by Ron Carter
Some officers moved in their chairs and Clinton waited until they settled. “There are four places where natural passes cut through those two ridges—Gowanus Road, here; Bedford Pass, here; Martense Lane, here where you see the Red Lion tavern; and Jamaica Pass, here.” He pointed on the map as he spoke. “As you can see, the Jamaica Road and Pass are the farthest east from Brooklyn, and Chief Brant’s scouts report it is not fortified or guarded.”
He waited for a moment until no one was moving. “I suggest we land a sizeable force here, directly south of Brooklyn, at Gravesend Bay, and move them north.” He tapped the map. “Make Washington believe we’re coming at him just as we did at Bunker Hill. I think that’s what he expects, by the way he’s built his fortifications on the high ground. Have our force engage them and hold them there while another large force moves east under cover of darkness to the Jamaica Road, and then follows it back west, through the Jamaica Pass, to where the road comes in behind their heaviest fortifications on the south.” On the map, he followed the route of the Jamaica Road, through the pass. “If we succeed, we’ll have most of the rebel army in a trap, with large forces on three sides and the Gowanus Marsh and the East River on the fourth. Either they surrender, or we destroy them.”
He waited while comments grew and dwindled. “We then move north and storm the north breastworks and take them. Then we set up our cannon along the west shore of Long Island for cover while we send in our second assault force on New York, which should meet little or no resistance, once we have defeated half their army at Brooklyn. The result will be exactly what the king has ordered—establish a base of operations in New York, and defeat this rebel army in one grand battle.”
Howe’s eyes bored into Clinton’s. “You know the Jamaica Road and Pass?”
“Quite well. I spent part of my childhood on Long Island. The single place where they could cause a problem is at the pass. A small force of riflemen with one or two cannon could hold the pass for some time.”
“And if the pass is unguarded?”
“We have a good road that will bring us in right behind them on the south ridge. They won’t have a chance.”
Howe turned once again to Joseph Brant. “You’re certain there are no fortifications at Jamaica Pass? It is unguarded?”
“Yes. As of this morning.”
Howe turned back to Clinton. “Could you find the Jamaica Road and move large numbers of men over it in the dark?”
“Easily.”
Howe’s forehead wrinkled and his mouth narrowed as he considered. He studied the map, tapped it silently for a moment, then looked at General von Heister. “What is your opinion, sir?”
Blocky, fleshy, balding, heavy jowled, General Leopold Philip von Heister commanded the eight thousand Hessian mercenaries, among the most ruthless, feared soldiers of the time, hired for seven pounds per man per year. While von Heister could speak broken English, almost none of his troops could speak or understand one word of it, nor did they care to. This force of rented German soldiers knew nothing but the stark, brutal realities of army life, and held only contempt for what they had seen of the raw, ragtag, badly dressed, badly armed, undisciplined, misfit collection of rabble they had crossed the Atlantic to annihilate. In their blue-black and white uniforms, with their hair greased and braided down their backs, wearing their twenty-pound, hip-high thick leather military boots, and carrying their German muskets with the long bayonets, they were unable to understand why Howe did not simply land von Heister’s command on either Manhattan Island or Long Island with orders to overrun the rebels and kill them all. In the Hessian opinion, they could do it themselves in two days, if Howe would but turn them loose.
Von Heister did not even look at the maps. His face was a blank, his words flat, without emotion, spoken with a heavy, clipped German accent. “Either way. Manhattan or Brooklyn. It makes little difference, because when we finish we will have them both.”
Howe waited for a moment. “If we move on Brooklyn, where would you prefer to be with your command?”
Again von Heister did not look at the maps. “In the middle. Facing their largest force. The rebels cannot face our bayonets. They will run.” His voice remained cold, unemotional. It was not a show of bravado. It was the only life he knew.
Howe turned to Colonel Carl Emil Kurt von Donop, second in command of the Hessians. “Colonel, what is your opinion?”
Von Donop shrugged indifferently. “I agree with Herr General von Heister. Either way. In the end, they shall be ours.”
Howe turned to General Hugh, Earl Percy. “What is your opinion?”
This was the same Colonel Percy who had been sent by General Thomas Gage in response to the desperate plea from Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith for reinforcements to save his command as their retreat from Concord on April 19, 1775, turned into a disorganized, blind, panic-driven rout clear back to Charlestown. Percy had aligned his cannon on a hill just south of Lexington and blasted shot after shot over the heads of the remains of the incoming British column, and it had slowed the swarming Patriots for a short time, but it did not stop them. Percy himself was forced to abandon his position and join the retreat. The humiliation of the battle was still bright in his memory, smarting, hurting.
He took his time answering. “If the flanking maneuver on the Jamaica Road described by General Clinton is feasible, and they do not hold the pass, it appears we should proceed against Brooklyn first. I really expect the entire campaign to be finished within two days of the time the first shots are fired.”
