1776

by David McCullough

  He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up.

  Again and again, in letters to Congress and to his officers, and in his general orders, he had called for perseverance—for “perseverance and spirit,” for “patience and perseverance,” for “unremitting courage and perseverance.” Soon after the victories of Trenton and Princeton, he had written: “A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.” Without Washington’s leadership and unrelenting perseverance, the revolution almost certainly would have failed. As Nathanael Greene foresaw as the war went on, “He will be the deliverer of his own country.”

  The war was a longer, far more arduous, and more painful struggle than later generations would understand or sufficiently appreciate. By the time it ended, it had taken the lives of an estimated 25,000 Americans, or roughly 1 percent of the population. In percentage of lives lost, it was the most costly war in American history, except for the Civil War.

  The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.

  Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning—how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference—the outcome seemed little short of a miracle.

  Acknowledgments

  MATERIAL FOR THIS BOOK has been gathered at more than twenty-five libraries, archives, special collections, and historic sites here in the United States, and in the United Kingdom, at the British Library and the National Archives. I am greatly indebted to the staffs of all of them and wish to thank the following in particular for their many courtesies and help:

  William Fowler, Peter Drummey, Brenda Lawson, and Anne Bentley of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Philander Chase, Frank Grizzard, Jr., and Edward Lengel, editors of The Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia; James C. Rees, Carol Borchert Cadou, Linda Ayres, and Barbara McMillan of Mount Vernon; Gerard Gawalt, Jeffrey Flannery, James Hutson, Edward Redmond, and Michael Klein of the Library of Congress; Richard Peuser of the National Archives; John C. Dann, Brian Leigh Dunnigan, Barbara DeWolfe, and Clayton Lewis of the William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Jack Bales, Roy Strohl, and Tim Newman of the Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington; Ellen McCallister Clark, Jack D. Warren, Sandra L. Powers, Lauren Gish, and Emily Schulz of the Society of the Cincinnati, Washington, D.C.; Andrea Ashby-Leraris of Independence National Historic Park, Philadelphia; Roy Goodman and Robert Cox of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; David Fowler, Greg Johnson, and Kathy Ludwig of the David Library of the American Revolution, Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania; Michael Bertheaud of the Washington Crossing Historic Park; Cathy Hellier and John Hill of Colonial Williamsburg; James Shea and Anita Israel of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Vincent Golden of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts; Jan Hilley and Ted O’Reilly of the New-York Historical Society; Leslie Fields of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Rick Statler of the Rhode Island Historical Society; Greg and Mary Mierka of the Nathanael Greene Homestead, Coventry, Rhode Island; Martin Clayton, the King’s Map Collection, Windsor Castle; Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Russell, Ballindalloch Castle, Banffshire, Scotland; Bryson Clevenger, Jr., of the Alderman Library, University of Virginia; Helen Cooper of the Yale University Art Gallery; and Eric P. Frazier of the Boston Public Library.

  Peter Drummey, the incomparably knowledgeable Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and Major General Josiah Bunting III, soldier, scholar, author, and generous friend, were good enough to read the manuscript and offer valuable suggestions. And so, too, was Philander Chase, senior editor of The Papers of George Washington, whose insights into the life and character of Washington and close reading of and comments on the manuscript helped immeasurably.

  Sean P. Hennessey and his associates at the National Park Service in Charlestown, Massachusetts, gave me a superb tour of Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights; Martin Maher of the New York City Parks Department took me the length and breadth of Brooklyn on a memorable all-day survey of the events that took place there August 27, 1776; and on another expedition, John Mills, superintendent of the Princeton Battlefield State Park, guided me along the route of the famous night march to Trenton, beginning at the point where Washington and the army crossed the Delaware, then through the battles of both Trenton and Princeton. For their time, their illuminating commentary and infectious enthusiasm for their subjects, I thank them all.

  For the privilege of visiting the birthplace of Nathanael Greene at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, I am ever grateful to its present owner, Thomas Casey Greene, who, as a direct descendant, knows much about the general not to be found in the usual texts.

  Over the years I have benefited repeatedly from the friendship and the insights of historians Richard Ketchum, Thomas Fleming, Don Higginbotham, and David Hackett Fischer, each the author of landmark works on the Revolutionary War.

  For their interest and a great variety of thoughtful suggestions and favors, I thank William Paul Deary, Philip A. Forbes, Wendell Garrett, Richard Gilder, J. Craig Huff, Jr., Father Michael Greene, Tim Greene, Daniel P. Jordan, Michael Kammen, Ravi Khanna, William Martin, Sally O’Brien, Doug Smith, Matthew Stackpole, Renny A. Stackpole, Clarence Wolf, and John Zentay.

