by Ron Carter
Led by their officers, the Americans gathered their dead and their wounded, and they fell into regimental formations and marched down the north slope of the ridge, onto the plains. They marched with their heads high, their muskets over their shoulders, and no one was calling criticisms to any other command as they moved north, shoulder to shoulder, up the Post Road onto Harlem Heights and to the fort. Gentle hands helped the wounded to the hospital, while others began the solemn process of laying the dead in a line, covered, to be prepared for burial.
In the late afternoon sun, the generals and Colonel Reed sat facing General Washington in his new quarters at the Morris home.
“Report.”
General Nathanael Greene spoke. “I believe it would be fitting for Colonel Reed to make the report. He’s the only one here who was there through the entire action.”
For five minutes Reed systematically laid out the events as they had occurred, and then he paused, and General Washington waited for a moment. “Yes. Go on.”
“Sir, when we were in the crucible, it was Colonels Knowlton and Leitch who turned it. They did not order their men, ‘Forward.’ They shouted, ‘Follow me!’ and they led them. They led them. I can’t tell you, sir, the effect on the men. I believe they would have followed those two officers straight into the infernal pit if that’s where they had led them. Never have two officers acquitted themselves so gallantly. I hope the general sees fit to give them their due.”
Washington sat still, fascinated, as Reed went on.
“One more thing, sir. Not one command performed better than another. Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, Virginia—it made no difference. And when it was over, they thought of themselves as one army, no longer divided. There was a feeling as they marched back up the Post Road, their wounded and dead with them, shoulder to shoulder.”
The generals looked at each other and said nothing. For several seconds the room remained silent.
Washington said quietly, “Excellent. Would you all submit a brief written report of your individual observations and conduct for the permanent records. You are all dismissed.”
The group rose to leave, and Washington reached to take Reed’s arm. “Colonel, there’s hot water. Get a bath. I’ll have a hot supper waiting. Then take a rest. After, I need your help.”
It was past eight o’clock when Reed rapped on the door of Washington’s private quarters.
“Enter.”
Reed stepped into the room. “There was something I could do for you, sir?”
“Sit down.” Washington was seated at his corner desk, and he turned to face Reed. “I need you in command of troops in battle. I need someone to replace you here. Do you have any suggestions?”
Reed dropped his face in thought. “I haven’t considered it. I’ll need a little time.”
“What would you think of Alexander Hamilton? He’s a captain, with a command. He is recommended to me as bright, decisive.”
“I’ve heard of him, but I am not informed enough to speak to his qualifications.”
“Would you do some investigating?”
“Of course. Was there anything else?”
“In the morning, early, I intend writing a letter commending all the officers and all the troops who were in today’s action. I’d like your help.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Could you make arrangements for the burial of Colonel Knowlton? Full military honors. I would like a few minutes in the service to speak about what that brave man did. This army needs to hear it.”
“I would be honored.”
“One last thing. I doubt General Howe has an appetite to try to dislodge us from this hill by a direct attack from the south. I expect him to send troops ashore on Westchester, probably across Long Island Sound, to come in behind us at King’s Bridge and trap us. He might cross at Pelham Bay, or Throg’s Neck. I sent a spy from Westchester County whose presence will not raise suspicion. I assigned him to sketch all the British troop disbursements and their defenses on Long Island Sound, immediately. I expected to hear from him before now. Has anything come to your attention about this?”
“No, sir. I’ll report immediately should I hear.”
“That’s all for now, Colonel. You have distinguished yourself today. I am deeply grateful.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“You are dismissed.”
Tattoo had sounded and the campfires had gone out when the pickets on the Post Road heard the muffled sounds of a small body of men moving directly up the incline towards Harlem Heights.
“Who comes there?”
“Lieutenant Robert Marshall. Connecticut militia. I’ve got wounded. We’re coming in.”
Half an hour later three exhausted men watched the doctor in the infirmary lay two wounded men on makeshift cots on the floor at the rear of the hospital. He shook his head and turned to Marshall. “I’ll do all I can. Were there any more?”
“Two. We lost them. Buried in a cellar down in New York City.”
“Go get something to eat.”
Marshall led his two men out of the hospital, into the clear, starry night, and took his bearings inside Fort Washington. He worked his way through men in their blankets to the commissary. It was dark and no one answered his knock. He shook his head and stood with his shoulders slumped, unable to force his numb brain to make another decision.
A lantern approached from behind and a voice asked quietly, “You the party that just arrived?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Major O’Connell. Maryland Brigade. Where did you come from?”
“New York City. Been hiding down there with wounded since yesterday morning.”
“When did you leave?”
“This morning around ten o’clock.”
There was surprise in O’Connell’s voice. “You got out of New York in daylight?”
Marshall’s head dropped forward and he spoke quietly. “Some of us were sent into New York to get all the bells in town to melt down for cannon, under General Washington’s orders. We got them, but my detail was last getting out and we got trapped. We hid in a cellar. This morning Howe sent General Patterson to occupy New York City.”
