by Ron Chernow
BY LATE JULY Washington’s men were laboring in a parched city under a blazing sky. “From breakfast to dinner I am boiling in a sun hot enough to roast an egg,” Knox groused to his wife. “Indeed, my dear Lucy, I never suffered so much from fatigue in my life.”48 It was precisely the atmosphere in which disease festered, and dysentery, typhoid fever, malaria, and smallpox infected the troops, disabling up to a third of them. “The vile water here sickens us all,” wrote Philip Fithian, a Presbyterian chaplain attached to the New Jersey militia. “I am very sick.”49 Illness was so prevalent that some regiments couldn’t field a single healthy officer. The men often relieved themselves in open ditches, until Nathanael Greene warned that “the stench arising from such places will soon breed a pestilence in the camp.”50 Responding to Greene’s request, Washington allowed the regiments to switch more of their diet from meat to fresh vegetables to combat scurvy. The troops also lacked uniforms, and Washington advised them to wear hunting shirts so the British would think they faced an army of skilled backwoods marksmen. To remedy the weapons shortage, Greene handed out three hundred spears. All in all, the Continental Army was a bizarre, mongrel corps that flouted the rules of conventional warfare. It was a far more peculiar army than the British troops had ever faced, leading Ambrose Serle to belittle them: “Their army is the strangest that was ever collected: old men of 60, boys of 14, and blacks of all ages, and ragged for the most part, compose the motley crew.”51
Chronically short of generals, Washington counted the bluff Israel Putnam as his only major general in New York. In response to Washington’s pleas, Congress added William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Sullivan, and Nathanael Greene as major generals. Of this group, Washington banked his highest hopes on Greene, appointing him commander of American forces on Long Island—a striking affirmation of trust in a man with only one year of army experience. Plagued by ill health, Greene had succumbed to jaundice earlier in the year. “I am as yellow as saffron, my appetite all gone, and my flesh too,” he told his brother Jacob. “I am so weak that I can scarcely walk across the room.” Now, in mid-August, as the Continental Army braced for battle, Greene reported to Washington that he was struggling with a “raging fever” and could scarcely sit up in bed.52 It was a catastrophic development for Washington, who evacuated Greene to a house north of the city and replaced him with John Sullivan. A fiery, egotistical lawyer from New Hampshire, the son of Irish indentured servants, Sullivan had wild, unruly hair and a confrontational personality. Washington took a balanced view of Sullivan, crediting him with being “spirited and zealously attached to the Cause” but suffering from a “tincture of vanity” and an unhealthy “desire of being popular.”53 William Alexander, better known as Lord Stirling, who had been in charge of New York’s fortifications, was appointed to take over Sullivan’s division. Before the war Washington had tried to help the rich, free-spending Stirling with his crippling debts. A convivial man, excessively fond of drink, Stirling would distinguish himself as a brave soldier and a steadfast supporter of Washington.
With the patriots feeling beleaguered as never before, the question of military strategy preoccupied Washington and his officers. The armchair generals of the Continental Army, averaging only two years of military experience, had suddenly become real generals. Pessimism was rampant. With a sinking feeling, Henry Knox told his brother that the Continental Army was “not sufficiently numerous to resist the formidable attacks which will probably be made.”54 Joseph Reed espoused a cautious strategy, “a war of posts,” which he defined thus: “prolong, procrastinate, avoid any general action, or indeed any action, unless we have great advantages.”55 Under this strategy, the patriots would fortify a few strong, impregnable positions and invite the British to attack at their peril. Charles Lee wanted to fragment the army into nimble mobile units that could swoop down and harass the enemy as opportunities arose. Washington was slowly being forced to adopt a cautious strategy of trying to survive as best he could and attacking only when unusual chances emerged. The aim was to keep the Continental Army intact and wear down Britain through a prolonged war of attrition, hoping all the while to attract European allies who might deal a devastating blow to the enemy.
