“Josiah,” the General muttered to me one afternoon after all the British troops had departed Boston, “certainly we don’t want the British to move from New York up the Hudson and cut off New England from the rest of our states, but the city itself means very little. Besides, it is probably the most Tory-infested city in America. I would prefer to draw the British army out of the city into the interior and fight them with Indian tactics to maximize our own advantages. Eventually, the Parliament will tire of the war, and we will prevail.”
Yet the Congress was still dictating military strategy and believed it was important to morale that every major city should be defended.
Later, the General confessed to me that he should have resisted Congress. “Goodness knows, Josiah, that in the last war I carried out foolish plans by Governor Dinwiddie and always paid a price.” I assumed he was referring to his decision to move ahead to Fort Necessity back in the 1750s without a full complement of troops, thus leading to that embarrassing surrender. “Josiah, we shall not let governors or Congress do this to us again.”
What the Congress and the General did not know was that the British soon would appear off New York City, reinforced from London with hundreds more ships than left Boston and almost twenty thousand additional troops, including thousands of hired Hessian soldiers, who were among the finest professional fighting men in Europe.
General Charles Lee had been dispatched by the General to New York to draw up a defensive plan. The problem was that when you defend everything, you defend nothing, something the General should have realized. The British ships soon appeared and dominated the waters around the city. Much time in endless councils was spent trying to decide where the British would strike. A large number of our outnumbered and little-trained troops were concentrated in Long Island, but many troops were stationed in Manhattan and New Jersey. The General remained in Manhattan. The British landed in Long Island, made short work of American defenses, and easily drove our troops back with huge casualties.
When the General and I crossed the East River to Long Island and moved inland, we were met by thousands of fleeing troops. It was a scene I was to see frequently during the war: American troops fleeing their better-armed, better-trained, and more numerous adversaries and the General riding full bore ahead on Old Nelson trying to rally his officers and men.
A semblance of order was restored, and night fell with thousands of American troops backed up against the East River awaiting annihilation in the morning. What then took place was that combination of providential intervention, American inventiveness, and generalship in the face of adversity that characterized the turning of routs into marginal defeats during the war.
The General quickly decided that to leave his battered troops until morning would invite obliteration. “Defense where there is no prospect of victory and no place to retreat to, Josiah, is doomed to failure,” the General said to me on many occasions, and while I do not recall, that might have been the first time. In the midst of a pelting rain, the General called on the mariners and fishermen from Massachusetts to commandeer all the barges and small boats possible and move five thousand of our troops across the East River in the middle of the night and early morning.
Unfortunately, it became clear that not all the men would cross safely before the sun rose. No matter . . . a dense fog suddenly descended upon the East River so that the British could see nothing when the morning came. Every last man was evacuated. The General took the last boat, and the British, by now understanding what was happening, fired through the fog, their bullets whizzing by the General and our boat. I tried to follow the General’s example and remain standing in the boat, but I was frightened and relieved when we reached the center of the river and I could sit down without appearing too cowardly. Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge told me it was one of the General’s most brilliant decisions of the war; the General’s critics said it was pure luck.
As our barge approached the shores of Manhattan through the remaining wisps of fog, I pondered for the first time a question that haunted me the whole war. What would the General do if he were captured? This increasingly became the British aim, as they rightly believed the General’s capture would stomp out the rebellion. The General often spoke admiringly of his hero, the Roman counsel Cato, for committing suicide to vindicate liberty rather than accept a life under tyranny. Still, the General loved his family and life so much that it was hard to imagine such an outcome. Would he ask me to write melodramatic letters to Martha and his stepchildren about honor and duty? We all took the idea of British plots to capture the General much more seriously after the summer of 1776. First an anonymous letter exposed the General’s housekeeper, Mary Smith, as a British spy, and she fled to England; then, another letter attributed a poison plot to the British governor in New York, William Tryon; and finally, several of the General’s own private guards confessed to a plot to spirit the General away. These incidents rattled headquarters, but the General told his aides to keep the information secret, as he was afraid public disclosure might encourage violence by citizens against loyalists and distract from the war effort. The General, as I said, was never one to be distracted from the greater task at hand.
I reflected on the possibility of my own capture and recognized that, while I thought little of this at the beginning of the war, my views had started to evolve. Slowly wasting away from untreated illness or lack of food and water on one of those ships off New York where the British had started to keep prisoners seemed a most unromantic way to die. Forsaking the return to the family merchant house to work with a father who believed me unfit was one thing; forsaking a recent fiancée who would not bear my children was another. As the war wore on, I found myself thinking less of heroic death from combat or imprisonment and more of Prescilla.
What followed our escape across the East River was the saddest part of the war and raised great doubts about the General’s ability. Even I, his aide, who had admired his generalship in Boston, was ready to join the critical chorus, although I never said so to the General. We again did not know where the British would strike next, and so the General kept his forces concentrated to the north on Manhattan Island.
