The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  Whenever citizens and soldiers met, they acted like the fighting cocks then popular in New York. The tension finally erupted in the Battle of Golden Hill, fought on January 18, 1770—nearly two months before the Boston Massacre and more than five years before the Battle of Lexington. Really more of a donnybrook than a battle, it took place on a golden wheatfield topping a knoll on John Street between William and Pearl streets.

  The night of January 13 a group of regimentals made another attempt on the liberty pole. When enraged citizens closed in on them, the soldiers charged and drove the crowd into the Sons of Liberty’s tavern, piled inside after their quarry, broke down doors, smashed windows, and demolished furniture. Before anyone was hurt, an officer appeared and ordered his men back to their barracks.

  The next morning 3,000 townspeople gathered around the still-standing liberty pole to declare that all armed soldiers found on the streets at night would be treated as “enemies to the peace of the city.” The redcoats retaliated by posting signs saying that the Sons of Liberty could boast of nothing “but the flippancy of the tongue.” Two maligned members, Isaac Sears and Walter Quackenbos, followed six or seven soldiers carrying these signs. Just as a redcoat began pasting one in place, Sears collared him and roared, “What business do you have putting up libels against the inhabitants of this city?” Quackenbos grabbed a second soldier with limp posters dangling over one arm. A third soldier reached for his sword. Sears wheeled and threw a ram’s horn at him, scoring a direct hit on the head. Sears and Quackenbos frightened off the other soldiers and marched their prisoners to the home of Mayor Whitehead Hicks.

  As a crowd gathered in front of his house, Hicks sent for an alderman to discuss the situation. The fleeing soldiers had sounded an alarm in the barracks, and now twenty regulars double-timed it toward the mayor’s place. They were armed, and a couple of their leaders were drunk. When they heaved in sight, citizens grouped themselves protectingly before Hicks’ home. The soldiers halted, whipped out swords, and fixed bayonets. A few unarmed people ran to nearby sleighs to break off rungs for use as clubs. Then, their breaths frosting the January air, the two hostile parties confronted each other.

  The alderman arrived, conferred indoors, and stepped outside with the mayor, who ordered the soldiers back to their barracks. After muttering indecisively, the redcoats moved on. However, instead of heading for their quarters, they turned toward Golden Hill. They still held naked swords in their hands. Some citizens tagged along, begging them to sheathe the weapons. The soldiers swore and plodded ahead. When they reached the crest of the hill, they were joined by other British regulars, who had run to the scene. Now the reinforced body of soldiers turned to curse the people and denounce the city fathers.

  One warrior seemed to be an officer in partial disguise, for he wore silk stockings and neat buckskin breeches. He signaled the attack: “Soldiers, draw your bayonets, and cut your way through them!” The regulars fell upon the nearest townspeople, crying, “Where are your Sons of Liberty now?” A cutlass gashed a Quaker’s cheek. Wounds were inflicted upon a tea-water man and a fisherman. A sailor was slashed on the head. Another sailor was stabbed with a bayonet. Two soldiers even attacked a small boy. Another soldier lunged at a woman.

  At last city magistrates and members of the watch arrived and dispersed the regulars. Sixty British redcoats took part in the Battle of Golden Hill. They did not escape unscathed, for many were badly beaten. One wounded citizen perished of his injuries, and he may have been the first American to die in the Great Revolution.

  The next day other skirmishes threw the city into wild excitement as bells clanged and horsemen threw themselves on their mounts to spread the news to other parts of the country. New York was by no means the only American city where disorders occurred. The hatred of Bostonians for British troops quartered on them led to the famous Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770.

  By then Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend was dead. His successor, Lord Frederick North, later the Prime Minister, regarded the Townshend duties as “preposterous.” He felt that the British had stirred up American bees without getting any honey, since revenue from the Townshend Acts came to only about one-tenth the cost of collection. So the very day of the Boston Massacre, North submitted a bill calling for the withdrawal of all the Townshend duties except that on tea. He kept the tea tax as a symbol of Parliament’s supremacy over the colonies. In America the British concession broke down the nonimportation agreement.