Howe turned to General Charles, Lord Cornwallis. “Your views?”
The name Cornwallis had been identified with love and devotion to flag and king for four centuries. General Charles Cornwallis had distinguished himself as a strong leader, beloved, admired, over a long and distinguished career.
“Brooklyn.” He said no more.
Howe raised a hand to slowly stroke his cheek, then his chin, while he concentrated on the maps, and considered the opinions of the men he had gathered to decide the fate of the recently declared United States of America.
America. Americans. No longer Englishmen. No longer of the family. Strangers. Yesterday our people. Today our enemy. He silently shook his head, hating the complicated politics of it, hating the sure knowledge he was going to have to unleash the greatest fighting force ever gathered by any country to do battle on foreign shores, sick in the realization his forces would be required to kill people who but short months ago had been his countrymen, his friends, his family.
In the loneliness of ultimate command, he made his decision.
“We will commence our attack on Brooklyn. This is Saturday. I am told the tides will be right next Wednesday and Thursday, August twenty-first and twenty-second. Weather permitting, we will load our troops and cross the harbor on the night of August twenty-first.”
The die was cast.
Howe exhaled held breath. He unbuttoned his tunic, shrugged out of it, hung it on the back of his chair, and rolled up his sleeves. “All right, gentlemen. Now let’s get down to the details.”
To the north, across New York Harbor, in the northeast section of New York City, General George Washington sat in silence at the ornately carved oak table that served as his desk in the center of his private chambers on the second floor of his headquarters at the Montier house. His hands were spread flat on the desktop, head tipped forward, face pensive, somber, morose as he worked with his thoughts. The only sound was the whisper of the wind outside the windows and in the flue of the great fireplace along the wall to his left.
Idly he touched and reflected on some of the documents assembled before him. He picked up his letter of July 2, 1776, written to his army to bolster their courage as they daily watched the mighty armada of British ships gathering south of Manhattan Island.
The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.
He set it aside and looked at another document. August 8, 1776. Genera
l Orders to the Continental army.
As the movements of the enemy . . . give the utmost reason to believe, that the great struggle, in which we are contending for every thing dear to us, and our posterity, is near at hand—The General . . . does most anxiously exhort, both officers, and soldiers, not to be out of their quarters, or encampments, especially early in the morning, or upon the tide of flood.
He glanced at the letter he had finished and delivered only hours earlier, addressed to the New York Convention.
When I consider that the City of New York, will in all human probability very soon be the scene of a bloody conflict, I cannot but view the great numbers of women, children and infirm persons remaining in it, with the most melancholy concern. . . . Can no method be devised for their removal? . . . It would relieve me from great anxiety, if your honorable body would immediately deliberate upon it and form and execute some plan for their removal and relief; in which I will cooperate and assist to the utmost of my power.
He turned in his chair to peer out the bank of windows at the maple trees moving in the wind beneath the swirling overcast.
Outnumbered . . . out-gunned . . . untrained troops . . . unseasoned officers . . . no pay . . . poor food . . . no uniforms . . . no navy . . . a third of our army sick and disabled . . . bickering and fighting between the regiments from different regions . . . half the local citizenry ready to rise and join the British against us . . . no time left . . . Congress with no power to do anything about any of it.
He slowly stood and walked to the windows to clasp his hands behind his back and stare down at the beautiful grounds of the mansion.
Every known imperative of successful warfare is on their side . . . how do we rise above it? . . . how?
A brisk rap at the door turned him.
“Enter.”
Adjutant Joseph Reed opened the door. “They’re ready in the conference room, General.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir, except General Greene, as you know.”
“Thank you. I’ll be along in a minute.”
Reed closed the door and Washington listened as his footsteps faded down the hall, followed by the faint sound of the double doors to the conference room closing. Washington tugged his vest smooth, then the sleeves of the tunic of his blue and buff uniform, and assembled the documents into a packet. He straightened his spine, drew a long breath, raised his face, jaw set, mouth pursed, and strode steadily down the hall to the conference room, with the heels of his spurred boots tapping a solid cadence. He opened the doors without hesitation and walked into the room to the head of the great, polished conference table. Six uniformed officers stood to face him.
“Be seated, gentlemen.”
While Washington laid down his packet and organized the documents before him, he glanced at the silent, expectant faces surrounding the table.
General Charles Lee. Thin, dour, cryptic, hatchet-faced, fond of strong drink, Lee had been born in England, where he rose to become one of the most respected officers in the British army before leaving England for the colonies. His military reputation followed him. It was Lee whom Washington had sent to South Carolina to meet Clinton at Charleston and thrash him at the brief battle of Fort Moultrie. He was considered by many, perhaps most, to be the best military mind in America, General George Washington not excepted, and Washington knew it. Lee himself shared the opinion, and on more than a few occasions brashly criticized his commander in chief, the Continental Congress, and anyone else who stood in the way of his becoming the new commander of the army.
