A challenge for any general is calculating how to get his enemy to do what he desires. General George Washington continually hoped to entice William to “obligingly assault his entrenchments, taking losses [Howe] couldn’t afford.” Washington would acquire a reputation for avoiding direct confrontation, for preferring instead to wear down the enemy slowly with constant small attacks. Such tactics had been used two millennia earlier by the Roman commander Fabius during the Punic Wars against Hannibal’s invading army; by 1777, British newspapers were dubbing Washington “the American Fabius.”7
For his part, William sought to lure the enemy into a confrontation on equal, open ground, with sufficient British reserves to follow up on any victory. That would require luck, strategy, and a large force. If we try to get away with less, William warned prophetically in early June 1775, “I apprehend this war may be spun out, untill England Shall be heartily Sick of it.”8
William wrote this evaluation of the challenge confronting the British army more than a week before George Washington, in far-off Philadelphia, was appointed commander in chief by the Congress. William’s assessment was based on his experience of warfare in outlying regions of the Atlantic world, such as Scotland, Canada, and New England—all of which, in the eighteenth century, were considered to be less developed than the mother country. Writing days before the Battle of Bunker Hill, he described the mode of fighting used by American irregulars, who would fire from an entrenched position, reload, and renew the attack, falling back all the while, drawing the redcoats after them and then picking them off. This, he informed the government, was not unique to New England; rather, it was what “all other Inhabitants of a Strong Country” would do.9 Experienced British officers like William Howe regarded New England as the most militarized region in colonial America, precisely because it was a rustic province whose menfolk were trained to bear arms. In fact, it was frequently compared to Scotland, with its highland warriors.10
William’s shrewd appraisal contrasted sharply with loud declarations in Parliament that the Americans were “raw, undisciplined, cowardly men” who “would never dare to face an English army.”11 He understood that the rebel army in New England included “all or most of the young men of spirit in the country who are exceedingly diligent and attentive to their military profession.”12 The Massachusetts countryside that was bristling with militia before the Battle of Bunker Hill would evolve into the Continental Army led by famous Virginian George Washington, but the fundamental challenge for the British would remain the same: to bring the enemy to a confrontation on a level playing field.
William’s hopes of descending upon New York early in 1776, before Washington’s army had entrenched itself in fortifications, evaporated. He could not leave Halifax until June 10, and he and his army didn’t reach Staten Island, off New York, until June 25.13 By that time, Washington had been in New York since April, and his deputy, Major General Charles Lee, had been fortifying the city since February. William’s most sensible move now was to wait until he had his full quota of troops, which began to arrive from Britain in July. On July 27, he received a letter from Lord George Germain, concurring with his opinion and ordering him to delay until he had all his reinforcements.14 Now William would have to wait until mid-August before his army finally took to the field. But his suspense was partly relieved by the arrival, on July 12, of his brother, Admiral Howe.
That summer of waiting has become part of a legend that has clung to the Howe brothers—that in the critical first year of war, when the British stood the best chance of victory, they compromised British military operations by pushing their peace commission beyond its official remit. The chief responsibility for this error of judgment has been placed on Richard, who supposedly arrived in New York full of ambition to save the empire. Reasoning that less force would improve the prospects for a genuine reconciliation, he persuaded his brother to relinquish the quest for a decisive battle, which had been his goal while back in Halifax. The story goes that, throughout the New York campaign, the brothers sought only limited victories, each of which was followed up with renewed peace overtures.15 Richard, for his part, has been portrayed as a man motivated by hubris, stubbornly persisting with attempts to open talks because he privately disagreed with the government’s policy of coercion.16 Such long-standing suspicions about the brothers carry an implication of conspiracy—even treason—that is only rarely acknowledged by historians of their American command.
But we will see that the Howes did not wait a moment longer than was necessary to begin their campaign against New York. And historians assessing the brothers’ motives for pushing the peace commission have overlooked their anxiety to satisfy opinion in Britain, where—as they and the Howe women at home understood—some sort of peacemaking gesture was expected to precede the launch of military operations.
The arrival of Richard Howe on Staten Island in July precipitated a confrontation that has survived as an American founding legend. Within days, Richard sent a letter to General Washington, suggesting they meet aboard a British frigate off New York to discuss conciliation. It was a letter between gentlemen; Richard presumed Washington would accept his word for the promise of “the perfect Safety of your Person, & free liberty to return on shore at your Pleasure.”17 His emissary returned with the letter undelivered. It had been addressed to “George Washington, Esquire,” and Washington’s aide-de-camp denied the existence of any such person in the army. Washington was adamant that official correspondence had to acknowledge his rank. A week later, Washington declined to receive communications from the Howes regarding the exchange of prisoners. This, of course, was a crucial issue in any war, but prisoner exchange would defy formalization throughout the American Revolution, in part because British negotiators could not officially recognize the United States.
