by Ron Carter
Willowby pursed his mouth for a moment and reached to grasp O’Malley’s arm. “Don’t touch yer musket. A bloody officer see you, you’d be stood in front of a firin’ squad before noon,” he hissed. “That Indian’s Joseph Brant, just back from a visit with the king. Right in London Town, ’e was, inside St. James’s like ’e was the king of Spain, or France, talkin’ with King George.” Willowby shook his head in wonderment. “’Im an’ George made some kind of treaty, and now ’e’s on our side with all his warriors, helpin’ us put down the rebels.”
O’Malley grunted in disgust. “On our side, is ’e? Well, all the same I’m sleepin’ with my bayonet under my blanket an’ one eye open until I’ve seen the last of ’em.”
The raucous shout from Sergeant Randall Ashcroft brought them both up short. “’Ere, you men, yer bein’ paid to cut and stack firewood fer the laundry, not gawk an’ talk. Now, get back to it, all of you.”
This was a British military base for thirty-two thousand troops, under the command of General William Howe, one of the purest military minds in the world. Howe had established his reputation for leadership and absolute, selfless courage in the Seven Years’ War when in 1759 he stripped off his officer’s tunic and stood shoulder to shoulder with four hundred British regulars as they met and stopped two thousand French infantry in their tracks. Time and again he had marched at the head of his command without flinching as he led his men into withering musket and cannon fire. Thus it was that when General William Howe declared his camp would be orderly at all times, it was orderly at all times. All personnel would be in uniform at all appropriate times, and the uniforms would be clean. Clean uniforms meant washed, and washed meant hot water, and hot water meant firewood. Those who failed in performance of their duties would be warned once, confined on the second offence, flogged on the third.
The men took one last look at the Mohawk chief and once again settled into the rhythm of the wood yard. O’Malley picked up his axe and stood the next rung of pine on the battered chopping block, while Willowby began gathering another load of kindling to be stacked on a huge skid and dragged by ox team to feed the fires that would keep great kettles of laundry water boiling until sunset.
Joseph Brant strode on, eyes straight ahead, aware of those who slowed to stare as he passed, some from curiosity, others from fear, a few of the older soldiers from hatred at the bright, grotesque images burned into their memories in long-ago battles in which comrades in arms had fallen under the knives and hatchets of the Indians of the great northern confederation during the French and Indian wars.
The escort halted, facing the pickets stationed at the command tent entrance, and the picket on the right lifted the flap while Joseph entered. Inside he paused while his eyes swept the sparsely furnished room.
A large, long table stood in the center, with eight chairs on each side, two at the head, one at the foot. Four uniformed officers with gold braid on their shoulders sat on each side of the table, and all their heads turned towards him. They slowly rose to stand silently while he walked to the vacant chair at the near end of the table and sat down. No one spoke in the awkward silence while the eight men settled back onto their chairs, self-conscious, uncomfortable, trying too hard not to stare.
Minutes passed in the strained silence, and a cool midmorning east wind came gusting off the Atlantic and across the island to billow the sides and top of the great command tent and set the orderly rows of thousands of tents of the regulars flapping. The wind held, bringing a thin overcast from the sea that dimmed the August sun.
Twenty yards west of the command tent an orderly reached to lift the flap of the tent serving as living quarters for General Howe, and then came to full attention, waiting. The tall, angular general stooped to clear the top of the entrance and stepped out of his quarters, followed by his aide-de-camp, and glanced up at the overcast scudding westward. He held his gold-trimmed tricornered hat on his head as he walked steadily into the wind towards the command tent, coattails of his bright red tunic flapping.
The pickets at the entrance snapped to attention, chins sucked back, eyes locked straight ahead, and as the general approached, the one on the right reached to draw the flap, and the general again stooped to enter, followed by his aide-de-camp. Once inside he slowed and then stopped as all nine men at the table came to their feet facing him. Eight of them snapped their right hands to a salute and waited. He returned the salute, and they dropped their hands and stood at attention until he assumed his seat at the far end of the table. His chair was plain, like all others at the table.
“Be seated, gentlemen.” His voice was deep, speech slow, direct, unsolicitous. He looked the length of the table at Chief Joseph Brant, nodded, and Joseph Brant nodded in return.
“Gentlemen, I am sure you’re aware Chief Joseph Brant represents the sovereign Mohawk nation. He arrived from London July twenty-ninth on the Lord Hyde and agreed to remain here to help us deal with the rebellion.” Howe paused, then added, “Chief Brant treated with King George, and the silver gorget he now wears at his throat was a gift of the king. He was also inducted into the Falcon Lodge of the Freemasons.”
Howe stopped and watched to gauge the impact as the heads of all eight officers involuntarily pivoted, and for a moment they stared, surprised that a feathered, buckskinned warrior from an American Indian tribe could ever be granted audience with King George, and stunned that any lodge of the Freemasons would consider extending membership to anyone other than the high and the mighty in the ranks of blue-blooded English aristocracy. They instantly recovered their composure and turned back to General Howe.
He shifted his eyes to Brant. “Chief Brant, it would be appropriate for you to take a chair here at the head of the table.”