  Back in 1766 the New York assembly had voted 1,000 pounds to pay for a statue of George III “to perpetuate to the latest posterity. . . its deep sense of the eminent and singular benefits received from him . . . but in particular in promoting repeal of the Stamp Act.” This gilded lead equestrian sculpture arrived here on the Britannia on June 4, 1770. After having been mounted on a tall pedestal at Bowling Green, it was unveiled the following August 16—only seven months after the king’s men had attacked New Yorkers on Golden Hill.

  Although the colonists resumed buying British goods, they still balked at tea because of the tax. The threepence a pound levy was not burdensome, but again a principle was at stake. Since tea could not be grown in the colonies, people substituted sassafras, balm, and sage or enjoyed the real thing smuggled here from Holland.

  In 1773 the British East India Company, which imported tea from India, was almost bankrupt. Parliament granted the firm the right to ship surplus tea directly to America without paying English import duties. This gave the company a virtual monopoly in the colonies, and merchants here were threatened with ruin. The Alarm, a leaflet distributed in New York at the time, denounced both the East India company and British officials. New Yorkers burned an effigy of a certain William Kelley, then in London, because they believed that he had encouraged the shipment of tea to America. Temporarily calling themselves the Mohawks, the Sons of Liberty issued a broadside stating that Americans were “determined not to be enslaved by any power on earth.” They added that any merchant allowing India tea to be stored in his warehouse could expect reprisals.

  The tea-bearing ships soon began arriving. The first one reached Boston on November 27, 1773, and the following December 16, Bostonians disguised as Indians dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor. Soon after, Paul Revere galloped into New York with news of the Boston Tea Party.

  Finally, on April 22, 1774, the ship London arrived here with the first tea consigned to New York. She tied up at the wharf at 4 P.M., and immediately a group of citizens boarded her to question the captain, James Chambers. He denied that his cargo included tea. Skeptical leaders of the boarding party growled that they planned to open every crate aboard his vessel. Captain Chambers then admitted that eighteen boxes of tea were stored belowdecks. The news was passed along to Sons of Liberty ashore, and they began painting their bodies as Mohawk warriors in preparation for raiding the ship that night.

  At 8 P.M. the crowd at the dock would not wait for the “Indians.” In everyday clothes people surged up the gangplank, spilled onto the deck of the London, and climbed down into her hold. They found the teaboxes, hoisted them topside, ripped them open, and spilled the leaves into the Hudson.

  When news of the tea raids reached George III, he vowed that he would give the Americans “a few bloody noses to remind them of their duty!” Because Boston had been the first city to defy British authority, it would be starved into submission. Parliament passed the Boston Port Act, closing the harbor to all shipping. Once again New England horsemen galloped down the coast, scattering skull-and-crossbones handbills as a warning to other cities. New Yorkers met on the Commons to denounce the new act and take up a collection for suffering Bostonians. Perhaps one speaker that day was a seventeen-year-old King’s College student, named Alexander Hamilton, making his first public appearance. New York promised Boston a 10-year food supply, and soon a flock of about 125 sheep set out for that hungry city.

  Now, as other reprisals from the British government fell thick and fast, Americans united
in a firm stand against England. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and drew up a declaration of rights and grievances. Lord North made an unsuccessful attempt at conciliation. British troops and colonial militiamen clashed at Lexington and Concord. A Virginia planter, named George Washington, was appointed commander in chief of the provincial forces. The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought. Two weeks later Washington reached Cambridge and took command of an army of New Englanders. The British army lifted its siege of Boston and withdrew. Then, on April 4, 1776, General George Washington left Boston for New York City.

