP 1:491–94, 503–6.

  28. TJ to John Page, 5 August 1776, JP 1:485–86.

  29. TJ to Edmund Pendleton, 26 August 1776, JP 1:505–6.

  30. See AP 4:253–59, for JA’s duties as chair of the Board of War and Ordnance, 12 June–27 August 1776.

  31. Joseph Reed to JA, 4 July 1776, AP 4:358–60; Nathanael Greene to JA, 14 July 1776, AP 4:380–82.

  32. JA to William Heath, 3 August 1776, AP 4:426–27.

  33. Horatio Gates to JA, 17 July 1776, AP 4:388–89.

  34. JA to Horatio Gates, 13 August 1776, AP 4:426–27.

  35. AA to JA, 17 and 19 August 1776, AFC 2:98, 101.

  36. JA to AA, 16 July and 28 August 1776, AFC 2:50–51, 111.

  37. James Bowdoin to BF, 19 August 1776, FP 22:569–71.

  38. Lord Howe to BF, 16 August 1776, FP 22:565–66; BF to Lord Howe, 20 August 1776, FP 22:575, which was not sent.

  39. Editorial note, FP 22:551–52.

  40. Editorial note, FP 22:537–38. On August 20 Franklin drafted a letter to protest state-based representation but decided not to send it. See FP 22:571–75.

  41. See editorial note, FP 22:529–33, for Franklin’s role in the Pennsylvania Convention.

  42. George Ross to BF, 18 August 1776, FP 22:568; BF to Horatio Gates, 28 August 1776, FP 22:583–84.

  6. THE FOG OF WAR

  1. Ira D. Gruber, The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution (New York, 1972), 100–2.

  2. GW to Lund Washington, 19 August 1776, PWR 6:82–86. The final size of the American force is an educated guess, based on rough calculations of the size of the late-arriving state militia units. Washington himself did not know how many troops he commanded when the battle began.

  3. NG to GW, 15 August 1776, GP 1:287; Stirling quoted in Michael Stephenson, Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought (New York, 2007), 231.

  4. William Howe to GW, 1 August 1776, PWR 5:537.

  5. GW to William Howe, 17 August 1776, PWR 5:537–38.

  6. Editorial note, PWR 6:23–24; Hugh Mercer to GW, 19 August 1776, PWR 6:79; General Orders, 7 August 1776, GP 1:277; Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (New York, 2002), 129.

  7. William B. Willcox, Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War for Independence (New York, 1964), preface, 492–524, provides the deepest analysis of any British officer in the war, as well as the most sophisticated psychological analysis of any prominent figure on either side. See also William Willcox and Frederick Wyatt, “Sir Henry Clinton: A Psychological Exploration in History,” WMQ 14 (January 1959), 3–26.

  8. William B. Willcox, ed., The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of His Campaigns, 1775–1782 (New Haven, 1954), 40–41; Schecter, Battle for New York, 60–61.

  9. Gruber, Howe Brothers, 106–7.

  10. NG to GW, 15 August 1776, PWR 6:29–31; GW to John Hancock, 23 August 1776, PWR 6:111, for the appo
intment of Sullivan.

  11. Ambrose Serle, The American Journal of Ambrose Serle (San Marino, 1940), 72–74; Stephenson, Patriot Battles, 232–33, for Washington’s allocation of troops.

  12. General Orders, 23 August 1776, PWR 6:109–10. Several secondary works on the ensuing battle, in addition to those already cited, have helped to shape my understanding of the story. On the British side, Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964). On the American side, Bruce Bliven, Under the Guns: New York, 1775–76 (New York, 1972); Thomas Fleming, 1776: Year of Illusions (New York, 1975), 308–38; James Thomas Flexner, George Washington: In the American Revolution (Boston, 1967), 87–156; David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York, 2004), 81–114; and David McCullough, 1776 (New York, 2005), 115–200

  13. Editorial note, GP 1:291–93.

  14. John Sullivan to GW, 23 August 1776; GW to John Hancock, 26 August 1776, PWR 6:115–16, 129–30; Schecter, Battle for New York, 131–32. See Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York, 2010), 246, for background on Putnam, who has no modern biographer.

  15. Willcox, Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative, 40–42; Schecter, Battle for New York, 135–37.

  16. Willcox, Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative, 35.

  17. All quotations from Schecter, Battle for New York, 132–34.

  18. Ibid., 141–43.

  19. Stephenson, Patriotic Battles, 237–38.

  20. Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier (New York, 2001), 22–23.