Soundlessly Brant rose and walked to the head of the table and sat down on the chair next to Howe’s, and waited.
Howe knew no other way than to plow straight into the meat of the conference without the formality of introductions or a recital of the credentials and military histories of the men whom he faced. If they didn’t know each other at the start of the conference, they would when it finished.
“Gentlemen, General Washington refused my offer for a pardon, and that leaves us with no alternative.”
He opened a large ledger. “For what follows, you will need to know the facts regarding the comparison between the strength of our army and that of the rebels.” He dropped a finger to the open page in the ledger.
“August first, General Clinton arrived from Charleston with his ships and forces, and on August twelfth, General von Heister arrived with his Hessian forces. That brought us to full strength. At this time we have twenty-seven regiments of the line, four battalions of light infantry, four of grenadiers, two battalions of the king’s guards, three brigades of artillery, and a regiment of light dragoons. Numerically we have close to thirty-two thousand troops. Of these, more than twenty-four thousand are battle ready. We will have a report on our naval forces directly, but I will say we have just over four hundred forty of our ships in and around New York Harbor at this moment.”
He waited until the only sound was the wind humming in the tie-down ropes of the billowing tent. “Gentlemen, we have at our command the mightiest military armada ever gathered in the recorded history of the world.”
A murmur rose and subsided.
“Governor Tryon of New York has furnished me with current estimates of the forces of the Continental army, which he has gathered through intelligence supplied him by a Sergeant Graham and a network of Tory spies. General Washington has seventy-one regiments or parts of regiments, twenty-five of which are in the Continental army. The total force is about twenty-nine thousand. However, their camps and facilities are rather, uh, rudimentary, and their forces are suffering badly from dysentery and fever. Just under ten thousand of their troops are disabled by illness. Their effective fighting force today is about twenty thousand. Mohawk scouts under the command of Chief Joseph Brant have confirmed this within the
past twenty-four hours.”
He closed the ledger. “I must further state, I am assured by Governor Tryon that we will be welcomed with open arms by the citizens of New York City the day we liberate them from the control of the rebels. It is probable they will vigorously help us in driving the rebels into submission.”
He pursed his mouth and turned to his aide, who handed him a rolled document four feet long. With the officers assisting, they spread it out on the tabletop and anchored the corners and sides with small leather bags filled with buckshot. Instantly every man recognized the detailed, scaled map of the three islands forming New York, including the east shore of New Jersey and the western border of Connecticut. End to end, the map was eight feet long. A second, smaller map was unrolled and weighted down on top of it, and the officers recognized the scale drawing of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River valley.
“You know what these maps are. Take a few minutes and study them.”
The eight officers pored over the maps in silence, occasionally tracing a line or a distance with a finger, and then each sat down.
Howe remained standing and picked up a three-foot maple-wood pointer. “Let me start with first things first.” He tapped the maps. “These colonies extend well over one thousand five hundred miles on the Atlantic coast. Logistically we simply cannot engage them all at one time. There aren’t enough men and equipment and supplies in all England to accomplish that. For that reason, my orders are to establish a base in New York from which we can move up the Hudson River and meet General John Burgoyne coming down Lake Champlain from Canada, at Albany.” He traced the river and the lake with his pointer. “When we control the Hudson River–Lake Champlain corridor, we can cut off the New England colonies from the middle and southern colonies and proceed to beat them in groups—northern, middle, southern.”
He tapped the map to identify each section. “The king has directed that we force the rebels into one great, decisive battle as soon as possible, and destroy the bulk of their army.” He paused to consider. “I think the plan is militarily sound.” He raised his eyes to the others, waiting for comments. There were none, and he continued.
“To execute the plan we must establish an operations base in New York, so the first problem is to decide how to take New York City with the least cost in time, lives, equipment, and supplies. In my view, Manhattan Island is indefensible because it’s an island with open channels on all sides deep enough for heavy seagoing vessels. Our seaborne cannon can reach all parts from all sides.” He turned to his brother Admiral Richard Howe. “What is our naval strength at this moment, and what is theirs?”
Richard Howe, equally as tall as William, equally unpolitical, blunt, with a mind keenly trained to the art of sea warfare, casually leaned back in his chair, relaxed, totally unimpressed with protocol, face unemotional as he laid it out. “We have seventy-three men-of-war, with a total of one thousand four hundred cannon, thirty-two- to thirty-six-pounders, all manned by thirteen thousand able seamen. Our guns can reach any of the fortifications on Manhattan Island, including Fort Washington, and Fort Lee on the New Jersey side. From Gowanus Bay and the East River, we can also reach all the fortifications now in place on Long Island. I estimate we could reduce Washington’s fortifications on both islands to rubble in seventy-two hours of continuous day-and-night bombardment. The rebels have no navy—not one man-of-war and, so far as we know, not one seagoing ship available in or around New York.” He could not repress a slow smile. “They move across the Hudson and the East River in longboats and ferries and garbage scows.”
A muffled laugh rippled through the other officers.