  Chapter 12

  REVOLUTIONARY WAR

  HE STOOD six feet three in his black boots with their pointed toes. Wide-shouldered, deep-chested, and big-bottomed, he held himself as erect as an Indian and walked majestically. His legs and arms were long. His shapely head seemed small in proportion to his height and weight. Set far apart in his long face and divided by a heavy nose were steely blue-gray eyes. Because his false teeth bothered him, he kept his lips pressed together. A cocked hat topped his powdered brown hair, and he was uniformed in a blue coat, golden epaulets, and buff-colored breeches.

  Well groomed most of the time, George Washington was dust-flecked the afternoon of April 13, 1776, when he rode his horse into New York City at the head of five regiments. These soldiers reinforced troops sent here earlier from Boston. No British forces were left in New York. Governor William Tryon and his redcoats had abandoned the fort and taken refuge on the Duchess of Gordon, which lay in the harbor. For a time this ship became the colony’s floating capital.

  During Washington’s first days in New York he stayed in a private house on lower Broadway. When his wife joined him, they moved into a mansion abandoned by Abraham Mortier, former paymaster general of British military forces in America. This grand house lay in Lispenard’s meadows at the present corner of Varick and Charlton streets. To help make her husband comfortable, Martha Washington bought a feather bed, bolsters, pillows, bed-curtains, crockery, glassware, and other household items.

  In 1776 New York had a population of 20,000 and extended about a mile north of the Battery. The province ranked seventh in population among the thirteen colonies. However, because of the city’s geographic position and fine harbor, Washington considered it of “infinite importance.” As he wrote Congress, he had transferred his army here from Boston because he considered New York the key to the coming campaign. If the British seized the city, they could control the Hudson River, and then, as Washington put it, “stop the intercourse between the northern and southern colonies, upon which depends the safety of America.”

  This view was shared by General William Howe, the new commanding officer of the king’s forces in North America. Except for dark eyes and more pointed features than Washington’s, Howe looked surprisingly like the American. Howe’s brother, thick-lipped swarthy Admiral Richard Howe, headed all naval operations in America and now was leading a British fleet in this direction. With superior land and sea forces the Howe brothers were exceedingly mobile and could control America’s waterways. But where would they strike first?

  When General Howe left Boston the month before, most colonists expected him to head straight for New York. Instead, he took loyal Bostonians to Halifax, picked up more troops, and then set sail again. Not long after Washington had reached New York, another British fleet, under Admiral Peter Parker, attacked Charleston, South Carolina, only to be driven off. Anxious New Yorkers expected any day now to see the masts of one or more English fleets standing off Sandy Hook.

  The work of fortifying the city had begun before Washington arrived; now he redoubled the effort. Manhattan would be difficult to defend because it was surrounded by water and America had no real navy. Therefore, Washington threw up defenses to hamper the landing of an invasion force. An elaborate system of forts, redoubts, batteries, barricades, and trenches was constructed along Manhattan’s shores and on Brooklyn Heights, commanding the Upper Bay.

  Lacking cavalry, the American army was a badly balanced force of infantry and artillery. More than 200 cannons were trundled into position by sweating soldiers. The men panted as they stamped shovels into the earth. They swore as they swung picks at solid rock. Munition carts thudded over cobblestones. The old Battery fort was partly demolished, and a barricade arose 200 yards north on Broadway. Drums snarled, flags fluttered, and more and more volunteers tramped into the city until Washington had 20,000 men.

  Many Tories, expecting persecution by patriots, had fled. Patriots, too, had left for fear of bombardment by British warships. Despite the reduced population, it was difficult to find quarters for all the soldiers. At first they lodged in barracks and private houses; later they all went into tents, except for one regiment that lacked canvas. This was truly becoming an American army, rather than a collection of Colonial militia.

  For the first time masses of men from the thirteen colonies came together and noted in surprise how different they were. Lean frontiersmen, many more than six feet tall, wore leather leggings and moccasins, Indian style. Marylanders favored green hunting shirts. Pennsylvania regiments sported all colors of the rainbow. Pious Connecticut troops regarded New Yorkers as a wicked lot. Aristocratic Virginians were shocked to see New England officers and enlisted men fraternizing. Rhode Islanders stared at New Jersey riflemen clad in short red coats and striped trousers.

