1776

by David McCullough

  Houses burst into flame. Ten soldiers camped by the East River, below Fort Stirling, were killed in a single flash. In New York, a soldier hurrying through the streets was struck deaf, blind, and mute. In another part of town three officers were killed by a single thunderbolt. A later report described how the tips of their swords and coins in their pockets had been melted, their bodies turned as black as if roasted.

  To Major Benedict the roar and bloodshed of battle were something to be expected. “But there seems hidden meaning, some secret purpose, when the bolt is launched by an invisible arm, and from the mysterious depth of space.”

  He could not account for the cloud remaining stationary for so long, unless, he speculated, “the vast amount of arms collected in and about the city held it by attraction and drew from it such a fearful amount of electricity.”

  ***

  BEFORE DAWN THE FOLLOWING DAY, Thursday, August 22, the sky was clear and cloudless, as if nothing unusual had happened. And with a fresh morning breeze and roll of drums, the long-awaited British invasion of Long Island got under way.

  The frigates Phoenix (with Lord Howe aboard), Rose, and Greyhound, and two bomb ketches, the Carcass and the Thunder (vessels equipped for shore bombardment), swung loose from their moorings and stood down the Narrows to take their positions to cover the landing. Then, at approximately five o’clock, with day beginning to break, an advance corps—4,000 of the King’s elite troops led by Generals Clinton and Cornwallis—pushed off, the men packed aboard scores of flatboats (these built during the time on Staten Island) with British sailors at the oars.

  Slowly but steadily, in glorious early sunshine, the invasion force proceeded across three miles of water, until, at precisely eight o’clock, at the flash of a signal gun from the Phoenix, all 4,000 troops went ashore on the long, flat, empty beach at Gravesend Bay.

  Everything had been carefully prepared, every move of the army and navy carefully coordinated. The landing was as smooth as if it had been rehearsed, and there was no opposition. The comparative few of Colonel Edward Hand’s Pennsylvania riflemen posted near the shore had already withdrawn, driving off or killing cattle as they went, and burning wheat fields and farm buildings. The dense columns of smoke rising in the air could be seen in New York eight miles away.

  As more troops followed, a naval spectacle of more than ninety vessels filled the Narrows. Wave after wave of soldiers came on, their red coats and polished bayonets gleaming in the bright sunshine. One battalion of blue-coated Hessian grenadiers was ferried over standing in ranks, muskets in hand and in order of battle. By noon a fully equipped army of 15,000 men and forty pieces of artillery had landed and rapidly, smoothly assembled in perfect formation on the adjacent plain. And still more would follow, including the women who were with the army.

  Loyalists by the hundreds converged to welcome the invaders, many of them bringing long-hidden supplies of all kinds. The welcome was more effusive even than it had been on Staten Island. Meanwhile, Cornwallis and the advance guard pressed directly inland for six miles to establish a camp at the little Dutch village of Flatbush, near the wooded Heights of Gowan.

  It all made a picturesque scene, wrote Ambrose Serle—

  15,000 troops upon a fine beach…[then] forming upon the adjacent plain…. Ships and vessels with their sails spread open to dry, the sun shining clear upon them, the green hills and meadows after the rain…. Add to all this, the vast importance of the business…and the mind feels itself wonderfully engaged.

  British sailors who came ashore “regaled themselves with the fine apples, which hung everywhere upon the trees in great abundance,” Serle continued. “It was really diverting to see sailors and apples tumbling from the trees together.”

  But other aspects of the scene were anything but picturesque. A Hessian officer, Lieutenant Johann Heinrich von Bardeleben, described burned-out houses, fields in ashes, roads lined with dead cattle, and old people looking with sadness at what “appeared previously to have been a paradise standing in blooming abundance.”

  Our regiment was camped amidst orchards of apple and pear trees…. Here, too, the picture of destruction was to be seen on all sides. Almost everywhere there were chests of drawers, chairs, mirrors with gold-gilded frames, porcelain, and all sorts of items of the best and most expensive manufacture.

  The Hessian and British troops alike were astonished to find Americans blessed with such abundance—substantial farmhouses and fine furnishings. “In all the fields the finest fruit is to be found,” Lieutenant von Bardeleben wrote after taking a walk on his own, away from the path of destruction. “The peach and apple trees are especially numerous…. The houses, in part, are made only of wood and the furnishing in them are excellent. Comfort, beauty, and cleanliness are readily apparent.”

  To many of the English, such affluence as they saw on Long Island was proof that America had indeed grown rich at the expense of Great Britain.

  In fact, the Americans of 1776 enjoyed a higher standard of living than any people in the world. Their material wealth was considerably less than it would become in time, still it was a great deal more than others had elsewhere. How people with so much, living on their own land, would ever choose to rebel against the ruler God had put over them and thereby bring down such devastation upon themselves was for the invaders incomprehensible.