The British, for their part, did have to win a military victory; a stalemate would be an expensive and humiliating defeat. They rejected a blockade of American ports as too daunting even for the Royal Navy. One faction favored the blatant application of terror to scare the colonists into submission—but that strategy, tried in Falmouth and Norfolk, had backfired and unified the Americans. The Howe brothers opted for a more subtle, complex agenda than their massive military presence implied, including a concerted attempt to regain the allegiance of the rebels and to mobilize Loyalists. They wanted to establish a British citadel in New York that would serve as a base of operations to sustain hit-and-run raids against Atlantic seaports, enabling their army to move more swiftly than the land-bound Continental Army. Most of all, they wanted to dominate the Hudson River and shut off New England from the other states.
Even as Washington awaited the British onslaught, his overburdened mind turned where it always did for comfort: to Mount Vernon, his mental sanctuary. That August, in his spare moments, he fantasized about the groves of trees that would brighten up each end of his mansion. Only recently he had heard from Jacky Custis that British men-of-war had sailed up the Potomac and burned houses to the ground, but Washington’s mind preferred to dwell on sylvan visions of home. He could see the grounds clearly in his mind, down to the last bush. “There is no doubt but that the honey locust, if you could procure seed enough and that seed would come up, will make . . . a very good hedge,” he wrote to Lund Washington. “So will the haw or thorn . . . but cedar or any kind of evergreen would look better. However, if one thing will not do, we must try another, as no time ought to be lost in rearing of hedges, not only for ornament but use.”56 A few days later this escapist vision would be blotted out by the bloodshed in Brooklyn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Disaster
BY MID-AUGUST fresh contingents of British ships had converged on New York, rounding out an expeditionary force of 32,000 troops, including 8,000 Hessian mercenaries, and revealing the magnitude of the threat to the Continental Army. Making a major statement about the peril of the American revolt, the Crown had enlisted seventy warships, a full half of the Royal Navy, to deliver an overwhelming blow against the Americans. It decided to gamble all on a military solution to a conflict that was, at bottom, one of principle and that depended ultimately on recovering the lost trust of the former colonists.
A subdued Washington knew the stage was set for a major confrontation. “An attack is now therefore to be expected,” he wrote, “which will probably decide the fate of America.”1 His army of only 10,500 men, 3,000 of them ailing, was sadly outnumbered and outgunned. Even though he tried to put on a brave face, he approached the impending confrontation with dread. “When I compare” the British Army “with that which we have to oppose them, I cannot help feeling very anxious apprehensions,” he confided to Brigadier General William Livingston.2 As more militiamen streamed into New York, Washington’s army expanded to 23,000 soldiers, but many were callow youths grabbed from shops and farms who would soon confront a highly professional military force. Washington’s pronouncements acquired a darker tinge, as if he intuited the many deaths that lay ahead. “We must resolve to conquer or die,” he intoned in general orders. “With this resolution and the blessing of heaven, victory and success certainly will attend us.”3
The night of August 21, almost the eve of battle, witnessed an electrical storm of such portentous grandeur that it might have been conjured up by Shakespeare. Major Abner Benedict, posted on the elevated portion of Long Island known as Brooklyn Heights, which towered over the East River and housed the main American fortification, left this graphic description of the celestial pyrotechnics whizzing through the sky: “In a few minutes the entire heavens became black as ink, and from horizo
n to horizon the whole empyrean was ablaze with lightning . . . The lightning fell in masses and sheets of fire to earth, and seemed to strike incessantly and on every side.”4
The Howe brothers postponed an invasion to give the Hessian troops a week to recuperate from their transatlantic journey and to see if their feeble peace overtures bore fruit. Baffled by the delay, Washington found “something exceedingly mysterious in the conduct” of these brothers, who spouted catchphrases of peace amid a huge military buildup.5 The paramount question was whether the enemy would land on Manhattan or on Long Island, prompting Washington to hedge his bets by dividing his forces. This strategy, if seemingly prudent, ran the grave risk of having British ships storm up the East River, snapping links between the army’s two wings. To avert this possibility, Washington sank wrecks in the channels of Upper New York Bay—one could see masts of submerged ships poking up from the water—and seeded the East River with spiked obstacles to thwart vessels.