To negotiate this impasse, the Howes sent their adjutant general to confer with Washington. The British adjutant was welcomed with great pomp into the rebel stronghold in New York City, where he met Washington, who was dazzling in his most elegant attire. The adjutant was happy to sprinkle “Your Excellency” throughout his conversation, but the British military still could not acknowledge in writing Washington’s rank as commander in chief of a United States army. Washington declined the proposal of peace negotiations, saying he lacked the authority.18 Thus concluded the Howes’ peace overture to General Washington.
In the popular version of the story, the British commanders are characterized as baffled, exasperated, and thwarted by Washington’s bold insistence that the Howes bow to diplomatic protocol and acknowledge him as leader of the American army. But, seen from the point of view of the Howes, this can be dismissed as a folkloric caricature.
Although a picture of outraged redcoat officialdom makes a good story, it came as no surprise at British headquarters when Washington rejected the letter. The same obstructive give-and-take over official titles had taken place in communications between General Gage and George Washington in Boston in 1775. William had seen it all back then.19 Before Richard sent his letter to Washington in July 1776, his brother the general predicted the American commander’s response. Washington would not agree to any meeting “except in the highest Style,” William warned, with an equal number of officers on each side, and there would be meticulous scrutiny of any venue the Howes might suggest. William also predicted that the American general would refer Lord Howe to the Continental Congress as the power under which he served.20 When Richard showed William his public declaration of the Howe peace commission, the general pointed out that the Congress had declared independence just days earlier, and would listen to no commissioners. Knowing all this, Richard nevertheless proceeded to circulate the declaration to the Congress, and he persisted in attempting to open talks for weeks after reaching New York.
Throughout the month of July, the Howes were open to anyone inclined to talk of peace. Americans found they could come and go aboard Lord Howe’s flagship, HMS Eagle, where they were treated with respect and Wa
shington was carefully referred to as “General Washington.”21
The brothers had sound reasons that summer for extending the hand of peace. The Declaration of Independence notwithstanding, there were still members of the Continental Congress who hoped war could be avoided. The result was that some Americans thought the Howes should at least be heard, and even some members of Congress wavered. What harm could it do to listen and talk? Washington had an answer to that, as enlistments into his young army slowed down with rumors that peace might be at hand. Furthermore, any discussion of peace talks in Congress delayed war preparations, to the intense frustration of its most extreme members.22
Much ink has been expended by historians criticizing William’s delay between arriving on Staten Island and the start of his offensive almost two months later, but, compared to other amphibious operations in America during the Seven Years’ War, it is unremarkable. William confessed that he was mortified that the army was “still upon this island” in mid-August, but he could hardly have been surprised.23 He had witnessed a similar delay at Louisbourg in 1758, when the slow convergence of troops and commanders from Ireland, New York, Boston, and England delayed the campaign by two months. When he was at Havana, British warships required six weeks to assemble from their far-flung ports of origin: New York, the British Isles, the Antilles, and Jamaica.24 He also would have recalled the experience of his brother George in 1757, when the strike against Louisbourg had to be canceled because British ships were delayed so long that French reinforcements forestalled them. Such were amphibious operations in the age of sail.
As soon as the transports had been sighted at sea on August 11, the brothers began wrapping up the business of the peace commission and getting on with making war. With the fleet still expected hourly, Richard and William signed letters to Lord George Germain, stating that they had seen “no disposition to reconciliation” among the American leaders. They had duly circulated the declaration of the peace commission to the colonial governors, the Congress had seen it, and the Howes had approached George Washington—all to no avail.25
The last contingent of William’s American army arrived the next day, on August 12. He now had a force of around twenty-four thousand under his command, with four hundred transports and thirty men-of-war.26 It was even greater than the force the British had brought to bear against the French in America in the Seven Years’ War. He began landing troops on Long Island immediately.
On the same day that the transports had been sighted, Richard requested Henry Strachey to write to Germain’s office, setting out the thinking of the brothers on the eve of military action. Strachey’s letter has barely been used by historians of the Howe peace commission, who either do not refer to it or attribute the opinions it contains to Strachey himself.27 It reveals how the brothers expected their dual remits as soldiers and commissioners to play out in that final summer before the fighting resumed.
On the eve of the campaign for New York, the Howes understood that the Americans would not listen to any proposals until they had been soundly beaten; only force could move them from their claim of independence. “The present Situation of Affairs here, is simply this,” Strachey explained. “Every sort of Communication that might possibly produce an Opening to Peace Treaty, or even Discussion, is industriously Avoided by the American leaders.” The Americans had made it clear that they would not negotiate except “on the footing of free independent States.” “As things now are,” he went on, “the whole seems to depend upon Military and Naval Operations.” The ensuing campaign would be decisive; if the British army was victorious, the Americans would listen to proposals for an accommodation. “But,” he warned, such were “the infatuated Expectations” of the “present Rulers of America” that it was difficult to predict the effect of “even the completest Victory.” Strachey’s letter shows that, far from believing a limited use of force would incline the Americans toward reconciliation, the Howes believed they needed an overwhelming victory to end the rebellion.