  21. E. J. Sowell, The Hessians and the German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War (New York, 1884), 65–67.

  22. Schecter, Battle for New York, 149–54; Paul David Nielson, William Alexander, Lord Stirling (Tuscaloosa, 1984) 44; Lord Stirling to GW, 29 August 1776, PWR 6:159–62.

  23. William Howe to Lord George Germain, 3 September 1776, in K. G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783 (Dublin, 1976), 12:217; Howard H. Peckham, ed., The Toll of Independence: Engagements and Battle Casualties of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1974), 22; editorial note, PWR 6:143.

  24. William Howe to Lord George Germain, 3 September 1776, in Davies, Documents of the American Revolution, 12:218; Schecter, Battle for New York, 166–67; Willcox, Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative, 44.

  25. This is the major argument made by Gruber, Howe Brothers.

  26. Howe defended his conduct before Parliament soon after his return to England. See William Howe, The Narrative of Lieutenant General William Howe…(London, 1780). The earliest case that Howe’s American sympathies lost the war for Great Britain came from a member of his own staff. See Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War (Dublin, 1794). In my view, Howe’s motives were psychologically intricate, but his chief mistake was to assume that British victory was assured, so he could afford to fight more cautiously. Like most British officers, he overestimated the level of loyalist sentiment and underestimated the staying power of the Continental Army. His concern about British casualities, though misguided in retrospect, was wholly plausible at the time.

  27. Davies, Documents of the American Revolution, 218.

  28. Robert Hanson Harrison to John Hancock, 28 August 1776, PWR 6:142–43, provides Washington’s initial and somewhat incoherent report on the battle for Gowanus Heights, which is the only direct evidence we have on Washington’s somewhat dazed state of mind. Among Washington’s biographers, Chernow, Washington, 247–49, is most astute on this score.

  29. William Bradford Reed, Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed (Philadelphia, 1847), 1:226–27.

  30. This interpretation of Washington’s thought process at this intense moment is based on my assessment of his personality in His Excellency: George Washington (New York, 2004).

  31. This emphasis on Mifflin’s influence was first argued in Fleming, Year of Illusions, 322–23.

  32. Council of War, 29 August 1776, PWR 6:153–55; Tallmadge quoted in Henry P. Johnston, The Campaign of 1776 Around New York and Brooklyn (Brooklyn, 1878), 2:11; Schecter, Battle for New York, 155–67.

  33. See Alexander Graydon, A Memoir of His Own Time (Philadelphia, 1846), 164, for the quotation. The standard work on Glover is George Billias, General John Glover and His Marblehead Mariners (New York, 1960).

  34. See Graydon, Memoir, 166, for the making of wills; and Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, 26–27. The Tilghman quotation is in Johnston, Campaign of 1776, 2:85.

  35. Graydon, Memoir, 168; George F. Scheer and Hugh Rankin, eds., Rebels and Redcoats (New York, 1957), 171. This incident was the beginning of bad blood between Mifflin and Washington.

  36. Benjamin Tallmadge, Memoir of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge (New York, 1858), 11.

  37. Charles K. Bolton, ed., Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York (Boston, 1972), 69.

  38. Sir George Collier, “Admiral Sir George Collier’s Observations on the Battle of Long Island,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly (October 1964), 304.

  39. GW to John Hancock, 31 August 1776, PWR 6:177–78; editorial note, GP 1:293, for making Greene’s absence the reason for the defeat.

  40. General Orders, 31 August 1776, PWR 6:173.

  41. JA to James Warren, 17 August 1776, JA to AA, 5 September 1776, LDC 5:12, 107.

  42. JA to AA, 4 September 1776, JA to Samuel Cooper, 4 September 1776, LDC 5:101–2.

  43. AA to JA, 7 September, 20 September, 29 September 1776, AFC 2:122, 129, 134–36; JA to AA, 8 October 1776, AFC 2:140.

  44. William Hooper to Samuel Johnston, 26 September 1776, LCD 5:182–83.

  45. Benjamin Rush to Julia Rush, 18–25 September 1776, Benjamin Rush to Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg, 16 September 1776, LCD 5:198–99.

  46. BF to William Bingham, 21 September 1776, FP 22:617.

  47. John F. Roche, Joseph Reed: A Moderate in the American Revolution (New York, 1957), 92.

  48. Editorial note, FP 2:591–92.

  49. Editorial note, DA 3:415.

  50. John Witherspoon’s Speech in Congress, 5 September 1776, LDC 5:108–13.

  51. DA 3:416.

  52. DA 3:419–20.

  53. Report to Congress, 13 September 1776, FP 22:606–8.

  54. Henry Strachey, Memorandum of Meeting Between Lord Howe and the American Commissioners, 11 September 1776, LA 186–91.