On September 15, when the British and their Hessian allies landed smartly near what is now Thirty-Fourth Street on the East River, our limited forces—there is no other way to put this—ran for their lives. The General rode down from Harlem to see his officers and men fleeing. I have said the General was a calculating man, but in that moment calculation gave way to spontaneous anger. He struck several officers in an unavailing effort to stem the flight. I thought for a moment he was going to charge right into the British lines. I was a hundred yards to the rear and saw several officers grab his reins and persuade him to withdraw.
The British could have pursued our troops up Manhattan, but for some reason—perhaps because they wanted to await the landing of more troops—General Howe chose not to. I have read that this was just another example of how bad British generalship made the General look good. In any event, many of the General’s advisors advocated setting fire to the city that night. The General, believing the recapture of the city was impossible given British control of the waters surrounding it, and also believing New York to be infested with loyalists, was reluctantly inclined to agree. An order from Congress solved the General’s dilemma, arriving with explicit instructions not to destroy New York. Fires started in the city soon afterward, probably set by rebels angry at the British and their loyalist friends, and most of lower Manhattan burned anyway.
As the British troops finally moved northward, our troops performed with more discipline, firing and retreating before overwhelming numbers in an orderly manner. There then took place one of those strange events that always left one wondering whether the General had behaved irrationally or with strategic genius. As the British advanced, their bugles blew as if they were chasing foxes. This was, to say the least, insulting to our men, and the General, who had stationed some of his best Virginia, Connecticu
t, and Maryland troops in a brush-covered ravine, ordered an attack as the British started across an open field. Our men fired from behind trees, stone walls, and fences, the bugles stopped blowing, and the British beat a hasty retreat, leaving many of their dead behind. The victory was small, but after the previous days of disorganization, the news spread quickly and lifted morale.
Morale was further reinforced when the British tried to land behind the General at the north end of Manhattan. They could have captured the General and destroyed the main American army, but again, for reasons known only to the Almighty, they chose to land at the marsh at Throgs Neck. While they labored across the marsh, Pennsylvanian riflemen decimated their ranks, forcing a withdrawal. The General then withdrew our forces across the Harlem River to the Bronx while another fortuitous change in the weather brought storms that delayed a further British attack.
When the next attack came, a few miles away at Pell’s Point, a Massachusetts brigade under Colonel John Glover retreated in good order, inflicting heavy losses. The brigade, one of our best outfits, was made up of New England fishermen, Negroes, and Indians. As superior British forces advanced, our first line of defense would rise and fire into the British ranks. As the British drew their feared bayonets for a charge, our first line swiftly retreated behind a second line. The next line then rose with the British approach and fired before retreating, while reloading, behind a third line. In this manner, an orderly retreat was maintained while inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. While these tactics were later widely used by our forces and attributed to the General (although he never claimed authorship), I know they were initiated that day by Colonel Glover at Pell’s Point. The General embraced and used these tactics for the rest of the war against more numerous advancing enemy forces, although I suppose he deserves some credit for knowing how to adapt.
The General moved his forces across the Hudson to retreat through New Jersey, but not before we watched the saddest defeat and biggest indictment of the General’s leadership in the whole war. Fort Washington on the northern tip of the island was still manned by over a thousand Americans. The General decided to withdraw those troops to join the main force in New Jersey, but at a council of his generals, he allowed General Greene, who was later to distinguish himself as one of our ablest generals, to convince him to leave the fort occupied. The argument was that the fort was impregnable and was tying up large numbers of British and Hessian troops. The General acceded, and I do believe that, although he called many councils of war in the future, he never again allowed such a council to override one of his strong instincts. Loyalists, of whom there were many in New York, showed the British how to attack the fort, and our forces, outnumbered by over four to one, after fighting valiantly, surrendered. Surrender did not save many of our survivors, who were then bayoneted by the Hessians, outraged by their losses in the previous days. All of this the General saw by telescope from the Jersey shore. It was the only time I saw tears come to his eyes. The General refrained from blaming others and cursed himself for making a horrendous mistake, which it certainly was. He also took full responsibility, which was great fodder for his critics.
Some of the General’s critics, especially General Charles Lee, started spreading the word that the General was “indecisive” and implied he should be replaced, presumably by Lee. But the critics were not among the ranks. The soldiers adored the General for his willingness to take the same risks they did in facing enemy fire. Perhaps they also realized that five of the hundreds of British frigates in New York waters had more firepower than all the American guns on shore and that their British and Hessian opponents were better fed, better clothed, and better trained, and outnumbered our men by over three to one. I have since learned that the average British private had fifteen years’ service, while our men had, in many cases, only served months.
Nonetheless, the General’s reputation, which had been so strong after Boston, had now sunk to where his critics in Congress and elsewhere were emboldened. The General, as always sensitive to public opinion, was well aware of all this. I drafted a letter to his cousin Lund at Mount Vernon saying that he was never so unhappy and that he was tempted to resign but that many were telling him that “if I leave the service, all will be lost.”