  Thomas J. McGuire has read so much about the realities of soldiering in the Revolution that it is almost as though he fought in it himself. He was a great help from the start of my efforts, supplying a wealth of material from his own wide-ranging research and abundant knowledge.

  Gayle Mone helped with correspondence, typed the manuscript, and assisted superbly and tirelessly in the work of the Bibliography and Source Notes.

  Mike Hill, my research assistant on this and previous books, has been a mainstay. His expertise and enterprise, his amazing stamina and unfailing good cheer, are beyond compare.

  Again, I proudly acknowledge the parts played by my editor Michael Korda and my literary agent, Morton L. Janklow. I am ever grateful for their support and counsel, not to say the pleasure of their company. And again I thank my lucky stars for copy editors Gypsy da Silva and Fred Wiemer, for Amy Hill, who designed the book, and Wendell Minor, who designed the jacket. I think it is no exaggeration to say they are the best in the business.

  As always, I thank my family, who know how much help and support they have given me and how much I appreciate all they have done.

  To my wife Rosalee, to whom the book is dedicated, I owe the most by far. She is editor-in-chief. Her spirit never flags. She holds a steady course in all seasons.

  David McCullough

  West Tisbury, Massachusetts

  November 29, 2004

  Bibliography

  A Note on Sources

  For a year of such momentous events and historic consequence as 1776, source material dating from the time is appropriately voluminous. The primary sources I have drawn on—the letters, diaries, memoirs, maps, orderly books, newspaper accounts, and the like—are listed in the bibliography. But those of the utmost importance have been the letters of George Washington, Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, Joseph Reed, and Joseph Hodgkins. That these men found the time, and energy, to write all that they did, given the circumstances, is a wonder, and ought to be acknowledged as another of their
great services to their country. Washington, in the time covered by this narrative, from July of 1775 to the first week of 1777, wrote no fewer than 947 letters!

  On the British side, the letters of the irrepressibly opinionated James Grant were also a particularly rich and welcome source. Privately held at Ballindalloch Castle in Scotland, the ancestral home of the Grants, the papers are now available on microfilm at the Library of Congress.

  Of the more than seventy diaries I have consulted, much the most valuable have been those of Jabez Fitch, James Thacher, Philip V. Fithian, Ambrose Serle, Archibald Robertson, Frederick Mackenzie, and Johann Ewald. Of the memoirs, those of Alexander Graydon, Joseph Plumb Martin, and John Greenwood are outstanding.

  I have drawn a great deal also from three of the earliest histories of the Revolutionary War, all published in the last decade of the eighteenth century, when memories were still relatively fresh and many of the principals were still alive.The History of the American Revolution by David Ramsay andThe History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America by William Gordon are both the works of Americans. (Ramsay was a physician from South Carolina; Gordon, a Massachusetts clergyman.) The third is the first full account by an Englishman and by someone who actually fought in the war:The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War by Charles Stedman.

  In addition, I have relied on a number of exceptional secondary works on the war overall:Angel in the Whirlwind by Benson Bobrick;The War for America, 1775–1783 by Piers Mackesy;The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff;A Revolutionary People at War by Charles Royster; andA People Numerous and Armed by John Shy.

  Christopher Ward’s two-volumeThe War of the Revolution, published more than fifty years ago, remains an excellent military study. Don Higginbotham’sThe War of American Independence is masterful, clear, and balanced. (Its bibliographical essay is especially valuable.) And the grand old multivolume classic,The American Revolution by Sir George Otto Trevelyan, first published in 1899, is a joy for the prose alone, but also filled with illuminating observations and details to be found almost nowhere else.

  Of the books on the war in 1776, four are first-rate and essential:Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer;1776: Year of Illusions by Thomas Fleming;The Year That Tried Men’s Souls by Merritt Ierly; andThe Winter Soldiers by Richard M. Ketchum. And four skillfully edited anthologies of the letters and reminiscences of many who played a part in the war, both American and British, have been mainstays:The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, in two volumes, edited by Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris;The Revolution Remembered, edited by John C. Dann;Rebels and Redcoats, edited by George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin; andLetters on the American Revolution, 1774–1776, edited by Margaret Wheeler Willard.

  One of the early surprises of my research was to find how very much material there is on the Siege of Boston. (I could readily have focused on that alone.) Yet for some strange reason, it is a subject that has been largely overlooked by historians for years. The one book of consequence,The First Year of the American Revolution by Allen French, was published in 1934. But it is an expert study, and in combination with Mr. French’s extensive notes, on file at the Massachusetts Historical Society, it has been invaluable.