  55. DA 3:422.

  56. DA 3:422–23.

  57. Journal of Ambrose Serle, 13 September 1776, LA 215.

  58. JA to Samuel Adams, 14 September 1776, DA 3:428.

  7. HEARTS AND MINDS

  1. GW to John Hancock, 2 September 1776, PWR 6:199–201; PWR 6:163, editorial note.

  2. GW to John Hancock, 4 September 1776, PWR 6:215–16; Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (New York, 2002), 168.

  3. General Orders, 4 September 1776, PWR 6:212–13; Collier quoted in Schecter, Battle for New York, 175.

  4. George Germain to William Howe, October 1776, quoted in Stanley Weintraub, Iron Tears: America’s Battle for Freedom, Britain’s Quagmire, 1775–1783 (New York, 2003), 75.

  5. NG to GW, 5 September 1776, GP 1:294–96.

  6. GW to John Hancock, 8 September 1776, PWR 6:248–54.

  7. Henry P. Johnston, “Sergeant Lee’s Experience with Bushnell’s Submarine Torpedo in 1776,” Magazine of History 29 (1893), 262–66. This episode is nicely covered in Thomas Fleming, 1776: Year of Illusions (New York, 1975), 338–41. See also the editorial note on the Turtle in PWR 6:528.

  8. GW to John Hancock, 8 September 1776, PWR 6:248–52.

  9. Joseph Reed to Esther Reed, 2 September 1776, quoted in John F. Roche, Joseph Reed: A Moderate in the American Revolution (New York, 1957), 92.

  10. William Heath to GW, 31 August 1776, Rufus Putnam to GW, 3 September 1776, PWR 6:179–81, 210–11.

  11. New York Committee of Safety to GW, 31 August 1776, PWR 6:185–86.

  12. John Hancock to GW, 10 S
eptember 1776, PWR 6:273; JCC 5:749; Petition of Nathanael Greene and Others to General Washington, 11 September 1776, GP 1:297–98.

  13. Council of War, 12 September 1776, GP 1:299–300; see also PWR 6:288–89.

  14. GW to John Hancock, 14 September 1776, PWR 6:308–9.

  15. JA to Henry Knox, 29 September 1776, LDC 5:260–61.

  16. William Hooper to Samuel Johnston, 26 September 1776, LDC 5:245–49; JCC 5:762–63.

  17. LDC 5:xiii; John Hancock to TJ, 30 September 1776, LDC 5:264–65; DA 3:409–10.

  18. AA to JA, 20 September 1776, AFC 2:129.

  19. GW to John Hancock, 25 September 1776, PWR 6:393–94.

  20. GW to Jacob Greene, 28 September 1776, GP 1:303–4; GW to John Hancock, 25 September 1776, PWR 6:394–98.

  21. JCC 5:762–63.

  22. John Hancock to the States, 24 September 1776, LDC 5:228–30.

  23. GW to John Hancock, 25 September 1776, PWR 6:304.

  24. AA to JA, 29 September 1776, AFC 2:134–36.

  25. New England Chronicle, 5 September 1776.

  26. Connecticut Courant, 6 September 1776; Pennsylvania Packet, 10 September 1776; Newport Mercury, 16 September 1776; Virginia Gazette, 6 September and 8 November 1776. I realize that this is only a geographically spread sampling, and other newspapers might have provided more accurate accounts of the Long Island debacle. But if so, they were the exception rather than the rule.

  27. See, for example, Virginia Gazette, 4 October 1776; Independent Chronicle, 3 October 1776; Newport Mercury, 30 September 1776.

  28. William B. Willcox, ed., The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of His Campaigns, 1775–1782 (New Haven, 1954), 44–45; Schecter, Battle for New York, 179–80.

  29. Joseph Reed to Esther Reed, 2 September 1776, New-York Historical Society.

  30. My account of the Kip’s Bay engagement draws on the eyewitness reports of Philip Vickers Filthan and Benjamin Trumbull, both in LA, 219–24, and on the memoir of Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier (New York, 2001), 30–32. In addition, three secondary accounts were indispensable: David McCullough, 1776 (New York, 2007), 209–12; Schecter, Battle for New York, 184–87; and Michael Stephenson, Patriotic Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought (New York, 2005), 244–46.