  As usual, the army attracted prostitutes, gamblers, and saloonkeepers. North of the city, near the present Washington Square, there was a squatters’ camp of huts and tents housing loose women and lusty men. Cynics dubbed it the Holy Ground. “The whores,” a shocked New England colonel wrote his wife, “continue their employ which is become very lucrative. . . . I was never within the doors nor ’changed a word with any of them except in the execution of my duty as officer of the day in going the grand round with my guard of escort, have broke up the knots of men and women fighting, pulling caps, swearing, crying ‘murder!’” Drunken soldiers actually had their heads and arms and legs cut off.

  Some of the Tories left in town were stripped, tarred and feathered, and ridden through the streets on rails. This rough treatment resulted as much from fear as from resentment, and there really were grounds for such fear. From his floating refuge in the harbor Governor Tryon directed a conspiracy of British officials and hundreds of loyalists to end the war by murdering or capturing American leaders, by inciting American troops to mutiny, and by seizing or destroying local army supplies. Two of Washington’s own bodyguards were bribed. A third, who pretended to accede, revealed the plot.

  The Tory mayor, David Matthews, was arrested and charged with “dangerous designs and treasonable conspiracies against the rights and liberties” of Americans. One ringleader, a member of Washington’s bodyguard, was Private Thomas Hickey, a deserter from the British army. He tried to poison the general by stirring Paris green in a dish of peas. Hickey was put on trial. Refusing to name any conspirators, he defended himself so weakly that he was sentenced to be hanged. Stripped of his uniform, the disgraced private was led to a field near Bowery Lane, where 20,000 persons watched him dangle at the end of a rope. This was the first military execution of the Revolution and the first in the history of the American army. Although no other defendant was convicted, Washington kept Mayor Matthews in jail, being convinced that he too was involved in the plot.

  At daybreak on June 29 an American, named Daniel McCurtin, glanced out of his waterfront home and stiffened with shock. The harbor was a forest of British masts. General Howe had arrived from Halifax with more than 100 vessels. In the next few days more and more ships heaved into sight. Admiral Richard Howe brought an entire army from England in a second fleet. Then Admiral Peter Parker arrived from Charleston with his fleet. Ships of the line, frigates, transports, and other vessels—nearly 500 in all—rocked at anchor on the very threshold of New York. It was the greatest expeditionary force ever mounted by England.

  Included in this army of 32,000 soldiers were 9,000 German
mercenaries. In 1776 perhaps 1,000,000 men of fighting age lived in Britain, but the American war was so unpopular there that the government couldn’t recruit or impress enough fighting men at home. King George tried unsuccessfully to hire soldiers from Russia and Holland. At last he got mercenaries from petty German princes, among them the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. American patriots wrongly called all of them Hessians and regarded them with corrosive hatred.

  During this awesome buildup of British strength in New York Bay the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Declaration of Independence. Washington ordered the document read aloud to all his soldiers on July 9, 1776. Here and there in New York regiments were drawn up on parade grounds, the men spick-and-span in their uniforms, bayonets fixed on heavy muskets. One hollow square was formed in front of the present City Hall, and Washington sat astride his horse within this square as an officer began reading aloud, “When in the course of human events—” That evening, as bells clanged and men cheered, a mob spilled down Broadway to Bowling Green and pulled to earth the statue of George III. Washington later reprimanded the few soldiers who took part in this affair, but he was glad that the statue’s 2 tons of lead melted down into 42,088 bullets for his army.

  Meantime, 10,000 British and German soldiers had landed on Staten Island, where they set up camp, tore down fences for firewood, swilled Jersey applejack, and roamed drunkenly through the thickets. A British officer wrote that “a girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most immediate risk of being ravished.”