  ***

  WORD REACHED NEW YORK early in the day, but Washington was badly misinformed about the size of the enemy force that had come ashore. Told that there were 8,000 or 9,000, he quickly concluded the landing was the feint he had expected, and consequently he dispatched only 1,500 more troops across the East River to Brooklyn, bringing the total American strength on Long Island to something less than 6,000 men. The expectation of another, larger strike by the British at New York or up the Hudson persisted. But then no one seemed to know what was going on.

  Lieutenant Jabez Fitch, whose Connecticut regiment was one of those ordered across the river, wrote in his diary of being marched forward at Brooklyn about a mile before being told to halt and wait for further orders.

  While we are waiting we hear many various reports concerning the enemy, some say they are within four miles of us, others, two and a half. Others say they have not advanced more than a mile from where they landed, which is near ten miles. So on the whole we know not what to believe concerning them until we can see them.

  Colonel Moses Little, whose information was remarkably accurate, reported to his son that the enemy was within three miles, and said in the same letter, “I have thought fit to send you my will.”

  Meanwhile, impressive numbers of Connecticut reinforcements had been arriving in New York. Only that day, twelve Connecticut regiments paraded in the city. “Almost one half of the grand army now consists of Connecticut troops!” an officer boasted to his wife. The whole army, noted Joseph Reed, was in better spirits than he had ever seen.

  Not until the following day, August 23, did Washington confirm in his general orders that the British had come ashore on Long Island. Leaving no doubt about the seriousness of the moment for every man in the army, he appealed to their pride and patriotism and love of liberty.

  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 free men, 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.

  Nor should they forget that they faced an enemy who held them in contempt.

  Remember how your courage and spirit have been despised and traduced by your cruel invaders, though they have found by dear experience at Boston, Charlestown, and other places, what a few brave men contending in their own land, and in the best of causes can do, against base hirelings and mercenaries.

  They must be “cool but determined.” And again, as at Boston, he threatened instant death to any man who showed cowardice.

  To General He
ath, in command of defenses to the north at King’s Bridge, Washington sent a message saying he dared not weaken his forces in New York until he could be certain of the enemy’s real intentions.

  “I have never been afraid of the force of the enemy,” Heath answered. “I am more so of their arts. They must be well watched. They, like the Frenchman, look one way and row the other.”

  Joseph Reed, who was as close to Washington as anyone, expressed the same extreme concern. “The greatest vigilance is had to prevent a surprise,” he wrote, “which we have to fear more than anything.”

  Washington crossed to Brooklyn that afternoon to confer with General Sullivan. There had been some minor skirmishing only, he was told, and he returned to New York still more convinced that Howe had yet to commit his full force.

  If the British had made no advance on New York with their fleet since landing on Long Island, he reported to Congress, that could very well be because it was not in their power. For days the wind had either been head-on against them or too little when the tide served.

  Washington was beset by second thoughts. On August 24, he reshuffled the command at Brooklyn, placing Israel Putnam over Sullivan, a move likely to unsettle the troops who had seen the stricken Greene replaced by Sullivan, and now Sullivan superseded by Putnam all in a matter of days.

  Brave, popular “Old Put” might be the man to boost morale, but he had neither the experience nor the temperament to direct so large a force under such conditions and was thus a poor choice, as Washington seems to have realized almost at once.

  Putnam and six battalions crossed to Brooklyn early the next day, a Sunday, causing a great stir. “Scarcely were religious services finished,” wrote Abner Benedict, “when strains of martial music were heard from the ferry, and not long after column after column came winding up the Heights toward the fort…. The general was received with loud cheers, and his presence inspired universal confidence.”

  The day’s orders from Sullivan deplored the disorder and unsoldierly behavior displayed in the camps on the eve of battle. Yet soldiers were here, there, and everywhere, strolling about as if on holiday, some of them miles from the lines. “Carts and horses driving every way among the army,” wrote Philip Fithian. “Men marching out and coming in…. Small arms and field pieces continually firing. All in tumult.”

  The contrast between such disorder and flagrant disregard for authority and the perfectly orchestrated landing by Howe’s troops could not have been more pronounced.

  Arriving at Brooklyn, Washington was outraged by what he saw, and in a letter written later in the day, he lectured Old Put as he might the greenest lieutenant. All “irregularities” must cease at once. “The distinction between a well regulated army and a mob is the good order and discipline of the first, and the licentious and disorderly behavior of the latter.”

  Seeing things as they were, not as he would wish they were, was known to be one of Washington’s salient strengths, and having witnessed firsthand the “loose, disorderly, and unsoldierlike” state of things among the troops at Brooklyn, and knowing how outnumbered they were by the enemy, he might have ordered an immediate withdrawal back to New York while there was still time. But he did not, nor is there any evidence that such a move was even considered.