As storm clouds dispersed the next morning, British light infantry and grenadiers began trickling ashore at Gravesend Bay, at the southwestern corner of Long Island. By day’s end, 15,000 redcoats had established a solid beachhead in the kind of well-drilled maneuver at which European armies excelled. This main invading force would soon number 22,000 soldiers, but Washington, deceived by faulty intelligence, estimated it in the neighborhood of 8,000 or 9,000 men. The miscalculation led him to misconstrue the landing as a diversion from the main event in Manhattan—“a feint upon Long island to draw our forces into that quarter.”6 He was further led astray when British forces came to a dead halt at Flatbush, three miles from American lines. Retaining the majority of his men in Manhattan, Washington transferred ten battalions to Brooklyn, bringing total troop strength there to a paltry 6,000 men. In retrospect, it is hard to see how Washington’s strategic vision could have been so clouded as ninety British ships conducted a grand-scale movement in the Narrows.
On August 23, after touring his Long Island defenses with General Sullivan, Washington decided to deploy 3,000 men farther south in a wooded, hilly area called the Heights of Guana (or Gowanus Heights), which ran roughly east-west and could cut off any northward thrusts by the enemy. With his men about to clash with superior forces, Washington suggested that courage could outweigh sheer numbers and implored them to show “what a few brave men, contending in their own land and in the best of causes, can do against base hirelings and mercenaries.”7 Just in case noble principles didn’t work, Washington reiterated that any cowards who fled would be shot. His own jitters became palpable when he promoted Israel Putnam over Sullivan, a panicky rotation of generals that exposed the flimsy command structure of the Continental Army. So murky was the situation that nobody quite knew how many American soldiers were based on Long Island. George Washington, age forty-four, was betraying his inexperience in guiding such a large army.
When a favorable wind arose, Washington imagined that the British would squeeze the Americans with a pincerlike movement, with British soldiers on Long Island swarming up toward Brooklyn Heights while British ships moved en masse toward southern Manhattan. On August 25 he again scrutinized the Long Island troops and was enraged by what he saw—something more like a crazy carnival atmosphere than a tidy military camp. Men roamed around higgledy-piggledy and fired muskets at random. Frustrated, he gave a tongue-lashing to Israel Putnam: “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.”8 In his writings, Old Put seemed scarcely literate, once telling “his Excelancy ginrol Washenton” that he had asked “each ginrol ofesor [each general officer]” to transmit to him his “opinon in riteng [opinion in writing].” 9 Putnam’s shaky command of English highlighted the difficulties Washington encountered in forming a competent officer corps.
On August 26, after visiting the Heights of Guana, Washington still didn’t grasp the full scope of the threat. Though he surveyed the British troops through his spyglass and observed a sea of white tents stretching nearly five miles down to Gravesend Bay, he still kept more than half his men in Manhattan. Only when British ships retreated back down the Narrows did the uncomfortable truth dawn on him. As he informed Hancock, the enemy “mean to land the main body of their army on Long Island and to make their grand push there.”10 Incredibly, with the vast British expeditionary force set to pounce, Washington took time out to write to Lund Washington about selling a flour shipment in Hispaniola. He rambled on about chimney repairs and additions to the northern wing of the Mount Vernon mansion. Such incongruous thoughts confirm that Washington found a release from overwhelming pressure by daydreaming about his estate, his battlefield sedative. He confessed to Lund that being the top general was a joyless existence: “If I did not think our struggle just . . . sure I am that no pecuniary satisfaction upon earth can compensate the loss of all my domestic happiness and requite me for the load of business which constantly presses upon and deprives me of every enjoyment.”11
The British had devised an ingenious battle plan that envisioned a fantastic triple assault against American forces on Long Island. In the first prong, Scottish major general James Grant would lead his Highlanders up the Gowanus Road in a diversionary maneuver along the west coast of Brooklyn. In the second prong, Lieutenant General Leopold Philipp, Freiherr von Heister, would march his Hessians through Flatbush, then swerve northward through central Brooklyn to the Heights of Guana. The pièce de résistance, however, would be the third movement farther east. Generals Howe, Henry Clinton, and Charles Cornwallis would sweep around to the right and make a huge looping movement up through Flatlands. Once past Sullivan’s and Stirling’s men, they intended to make a bold sweep west along the Jamaica Pass, punching through a flagrant gap in the American defenses—a shocking oversight by Washington and his generals. With these defenses breached, the wide flanking movement would carry them straight to Brooklyn Heights and bring them behind Sullivan’s men, catching them in a lethal trap.