The exhausted lieutenant’s face fell forward. “You should have seen it. Patterson lined his troops out in a column and marched up Broadway and stopped. Seemed like the whole town turned out. Singing, dancing in the streets, fireworks. Welcomed the British with open arms. Hoisted Patterson onto their shoulders and carried him around like a hero. Went door to door looking for Patriots, and they were beating them. Killed some of them.”
Marshall paused. “We were hiding in that cellar up towards the top of Broadway. Two of our wounded died in the night and we buried them right there. The British and Tories didn’t even notice this morning when we slipped out and went north, up past Bayard Hill Fort with our other two wounded.”
He raised his face, yellow in the lantern glow. “You should have seen it.”
“Follow me. I’ll help with food and blankets and a place for the night.”
Marshall fell in behind O’Connell, his stumble-footed men following, and Marshall mumbled once more, “You should have seen it.”
______
Notes
The unexpected meeting between a force of British and Hessian soldiers probing north towards Harlem Heights and a small force of American soldiers, with the resulting Battle of Harlem Heights, in which the Americans badly beat the British forces, is chronicled in Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, pp. 248–58. This battle also saw the tragic loss of two gallant American officers, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton and Major Andrew Leitch.
This time it was the Americans calling “Hallooo” mockingly after the retreating British (see Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 280).
The American officers did not order their commands into battle; they led them (see Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 281).
All American commands performed with bravery and emerged from this battl
e more united than ever before (see Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, p. 261; Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 281).
New York City
September 21, 1776
Chapter XXII
* * *
The acrid bite of smoke came creeping in the blackness to sting in the nostrils of the sleeping in New York City. The Reverend Ewald Gustav Schaukirk of the Moravian Church on Fair Street twisted in his bed and coughed, and from deep inside a tiny voice of alarm grew and suddenly he opened his eyes and jerked bolt upright. Dull orange reflections played on the outside of the drawn window shade, casting his small bedroom in a strange, deep gloom. For a moment he sat still, with the wind and the glow at the window, while the sleep fog lifted from his brain, and then he threw back the bedcovers.
He shoved hasty feet into his slippers and they slapped on the hardwood floor as he trotted to the door at the rear of his church and threw it open. Instantly he was caught in a swirl of wind and smoke, and he dug at his watering eyes, struggling to focus. He gasped and coughed as he stared.
It seemed at first as though the entire city were caught in smoke and a red glow that reached into the black heavens to blot out the stars. He hurried out to the street, not caring that he was in his nightshirt and slippers, and watched as the windows in the houses began to glow and people ventured out, candles and lamps held high as they peered, then ran back inside their homes to throw off their nightshirts and scramble into clothes to return to the streets, running towards the red that was leaping into the night sky along the Hudson waterfront, fanned by the wind.
Schaukirk stood long enough to realize the fire was only to the west and south of him—the entire city was not in flames. Then he ran as hard as he could inside his church and threw open the door to the belfry and seized the ropes, and pulled downward with all his weight. There was no sound, and only then did he remember the American army had stripped every bell from every tower as they deserted New York City and ran north in panic. For a moment he stood, unable to grasp the fact there was no way to raise a city-wide alarm, and then he ran back to his bedroom to throw off his nightshirt and thrust on his street clothes.
He trotted northwest along Fair Street for two blocks, then headed down Broadway, working his way through the gathering crowds in the street, and nearly collided with Sister Sykes of his congregation, carrying a large child and a bundle, leading her children away from the fire. Her legs buckled and he caught her and took the child and the bundle and led them back to his own quarters and left them there while he went back outside. He quickly gathered two buckets from the toolshed behind the church and once again started towards the red glow spreading to the west and north.
The heavy wind was quartering in from the southeast, and the reverend silently prayed, “God of us all, please do not let the wind shift, or it is all lost.” The wind held, blowing toward the north and west, up the Hudson River.
“It started at Whitehall Slip,” someone shouted, and someone answered, “It’s moving up Broad.”
Within minutes the streets were locked in chaos, people with buckets running from one place to another, red-coated soldiers among them, disorganized, wasting precious time as the fire worked north along the Hudson riverfront. No one had expected the inferno, and the fire wagons had not been filled with water. The men of the fire brigade seemed unable to understand they should fill the wagons, and they backed away to mix with the milling mobs in the street.
The wind spun spirals of sparks high in the skies, and they settled back among the trees and houses on Stone Street, Beaver Street, and finally Broadway. Wisps of smoke appeared among the shingles on the rooftops, and fanned by the winds, sparks came alive and then points of flame flickered and caught. There was no way to move water from the ground to the rooftops and the fire leaped north from one rooftop to another, as far as King’s College.
The shout arose, “Save the church!”