  In New York all the while, more than half the army, including many of his best troops and best officers, like Henry Knox, waited in anxious expectation of an attack there. “We expect the fleet up every tide if the wind serves,” wrote a Connecticut colonel, William Douglas.

  That same Sunday another 5,000 Hessians crossed the Narrows from Staten Island bringing Howe’s total forces on Long Island to 20,000.

  ***

  WASHINGTON RETURNED AGAIN to Brooklyn early the following day, August 26, to confer still again with his commanders and appraise the defenses and deployment of troops. Almost certainly he rode beyond Brooklyn to the Heights of Gowan, where from the ridge line he could have seen the white tents of the British spread across the plain at Flatlands. (“General Washington, with a number of general officers went down to view the motion of the enemy,” reads one account.) With his telescope, he could well have watched Howe’s troops on their daily parade.

  The plan was for General Putnam to direct the entire defense from the fortifications on Brooklyn Heights. Generals Sullivan and Stirling and their troops were to be positioned well forward on the “out work” of the wooded ridge, to cover the few main roads or passes through that long, natural barrier.

  The Gowanus Road was on the far right, near the Narrows. The Flatbush Road was at the center and thought to be the way the British would come. A third, the Bedford Road, was off to the left. All three were comparatively narrow cuts through the ridge and thus “easily defensible.”

  The ridge of hills and woods was all that separated the two armies but was seen by the Americans as the ideal forward line of defense, and so to their decided advantage. Joseph Reed, doubtless reflecting Washington’s view, deemed it “very important.” The fight when it came would surely come there, in the woods, where, it was agreed, Americans fought best.

  Stirling was responsible for the Gowanus Road on the right, where about 500 troops were posted. Sullivan had command of both the Flatbush Road at the center, where 1,000 were deployed, and the Bedford Road, on the left flank, where another 800 or so were positioned under Colonel Samuel Miles of Pennsylvania. In the absence of uniforms, every man was to put a sprig of green in his hat as identification.

  Washington’s specific order to Putnam, who knew almost nothing about Long Island, having visited there only occasionally, was to position his best troops forward and “at all hazards prevent the enemy’s passing the wood and approaching the works.”

  As things stood, a force of fewer than 3,000 soldiers, nearly all of whom had had no experience in battle, were expected to hold a ridge four miles long, while the rest, another 6,000, remained within the Brooklyn forts. In all, the outposts stretched six miles. The terrain was so rugged that units had trouble communicating, and so thickly wooded that in places men were blind to any movement beyond a hundred feet.

  Had there been American cavalry to serve as “eyes and ears,” or had there been reliable intelligence, the defenders might have had a better chance. But there was neither. The Continental Army had no cavalry. Congress had not considered cavalry necessary, nor had Washington asked for any. And however adamant he was about the value of spies, as circumstances were, he had none.

  Nor in the five days since the British landing had anyone been stationed at a fourth, lesser-known pass on the far left, three miles east of the Bedford Road. The Jamaica Pass, as it was called, was narrower even than the others, and thus the easiest to defend. Yet nothing had been said in any of the orders of Sullivan, or Putnam, or Washington expressing concern about the Jamaica Pass or the need to post sufficient troops there.

  Having looked things over and conferred with his commanders, Washington approved the plan, including, presumably, a last-minute idea of having the Jamaica Pass patrolled by five young militia officers who had horses.

  Washington returned to New York that evening convinced at last that the British would make their “grand push” against Brooklyn. Or so he wrote to John Hancock. To General Heath he also wrote that by the “present appearance of things” the enemy would make their “capital impression” on Long Island. But then, as if still unable to make up his mind, he cautioned yet again that it might all be “only a feint to draw over our troops to that quarter, in order to weaken us here.”

  His army, he knew, was ill prepared for what was to come. There was more sickness in the ranks than at any time before. Only a few of his officers had ever faced an enemy on the field of battle. He himself had never commanded an army in battle. His responsibilities, the never-ending “load of business,” weighed heavily. The same uncertainties that had vexed him in his first days of command at New York vexed him still. The enemy could not delay much longer. The time for warm-weather campaigning, �
�the season for action,” was fast waning, yet even now he consoled himself with the hope that he had a few more days before the enemy would strike.

  It had been a long, anxious day, and in the privacy of his quarters in the Mortier house, Washington turned his mind—turned for relief it would seem—to thoughts of home. Alone at his desk, he wrote a long letter to his manager at Mount Vernon, Lund Washington, filled with thoughts on the marketing of flour and specific directions concerning work on additions to the house. For much of the letter it was as though he had nothing else on his mind.

  I wish most ardently you could get the north end of the house covered in this fall, if you should be obliged to send all over Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania for nails to do it with. Unless this is done it will throw everything exceedingly backward—retard the design of planting trees…besides keeping the house in a disagreeable littered situation. It is equally my wish to have the chimneys run up. In short I would wish to have the whole closed in (if you were even to hire many workmen of different kinds to accomplish it).