General Howe smiled and continued. “It appears the first decision is whether we make our initial assault on New York City, here”—he tapped the map with the pointer—“or on the fortifications at Brooklyn, here.” Again he tapped the map. “There are more men and more fortifications at New York than Brooklyn. If we destroyed or captured them, we would have the bigger part of the rebel army defeated and could move at our own pace to finish those on Long Island and at Fort Lee in New Jersey.”
He paused and studied the map for half a minute. “The second option is Brooklyn. If we take Brooklyn first, we can establish cannon on Long Island that can reach across the East River well up the length of Manhattan, and control the east side of that island, including New York City. With Brooklyn secured, it would be little trouble to take the deep seaport and the docks and shipyards on the east side of New York City, and then the city itself. And if we move steadily, we could finish that part of the campaign before taking winter quarters in New York City.”
The officers pursed their mouths as they tested the two proposals against their own hard-earned experiences of the making and breaking of massive battles, and they remained silent until General Henry Clinton interrupted.
“Seagoing cannon can destroy buildings and some fortifications, but not necessarily men. If there’s one thing these rebels do better than any army I’ve ever seen, it’s dig. They can make holes and hide in them faster than we can find them. If we’re going to take their land, and hold it, we’re going to have to do it with foot soldiers. Remember Bunker Hill.”
He referred to June 17, 1775, when the British men-of-war in the Boston Back Bay and the Charles River blasted Charlestown to rubble and shelled the fortifications on Bunker Hill. Then they sent four thousand red-coated regulars up the hill to take it, and the rebel forces, appearing as by magic from the holes and trenches that had just been shelled, left one thousand of the British regulars dead on the grassy slopes before they ran out of ammunition and disappeared.
Howe’s eyes narrowed as he considered. “Then perhaps the best thing would be to make our assault on New York City itself and avoid the risk of heavy losses taking the Brooklyn fortifications. That would give us the control we want of the entrance to the Hudson River. If we hold New York, we could lay Brooklyn under siege and starve them out. Winter’s coming.”
Again Clinton interrupted. “Do we have scouting reports on the roads and trails just west of Brooklyn?”
Howe turned to Joseph Brant and nodded.
Brant leaned forward. The other officers’ eyes widened as he spoke in perfect English, with only the slightest hint of a Mohawk accent. None of them knew that as a younger man the fierce Mohawk warrior had received an excellent, full education in an English school in Connecticut. They listened as he spoke.
“All roads near Brooklyn are both fortified and patrolled. The Bedford Road farther east is partially patrolled. The Jamaica Road east of the Bedford Road is neither fortified nor patrolled.”
Clinton leaned forward and all eyes fixed on him.
General Henry Clinton, short, stocky, one of the most experienced and respected officers in the British army, had arrived sixteen days earlier from his futile attempt to take Charleston, South Carolina, as ordered by Lord North. He had sailed the fleet under his command into the Charleston Harbor and was greeted by cannon fire from Fort Moultrie, built on Sullivan Island at the mouth of the harbor. He had ordered his men-of-war to destroy the fort, and for one day British cannon fought a close-range duel with rebel cannon.
What the British did not know was that the fort was built on soft, spongy sand, and the sixteen-foot-thick walls were built of soft palmetto logs backed by more sand. British cannonballs whistling over the walls and dropping inside the fort were burying themselves two feet into the stuff, and when they exploded, the only result was a muffled thump and a harmless spray of sand. Cannonballs hitting the soft palmetto logs simply disappeared. Good fortune had not smiled on Clinton that day. Three of his ships ran aground on uncharted sandbars. Two spent the day digging their way off, and the third had to be abandoned and was burned.
Rebel cannoneers in Fort Moultrie proved far superior to those on the British men-of-war, and when a well-aimed cannonball ripped the seat out of the breeches of Admiral Sir Peter Parker, commanding the fifty-gun flagship Bristol, he was left standing on the quarterd
eck in his shredded underwear, his backside somewhat blackened, and him very much chagrined.
In the afternoon, Clinton had landed foot soldiers on the mainland with orders to march across the Breach, a narrow neck of water that had to be crossed to reach Charleston. Clinton’s charts incorrectly showed the water depth at the Breach to be eighteen inches. It was in fact seven feet. When his first wave of foot soldiers dropped out of sight in the black waters of Charleston Harbor before his very eyes, to bob back to the surface fighting for air and thrashing around for something to cling to, Clinton decided the taking of Charleston could wait for another day. At eleven o’clock that night he sullenly sailed his command north to join the main force at New York.
Clinton spoke directly to Brant. “When was your last report?”
“This morning. My scouts returned at dawn.”
“What is the rebel strength at Brooklyn? How much of their army is committed there?”
“Less than half. About ten thousand.”
Clinton turned back to Howe. “May I make a suggestion.”
Howe nodded.
“May I borrow the pointer.”
Howe handed it to him and Clinton stood. “South of Brooklyn, two ridges just over a mile apart run east to west for many miles. They rise as high as one hundred fifty feet, and the south slope of those ridges, which we would have to climb, are steep—too steep to move men and artillery rapidly. Here they are.” He ran the pointer the length of the two ridges. “Washington has committed the greater part of his army to defending the south ridge. He has heavy breastworks on the north ridge, about a mile behind it, but most of his troops are committed to the south.”