The General mused to me that the challenge was to match our strategy to the strength of our troops, and he believed that New York had provided the necessary lessons. Never again would he defend major cities where the British controlled surrounding waters. And never again would he ask his men to defend points, no matter how well fortified, when the odds were long. “Josiah,” he said wryly, “the honor of making a brave defense does not seem to be a sufficient stimulus when the success is very doubtful and falling into the enemy’s hands probable.” Rather, the General intended, no matter what the advice of Congress or other generals, to adopt a strategy of retreating before the superior British and Hessian forces, exacting a cost where possible, and launching surprise attacks where circumstances showed the probability of a favorable outcome. While he called frequent councils of war on tactics, I never saw the General deviate from that strategy.
As we retreated across New Jersey that chilly November, the critics’ voices grew louder. The British crossed the Hudson after us, capturing supplies and weapons. Congressmen, openly, and Generals Lee and Gates, behind his back, asked why the General did not stand and fight. But the General followed his strategy, and while I had my doubts at the time, it proved to be correct. How did these critics expect the General, with two thousand men—there were many desertions—to stop the ten thousand British and Hessians occupying New Jersey towns? Of course, if you counted all the Americans under arms, including the armies commanded by generals appointed by Congress such as Heath, Lee, and Gates, as well as the militia in twelve states, the British numerical superiority largely disappeared. But the other generals kept their forces in New York, New England, and the uncontested part of New Jersey and, counting on the loyalty of friendly congressmen, refused to join our forces. And what good did a thousand militia in North Carolina or any other state do to help us in New Jersey?
We retreated across New Jersey with the British and Hessian troops in pursuit. Our numbers grew smaller—the desertions and expiring enlistments vastly outnumbered new recruits. It was amazing to me how the spirit of freedom seemed to ebb as the prospects for victory diminished. At the same time, however, with smaller numbers, our professionalism was rising. General William Howe’s strategy seemed to be to deliberately occupy New Jersey as he had New York City, while his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, occupied Newport and the surrounding parts of Rhode Island.
I found our retreat and the British occupation of New Jersey in the fall of 1776 the most demoralizing time in the war. At least three thousand (and some said as many as ten thousand) citizens in New Jersey pledged allegiance to the king. Why, even one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton, did so. In many towns, the British were welcomed and dined. General Howe thought that, if the British occupied another key state, the resistance would be broken, and the majority of Americans, who he believed loyal to the crown, would rise up and take control of their towns. While the citizens defecting were many, in our largely middle-class country, it seemed to me the defectors were mostly rich or poor.
I know that, while maintaining his outward calm to troops and congressmen, the General despaired during the war. I, too, despaired, at least to myself, for our whole effort. Over a glass of Madeira, the General had me put down his musings again about resigning in a letter to his cousin Lund. As ever concerned about his reputation, the General said that if he did not resign, he would lose what was left of his reputation, but if he did resign, ruin would follow. Then, as if taken aback by his own words, he quickly said, “Josiah, don’t tell anyone.” I didn’t, but felt the war was on the verge of being lost. I didn’t realize—and perhaps the General didn’t either—that we were entering the third major campaign that was to change the course of the war and
restore, perhaps forever, the General’s reputation.
As I look back, many positive things came out of our retreat through New Jersey and across the Delaware River. First, one of the General’s chief rivals, Charles Lee, was captured by the British after he left his troops for a sexual escapade with a woman engaged in prostitution. Second, while our forces were much smaller than in Boston or New York, they had become far more professional. Third, as the British approached the Delaware River and Philadelphia, the congressmen panicked, and, with only the General standing between them and the British, in early December issued directives giving the General full powers over the army. No longer would Congress be meddling in military strategy. General Gates, seeing the change, started moving his troops southward to join us. Finally, those who welcomed the British and Hessians soon had cause for regrets as, despite General Howe’s orders against it, farms and homes were pillaged. I remember hearing the stories of rapes committed by British and Hessian soldiers, stories that even now I cannot comfortably repeat.
If General Howe could do things over again, I am sure he would have sent everything he had at our weakened army and destroyed or captured us and the General. I believe there is a good chance that he could have succeeded. Instead, after spreading his forces across New Jersey, he followed the European custom of suspending operations for the winter.
Nonetheless, I have never seen the General so depressed. He knew that the British had us on the run and that, not only in New Jersey but throughout the colonies, the feeling was growing that the war would soon be over. “Josiah, we must somehow find a way to achieve a victory or else the play will be over,” the General told me. I don’t believe the General was thinking of some major triumph on the battlefield but some event that would rally public support and restore morale. The General read newspapers avidly, and, while I thought it odd, sometimes he seemed more concerned with the public’s opinion of events than the map of the battlefield. But I now realize he also read the newspapers to gauge how Americans felt about the independence effort. Their feelings in late 1776 were, to say the least, quite pessimistic. In retrospect, this is not surprising, given the huge number of Americans who were either loyalist or neutral.
The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel Page 11