Battle of Harlem Heights, September 16, 1776; with a review of the events of the campaign.

Front matter

i£x Sltbrta

SEYMOUR DURST

IVhen you leave, please leave this hook

Contents

Preface v

I

Opening of the Campaign — Battle of Long Island —

II

CAPTURE OF NEW YORK BY THE BRITISH — KIP*S BAY AFFAIR — NARROW ESCAPE OF SILLIMAN's BRIGADE

rriHE retreat to New York relieved the great strain to which the American troops had been subjected. Washington represented their exhaustion in his own case when he explained to Congress that his delay of a day in reporting the move was due to the " extreme fatigue " which rendered him " entirely unfit to take pen in hand " or even dictate a letter. During the last forty-eight hours on Long Island, he writes, " I had hardly been off my horse, and never closed my eyes." The demoralization in the ranks was a more serious matter, but that was to lessen as days passed and the enemy failed to push their advantage.

It was nearly three weeks before the next advance. If both generals are chargeable with blunders on Long Island it will be interesting to note how far they profit by or repeat them during the progress of the campaign. Will Howe find Washington within striking distance of him again and in such case will he give his grenadiers full rein ? One thing excites our admiration in this disastrous year, and that is Washington's faithful clinging to the soil. At every

THE NEW SITUATION turn he looked the enemy squarely in the face — at gunshot distance. He does not fly at once to the mountains as Jay would have had him do. Howe will never reach the Highlands. In the general perspective one sees the staying quality of the defeated Americans. The hopefulness under despair, the tenacious disposition even in retreat, bravery here succeeding cowardice there — all bespoke the promise of the future. The troops fell back only under pressure, sometimes on the run, but not far. All the way through from the Narrow^s to the Delaware, their rear guard will be found skirmishing wdth the British van.

Although New York was virtually lost with the Battle of Long Island, Washington occupied it to the last moment. Not that any great risks were to be run in its retention, but that it was not to be given, as Lee suggested, in fee-simple " to the enemy. Indeed he wrote to Congress on September 2d, " Till of late I had no doubt in my own mind of defending this place, nor should I have yet, if the men would do their duty." But this extreme confidence in his plans, which is difficult of explanation, — for New York w^as now obviously untenable even wdth the best of troops, the moment the enemy moved upon it wdth a combined armament, — yielded to the plain facts of the situation. He began removing his stores to Kingsbridge and beyond, and asked Congress whether he should leave the city in ashes. Greene and Jay would have burned it, but Congress said No," as they had no doubt of being able to recover it later. This was far the wiser policy, for retaliation would have left us at the mercy of the enemy, who had nothing to lose in the destruction of cities. As it was, not one w^as burned by design during the war, and, except in minor instances, we were spared the spectacle of useless conflagrations and the added bitterness of feeling that would have followed. As late as the 7th of September the enemy showed no signs of attacking, and Washington summoned a council of his officers to decide upon the question of evacuation and the proper disposition of the army. The council voted to leave five thousand men in the city to preserve appearances as long as possible, to station others at different points on the East River facing the enemy, and to concentrate the greater part of the force at Harlem and Kingsbridge to secure the line of retreat. On the 12th, a second war council decided, by a large majority, to abandon the city altogether as soon as the stores and munitions could be removed. In accordance with this plan General Putnam was continued in the superintendence of stores and the troops in town, while the troops on the East River were to hold the landings until he could leave. At the foot of Grand Street and below w^ere posted the brigades of Parsons and Fellows. Back of Stuyvesant's, about the foot of Twelfth Street, w^as Scott's New York brigade ; at Twenty-third Street, Wadsworth with Connecticut levies ; while another similar brigade under Douglas guarded Kip's Bay at the foot of Thirty-fourth Street.

CAPTAIN NATHAN HALE

Along the Harlem, fronting Ward's and Randall's islands, older and better troops were stationed.

Here was a temporary, attenuated line facing the enemy on the opposite shore, which could have been pierced at any point, and was weakest at the centre or Thirty-fourth Street. Some risks were run in keeping up this disposition, but then it added several days' delay to the enemy's record. Washington, as he writes, begrudged them " possession." His watchfulness under the circumstances was increased, and he made more than one effort to obtain secret word of their designs. To Heath at Kingsbridge he wrote as early as the 1st " to concert some measures with General Clinton for establishing a channel of information." He thought there might be friends near the enemy's camp who could obtain and send

frequent accounts " of what they were doing.

Leave no stone unturned," he again urged upon Heath, ^* nor do not stick at expense to bring this to pass, as I was never more uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge on this score."