Strachey’s letter also reveals that to fully understand the thinking of the brothers regarding the peace commission, we must look beyond the localized give-and-take between the Howes and the rebel leadership in America. Both brothers were mindful not only of opinion in America but also of opinion back home, where British sensibilities preferred that there be a gesture of peace before proceeding to war against a kindred people. At his first meeting with Richard on July 12, William had been in favor of offering peace talks in order to “prevent any Clamor at home that might arise if some such Overture were not made before the prosecution of the War.”28 Henry Strachey made the same point in his letter written a month later on behalf of the admiral: The peace commission was useful as a vehicle for putting the enemy in the wrong. If the American leaders continued to prefer to fight, they would be abandoned by every ally they had in the House of Commons.29 The British statesmen who were sympathetic to American resistance—men such as the Duke of Grafton, Henry Seymour Conway, and Lord Chatham—were well known to the Howe family. The brothers were determined to publicize back in Britain that they had made every effort to open talks, but now they had to proceed to battle.
In the summer of 1776, the peace commission seemed a natural component of an admittedly complex mission. The fact was that some kind of conciliatory overture was inevitable at this stage of the American War of Independence, and it was anticipated at home. Even before Lord Howe arrived with his commission, other serving generals had considered engaging in negotiations with rebel groups. General Burgoyne, for instance, explored negotiating with Congress while he was in Boston during the summer of 1775.30 General Clinton wanted powers to negotiate with the southern colonies at the outset of his ill-fated expedition to South Carolina in early 1776.31
The Howe women understood this as they managed the images of the brothers in the metropolis and took care to publicize their kinsmen’s efforts to open talks. During July, William was still writing to Fanny of the “liklyhood of treating,” but on August 15, days after the arrival of Commodore William Hotham and the fleet, both Richard and William wrote to their wives that the next dispatches would probably bring news of an action. These letters were in the hands of Mary and Fanny by September 30, and any prospect of peace negotiations ceased.32 Fanny’s letter was reported in the newspapers. “General Howe’s Lady,” the public was told, “has received a letter from the General,” informing her that he and Lord Howe “had done their utmost endeavour with the Congress to bring about a reconciliation, but in vain; and therefore they were preparing to take New York, which they had no doubt of doing in a day or two.”33 Like the Dowager Lady Howe’s letter to the voters of Nottingham almost twenty years earlier, the letter to Fanny was evidently placed in the papers by one of the women of the family. It was important to broadcast the brothers’ disposition to peace, and to demonstrate that their hand was forced by an obstinate rebel leadership. In late September and early October, the British newspapers sounded the refrain that “all hopes of Accomodation are now at an end.”34
It was not only through the newspapers that the Howe version of events was spread during these two critical weeks. The Howe women were perfectly positioned to publicize the brothers’ rejected peace overtures within London’s fashionable circles, and, predictably, word traveled fast. Lady Mary Coke picked up the chatter at a royal drawing room on October 3: “I find there is no hopes of an accommodation till the Americans are well beat.”35 Within days, across the Irish Sea, Lady Louisa Conolly wrote angrily, “How one does hate those American ringleaders that would not listen to the terms Lord Howe had to offer, but determined at once to try the fate of battle!” She had clearly received the latest report, whether from Fanny or from William himself, with whom she corresponded during the war.36
A mood of uneasy suspense hung over London. For several months, the British press had been predicting more butchery of His Majesty’s troops in New York, like the bloody action at Bunker Hill. The rebel entrenchments around New York were sa
id to be so strong that the like were “never seen in an Enemy’s country.”37 In late July, false rumors circulated around London of a New York engagement that inflicted such losses on the British that “one regiment had not 5 men left.”38 Memories of the last war in America, with its wilderness massacres, added to the sense of dread caused by the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British people braced themselves for reports of mass slaughter as they waited for news of William’s strike against the rebellion.
And William, in the early hours of August 27, was at Howard’s Half-Way House, explaining to the hapless tavernkeeper that he must guide the redcoat column, whether it suited his principles or not. At about the same time, less than seven miles away, on the far right of the American position, Major General James Grant and two brigades of British troops were drawing the attention of the rebel defensive line at the Shore Road–Martense Lane Pass, in what was effectively a diversionary attack. The sound of their artillery could be heard across the water in New York City. Lieutenant General Philip von Heister, commander of the Hessian troops hired to assist the British, would contribute to this feint by shelling rebel defenders of the American center at Flatbush Pass. The battle appeared to the Americans to be going well when suddenly, at about 8:30 a.m., two cannon shots were heard—the signal that General Clinton was in the village of Bedford, behind the American defenses. He and William Howe, with ten thousand men, had slowly and successfully worked their way around to the back of the Americans.
The Howe Dynasty Page 28