General Horatio Gates. Robust, fleshy, born in England as a descendant of Sir John Gates, privy councilor during the reign of Henry VIII, he had resigned a commission in the British army to marry into the family of a wealthy Virginia planter, a one-time neighbor to George Washington. He was considered among the most qualified officers in the Continental army.
General Israel Putnam. Ol’ Put. Square, blunt, honest, simple, fearless, loved by his men, a bulldog in a battle. It was Ol’ Put who had calmly stood on the breastworks at Bunker Hill and ordered his command to withhold their fire as they faced the oncoming British regulars. General Putnam knew his men had little ammunition, and he meant to make every single musket ball count. “Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” The first volley had been fired at less than twenty yards, and it decimated the oncoming regulars, devastated them, threw them into a panic-driven retreat, as did succeeding volleys, again and again.
Colonel Henry Knox. Young, short, rotund, a Boston bookseller who had fallen hopelessly, completely in love with cannon and had read everything available on the subject until he was clearly one of the leading authorities in the colonies. It was he who had rushed to Washington’s side and volunteered to lead the expedition to Fort Ticonderoga in the dead of the winter of 1775, to bring the Ticonderoga cannon back three hundred miles to Boston and besiege General Gage’s British regulars. Henry Knox had dedicated his life to two things: cannon and George Washington. Washington had appointed him commander in charge of artillery for the Continental army.
General Lord Stirling. Born in England as William Alexander, his father claimed the title of the earl of Stirling, and William had continued it, demanding he be called Lord Stirling. He had received his military experience in the British army. Balding, charismatic, mild mannered, vociferous in the field, Lord Stirling had been assigned to various lesser duties but not to a position of command in the New York campaign.
General John Sullivan. Garrulous, argumentative, somewhat charismatic, he had learned his military skills in the New Hampshire militia and been commissioned a general by Congress, not at Washington’s request. Men competent in military matters were aware of gaps and lapses in Sullivan’s comprehension of the fundamentals of battle.
Noticeably absent was General Nathanael Greene, whom Washington had placed in command of all military operations on Long Island.
Washington cleared his voice and came straight to it. “General Greene has been taken seriously ill with the fever and is not improving. If he is unable to continue in command, we will have to make adjustments in the Long Island command.”
He waited while exclamations and strained glances were exchanged.
“Should it become necessary, General Sullivan will assume command in the place of General Greene. Lord Stirling will assume command of General Sullivan’s forces. If that occurs, I will deliver written orders to all concerned.”
General Sullivan’s face blanched. Lord Stirling straightened, eyes wide in surprise. Lee’s face clouded, and the other officers moved on their chairs and shifted their feet.
Washington continued. “Today I advised the New York Convention to evacuate the women and children and infirm from the city.”
Every officer in the room knew the unwritten rule that required a commander to evacuate women, children, and infirm from their homes only if he was expecting a battle of such magnitude that the city could be demolished. For a moment they held their silence before exclamations broke out and then died, and they turned to Washington, waiting.
“I now share with you the facts regarding our situation as of today.”
He picked documents from those before him and added one fact at a time, slowly, methodically building a comparison of the two forces now poised for battle. As the terrible imbalance took shape the room became increasingly quiet. When he laid the last document down the only sound in the room was the wind at the windows.
Washington stopped for a moment to organize his thoughts. “I am convinced they will attack within the next few days, and I’m inclined to believe it will come on New York City. The tides will be right on the twenty-first and the twenty-second, next Wednesday and Thursday. It will be imperative to do all we can between now and then to finish our fortifications and prepare our men.”
Again he stopped to think. “I know in our previous councils we have had doubts—serious doubts—that we can defend these islands when the enemy’s ships have ab
solute control of all sides, but we are past that now. Congress has directed us to defend New York City. Perhaps we can. We must clear our minds of all doubts, all reservations, and rise to meet this challenge.”
From the documents before him, he selected the letter he had written to the army on July 2, 1776.
“I urge you strongly, each of you, to once again bring the message of my letter of July second to your commands.” He raised the letter and read. “ ‘The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect. We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own country’s honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions.’ ”
He stopped and laid the letter down, and no man moved as a quiet influence settled into the room. Every man present had dedicated his life to the art and science of warfare, and every man had been personal witness to destruction of cities and heart-wrenching scenes of soldier and civilian alike, torn, maimed, crippled, killed by cannon and musket shot and raging fire, and they had been hardened and calloused by it. None held any illusion about the holocaust that was coming. And yet, with the words of General Washington still in their ears, a strange, subtle influence crept into their souls to raise a quiet voice. The Supreme Being is watching. This is his work.
Washington cleared his throat, and the impression faded as all eyes came back to him. “If you need another copy of this letter, Adjutant Reed has them, and again I urge you, share it with your men. The British have military superiority. We have the Almighty.”