It was in this connection that Nathan Hale felt himself called upon to undertake his fatal errand into the British lines. As a captain in the newly organized corps of ^^Knowlton's Rangers," he was informed of Washington's great anxiety to fathom Howe's intentions. Upon deep reflection he offered his services. "I am fully sensible," he said to a brother officer, of the consequences of discovery and capture in such a situation. But for a year I have been attached to the army, and have not rendered any material service, while receiving a compensation for which I make no return. Yet I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service, necessary to the public good, becomes honorable by being necessary." Washington permitted him to go, and gave him instructions in the case, the interview being held probably at the chief's headquarters, then at the Mortier mansion on Richmond Hill, on the west side above Canal Street. Hale started in the second week" of September, went to Stamford on the Connecticut shore, disguised himself as a schoolmaster, crossed to Huntington, Long Island, and made his w^ay to New York. The journey, requiring great circumspection, took time, and he seems not to have reached the camp of the British until after they had captured New York, when his information would not have availed. But that he remained on his mission and had determined not to return without some valuable intelligence for Washington is presumable from tlie fact that he was not detected until the 21st, and was found with draughts of the enemy's works about him. Taken to Howe's headquarters at the Beekman mansion on East Fifty-first Street, he frankly avowed his errand and was condemned to death as a spy. His execution took place on the following morning at the artillery camp, about half a mile above, near the main road, or in the vicinity of Third Avenue and Sixty-fifth

HOWE'S ENFORCED DELAY

Street.^ His statue on lower Broadway impressively commemorates the spirit of the brave youth who could say in his last moments, in the very midst of his victorious enemies, that he only regretted that he had but one life to lose for his country.

Meanwhile Howe, although master of the situation, failed to improve his opportunity upon a large plan. On August 31st, he marched his army from the battle-field of the 27th to Newtown and its vicinity, nearer Hell Gate and the Sound. He was then in position to make the same move that he made on October 12tli, when he embarked for Throg's Neck and pushed on to White Plains. Had this been done, Washington would have been compelled to abandon New York and the entire island immediately and in more or less confusion. His army would have been less effective than in October, and Howe would have gained time and the credit of a fine manoeuvre. But this was an operation to be planned when his army opened the campaign from Staten Island, and required the simultaneous despatch of ships and many flatboats around Long Island into the Sound to transfer the troops to the Westchester side. No such provision was made. On the contrary Howe appears to have anticipated that his

1 This fact has been established by Mr. Kelby, librarian of the Historical Society. See Mr. Stevens' article on Hale in the Neiu York Herald, Nov. 26, 1893 ; also the site as marked on map, pp. oO-.")!.

operations on Long Island would enforce the speedy withdrawal of the Americans from New York, rendering the flank movement unnecessary. From New York he would follow them. But as Washington perversely clung to the city, which Howe did not wish to destroy by bombardment, the latter could not move upon him at once. He lacked sufficient water transportation. With all his naval resources Howe was not prepared to cross the East River for more than two weeks. The entries in Kemble's journal for these interesting days are significantly brief. " Sept. 1st and 2d, Nothing extraordinary." " 7th, Nothing material." " 10th, All quiet." " 12th, Nothing particular." " 14th, Very quiet." Howe was making demonstrations to cross at Harlem by way of Ward's and Randall's islands, and was doubtless puzzled that Washington should still keep his batteries manned in the city. He expected to manoeuvre him out of it. The navy, however, presently came to his assistance, and by the evening of the 14th, at different intervals, five frigates, six transports, and one hundred barges had run the fire of our guns in town and anchored in the East River above Twenty-third Street. On the next day, the 15th, Howe crossed. It was nineteen days since the Battle of Long Island — not very rapid campaigning. We must give Washington the credit of enforcing much of this delay.

The incidents of Sunday, the 15th, when the British captured New York, have a bearing upon the

ENEMY LAND AT KIP'S BAY action of Harlem Heights on the following day. The American soldier was inspirited by the contrast presented. It would seem that Howe originally proposed to break through our line at Harlem in the hope of entrapping many of our troops below, but the American battery at Horn's Hook, East Eightyninth Street, remained unsilenced, and he landed further down. The enemy's firing from Hallet's Point opposite the Hook had failed to drive off our gunners. Kemble records on the 9th that ^'our proposed attack of Hell Gate redoubt, and landing there thought very hazardous by many. The strength of the tides must unavoidably make our landings very difficult, as well as dangerous, from the length of the time it will take between them." Montresor claims that it was he who advised the landing where it was finally made at Kip's Bay, while Admiral Howe informs ns that a feint was to have been attempted at the same time at Harlem, but the pilots declined to take men-of-war into the Hell Gate w^aters.