Hundreds ran to the Trinity Church, the revered shrine on Broadway, oldest and largest of the English churches, but there was no way to reach the roof. People stood on the ground helpless as they watched the great tower begin to smoke, and then flames licked, and the old, weathered shingles caught, and the steeple, so long a landmark and a symbol, became a great flaming pyre thrust into the night sky, visible for miles. Slowly the ancient timbers burned through, and then the steeple tottered and came crashing down on the roof of the church, driving a million sparks a hundred feet into the blackness above while the roof caved in, and within minutes the old church was a burned-out hulk. A scant one block away, the old Lutheran church followed.
The spreading flames gave no quarter as hovels, small homes, mansions, churches, landmarks, wharves, docks, warehouses—all were swept up in the raging inferno to become blackened ashes as the night wore on. Women led screaming children east to the common, where they gathered in the center, away from anything that could burn, and clustered together, wrapped in each other’s arms as they wept, watching the western half of their city disintegrate to charred rubble before their eyes.
Reverend Schaukirk was driven back, back, finally to his own street. The roof of the corner house caught and the reverend shouted orders. “Fetch the ladders from the church belfry and the cemetery!” Minutes later strong hands slammed the ladders against the walls of the home and young men scaled them at a run while others followed, and they began passing water buckets upwards. Seconds passed to minutes as they threw water as far as they could, and slowly, slowly the fire began to sputter, and then it dwindled, and then it went out. They remained on the ladders, throwing water, drenching the entire rooftop, before they dropped the buckets to the ground and descended.
In the black hour before dawn the reverend went among his people, comforting, encouraging, inquiring of their losses. Sister Kilburn had lost two houses, her only support in her old age. The Pell family had lost three houses, everything they owned. Widow Zoeller had escaped with only what she wore; her tiny home and everything she had treasured from her long life was black rubble. Lepper and Eastman Company had lost their entire warehouse. The heartbreaking count went on and on.
With gray showing in the eastern sky, and the ashes still smouldering black into the dawn sky, the pain and suffering of the people turned to anger.
“Who started it?”
“The Patriots!”
“Incendiaries! Hang them!”
Mobs combed through the city, knocking down doors of the known Patriots, beating them, smashing everything inside their homes. Two hundred were arrested on no more evidence than an accusatory finger pointing at them. Four were hanged before seven o’clock, without a hint of a chance to defend themselves or a trial.
The wind died two hours after sunrise, and for the first time the people gathered themselves, smoke blackened, exhausted, devastated, and faced the hard, stark facts. More than one-fourth of their city was gone. A large part of the rest of it was damaged. They had lost treasured artifacts going back to the foundations of their very beginnings, including a building and irreplaceable objects from Peter Stuyvesant, the governor who had to surrender New Amsterdam to the English more than twelve decades earlier. The Hudson River wharves and docks were closed down, burned, with many ships anchored there.
Silently they accepted it. Those who had, shared with those who had not. Doors were thrown open to receive any who needed beds. Root cellars and storehouses were opened, and lines formed for food, with no one asking questions. Blankets were gathered on the common, with clothing and shoes, and handed out to waiting hands. It went on into the day as the wounded city took its first stumbling steps towards healing itself.
It was noon before General Patterson had a written report on the damage suffered from the fire, and by one o’clock General Howe was sitting at his command desk, mouth clenched, reading the report. The Hudson River wharves and docks had been largely destroyed and damaged. Buildings and homes used to billet British soldiers were burned-out hulks. Warehouses along the waterfront were charre
d, with hundreds of tons of food, blankets, clothing, medicines. By three o’clock General Howe was pacing in his private quarters, clinging to a fragile hold on his rage.
The waterfront! We had to have the wharves and docks for our navy, and they’re gone. More than two thousand of our troops now forced to set up tents. At least one hundred tons of foodstuffs—blankets—uniforms—gone.
At half past five o’clock a rap came at his door and he turned on his heel and barked, “Enter.”
“Sir, one of Roger’s Rangers captured a spy in our camp on Long Island. You may want to interrogate him.”
“A spy? Civilian?”
“No, sir. A captain in the rebel army.”
Howe recoiled in surprise. “What? A rebel captain, in our camp?”
“Yes, sir. As I said, sir, you may want to interrogate him.”
“Bring him here.”
One hour later Howe stood as his aides led a man into his conference room. He was of average height, well built, well groomed, solid, good features, dressed in civilian clothing. He faced Howe with a calm demeanor, blue eyes steady.
“Untie his hands,” Howe ordered, and an aide removed the ropes binding the hands.
Howe sat down but required the man opposite his desk to remain standing.
“Your name?”
“Nathan Hale.”
“Are you a soldier?”
“Captain in Colonel Knowlton’s rangers.”
Howe looked at the youthful face. “Your age?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Where are you from? What town?”
“Coventry, Connecticut.”
“I’m told you were captured in a British camp on Long Island.”
“I was.”
“You’re dressed as a civilian, a spy. Do you know the penalty for spying during war?”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“Were you spying?”