During the night of August 26 Washington was shaken from his sleep in Manhattan by news of General Grant’s move up the Gowanus Road. This clever British stratagem seemed to confirm Washington’s preconception that the enemy would favor this shore road, enabling the Royal Navy to provide cover. When Washington awoke again at sunrise, the British further fed his delusion by sending five warships, assisted by opportune winds and tides, toward the East River. Had the ships reached their destination, it might have been catastrophic for the American army, cutting it in half and threatening Brooklyn Heights from the rear. Luckily, the wind shifted direction, forcing the ships back down the harbor. At that point Washington and Joseph Reed took a small launch across the East River, joining Israel Putnam and four thousand Americans hunkered down inside the fort atop the Brooklyn bluff. Washington ordered more regiments to cross to Long Island as the center of gravity shifted irrevocably from Manhattan.
Riding among his troops, Washington transmitted conflicting messages. In the (possibly romanticized) memories of an old soldier, the commander issued blazing rhetoric: “Quit yourselves like men, like soldiers, for all that is worth living for is at stake!”12 He mingled this admonition with unalloyed threats: “If I see any man turn his back today, I will shoot him through. I have two pistols loaded. But I will not ask any man to go further than I do. I will fight as long as I have a leg or an arm.”13 Unlike other battles, where Washington rode at the head of his troops, at Brooklyn Heights he hung back in the rear, surveying the fighting to the south through his telescope.
South of Gowanus Creek, the rotund, bibulous Lord Stirling led 1,600 men in fierce combat. With exceptional valor, the American troops fought for four hours until they were overwhelmed by more than 7,000 British and Hessian soldiers. In an unequal contest with a larger enemy force, the First Maryland Regiment under Colonel William Smallwood, experiencing battle for the first time, obstinately refused to surrender a small hill that ensured an escape path for Stirling’s men.
Though they saved many retreating Americans, their casualties were frightful: of 400 men sent into the fray, only 144 survived. “Good God!” Washington reportedly said, wringing his hands as he watched this action. “What brave fellows I must this day lose!”14
General Sullivan dealt with an equally hellish situation as his 3,500 men tried to prevent any British advance beyond the densely wooded Heights of Guana. The Americans were stretched perilously thin along a defensive line that extended for miles. An enormous number of Hessian soldiers suddenly scrambled up the slope toward them. When Sullivan tried to retreat, he discovered that British soldiers had encircled his men amid ferocious blasts of gunfire. Thousands of terrified Americans, lacking bayonets to defend themselves, tried to straggle back toward Brooklyn Heights across a blood-drenched plain. The Hessians, reacting with slashing brutality, bayoneted many men to death and impaled some captives against trees. Of this outright butchery, one British officer commented: “We were greatly shocked by the massacres made by the Hessians and Highlanders after victory was decided.”15 This was the American bloodbath the British had long envisioned, in which colonial yokels were properly vanquished by their betters. Facing an orgy of retribution, American prisoners were turned into slave labor. “As long as we had no horses,” said one Hessian, “the prisoners were harnessed in front of the cannon.”16