  For the war in New York, the best accounts areUnder the Guns andBattle for Manhattan, both by Bruce Bliven, Jr.;The Battle of Long Island by Eric I. Manders;The Battle of Brooklyn, 1776 by John J. Gallagher; andThe Battle for New York by Barnet Schecter. The earliest scholarly work,The Campaign of 1776 Around New York and Brooklyn, written by Henry P. Johnston and published by the Long Island Historical Society in 1878, has been indispensable.

  The best study of the Siege of Fort Washington is “Toward Disaster at Fort Washington,” by William Paul Deary, an unpublished dissertation submitted to the Columbian School of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University, in 1996.

  Of the books devoted to the campaign in New Jersey, I have drawn from the first serious work on the subject, William S. Stryker’sBattles of Trenton and Princeton, published in 1898, as well as Arthur S. Lefkowitz’s more conciseThe Long Retreat, published in 1998;The Campaign of Princeton, 1776–1777 by Alfred Hoyt Bill; andThe Day Is Ours by William M. Dwyer.

  The biographies that have been of continuous value throughout my work include first and foremost Douglas Southall Freeman’sGeorge Washington, and especially volumes III and IV. Though a bit old-fashioned in manner, Freeman’sWashington still stands second only toThe Papers of George Washington in its comprehensive treatment of Washington’s leading part in the war and in its plenitude of exceptional footnotes.

  Other biographies repeatedly consulted areGeorge III: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert; Theodore Thayer’sNathanael Greene; The Life of Nathanael Greene by George Washington Greene; North Callahan’sHenry Knox; John Richard Alden’sGeneral Charles Lee; General John Glover and His Marblehead Mariners by George Athan Billias; William B. Willcox’s insightful study of Sir Henry Clinton,Portrait of a General; The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution by Ira D. Gruber;The Command of the Howe Brothers During the American Revolution by Troyer Steele Anderson; andCornwallis: The American Adventure by Franklin and Mary Wickwire.

  The American Rebellion,another mainstay, is Sir Henry Clinton’s own narrative of his campaigns, edited by William B. Willcox.

  And, like all who write about the Revolutionary War, I am everlastingly indebted toThe Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909 by I. N. Phelps Stokes,American Archives by Peter Force, and theEncyclopedia of the American Revolution by Mark Mayo Boatner III.

  I have, as well, referred repeatedly to portraits by John Trumbull, most of whose works are at the Yale University Art Gallery, and by Charles Willson Peale, particularly those at the National Independence Park in Philadelphia. In the works of these two great painters, both of whom served in the war, we see not only the faces of the protagonists on the American side but a delineation of character.

  Finally, I must include five historic houses that figure in the story:

  The old white-frame homestead at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where Nathanael Greene was born and raised, still stands and still belongs to the Greene family. Its treasures include the cradle Nathanael Greene was rocked in, numbers of his books, and even the musket he bought from a British deserter before marching off to war. The handsome, foursquare house Greene built shortly before he was married also still stands at Covington, Rhode Island, near the site of his iron foundry.

  Mount Vernon, Washington’s home in Virginia, is in many ways the autobiography that Washington never wrote, in all that it tells us about him. Then there are two that served as his headquarters during the course of 1776, the magnificent Longfellow House, as it has long been known, on Brattle Street in Cambridge, and the Morris-Jumel Mansion on Jumel Terrace in New York City, off 160th Street. With the exception of the Greene homestead at East Greenwich, all of these great houses are open to the public, and in their way their old walls can truly talk.

  Manuscript Collections

  American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.

  Newspaper, manuscript, and broadside collections

  American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia

  Nathan Sellers Journal

  Boston Public Library

  Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Mich.

  Loftus Cliffe Papers

  Henry Clinton Papers

  James S. Schoff Revolutionary War Collection

  Colonial Williamsburg Reference Library, Williamsburg, Va.

  Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, Mass.

  John Winthrop Papers

  Historical Society of Delaware, Wilmington

  Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

  Edward Hand Papers

  Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Peter Force Archives

  Geography and Map Division

  James Grant Papers

  Consid
er Tiffany Papers

  George Washington Papers

  Longfellow House National Historic Site, Cambridge, Mass.

  George Washington Papers and Park Service Archives

  Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston

  John Adams Papers

  Reverend Samuel Cooper Diary

  Allen French Papers

  Richard Frothingham Papers

  Henry Knox Diary

  Timothy Pickering Papers

  Samuel Shaw Papers

  William Tudor Papers

  Lieutenant Richard Williams Papers

  Hannah Winthrop and Mercy Warren Correspondence

  Mount Vernon Department of Collections, Mount Vernon, Va.

  Museum of the City of New York Archives

  National Archives, Washington, D.C.