At Kip's Bay, foot of Thirty-fourth Street, accordingly, the attack was made. Douglas' ill-sorted brigade was there behind low breastworks, little dreaming what was impending. Douglas himself was a good soldier and had lately written to his wife that the American position on the Island was untenable, but that he must not be " too free " with his opinions. " Our generals," he said, are faithful and good, no one can doubt, but we have not got experience which will teach America wisdom in her wars, as it did Peter the Great." There was plenty of experience in store. At daybreak the five frigates took position at Kip's Bay close to the shore, and at about eleven o'clock opened a furious and sweeping fire upon Douglas' militiamen. At the same time Sir Henry Clinton's division of Light troops and Reserves was rowed across the river from Newtown Creek in eighty-four boats, and under cover of the cannonade landed at the Bay.

A British officer. Captain William Evelyn, impressed with the sight, wrote to his mother that " the amazing fire from the shipping, the confusion and the dismay of the rebels, the Light Infantry clambering up the steep and just accessible rocks, the water covered with boats full of armed men pressing eagerly toward the shore, was certainly one of the grandest and most sublime scenes ever exhibited." ^ Douglas' men fled, unable to resist such an attack. Wadsworth's brigade below also fell back. All retreated toward the main Kingsbridge road, which there ran along the lines of Fourth and Lexington avenues, and by which they could reach Harlem and the heights beyond in safety. The enemy followed rapidly, the various corps seeming to vie vvdth each other in fulfilling the expectations of their chief, who two days before had praised them

1 Document, No. 51, among the "Authorities." Also, as to further particulars of the "Kip's Bay Affair," see Vol. HI., L.I. Historical Soc. Series, p. 232.

THE KIP'S BAY AFFAIR for their skilful application of the bayonet and their fearlessness in American woods.' The Light Infantry under General Leslie struck oif to the right and occupied the road near Forty-second Street. The Grenadiers under Cornwallis and Vaughn moved straight across, up Thirty-fourth Street, we may say, to Murray Hill, while the Hessian Light troops under Donop turned to the left and succeeded in intercepting three or four hundred of Wadsworth's brigade somewhere on the line of Twenty-third Street, east of Fourth Avenue. This was the principal loss sustained by the Americans during the day. Parsons' and Scott's brigades below could see the crossing of the enemy, and, leaving their positions in time, marched up the Bowery into the Bloomingdale road, just escaping the Hessians at about Madison Square. Silliman's brigade with some of Knox's artillery companies was still in the city, but, thanks to the enemy's oversight, presently escaped.

While all this was going on — the brilliant landing of the British, the more or less orderly but hurried retreat of some of our troops, the confused

1 Howe's Orders, dated Newtown, L.I., Sept. 13th: "An attack upon the enemy being shortly intended, the soldiers are reminded of their evident superiority on the 27th of August by charging the Rebels with Bayonets even in the woods where they had thought themselves invincible : they now place their security in slight breastworks of the weakest Construction, and which are to be carried with little loss by the same high spirited mode of attack. The Gen'I therefore recommends to the troops an entire dependence on their Bayonets with which they will always command that success which their bravery so well deserves."

flight of others, the quick advance of Clinton's Light Division from the river towards Murray Hill — in other Avords, while we were suffering a panic and the enemy enjoying a chase, the two most anxious and interested men in our army, Washington and Putnam, were riding at full gallop from opposite directions to the scene of action. Washington, on the evening before, had moved his headquarters from Richmond Hill to the Morris (Jumel) mansion, still standing, at about One Hundred and Sixty-first Street, east of St. Nicholas Avenue, and had expected to withdraw all his troops to that vicinity on the very day of the enemy's attack. Putnam remained at his city quarters. No. 1 Broadway, to superintend, as we have seen, the final evacuation of the town. On the early morning of the 15th the two generals were more than ten miles apart. As soon as the cannonade of the men-of-war at Kip's Bay was heard, both hastened to the vicinity — Washington, of course, as commander-in-chief, and Putnam because his troops below would be in extreme danger if the enemy landed above. They met, with other general officers, somewhere on Murray Hill, probably in a cross road on the line of Forty-second Street then connecting the Bloomingdale road (now Broadway) with the Kingsbridge road at Lexington Avenue. The hour of day was about twelve o'clock.

Washington reached the spot only to find, to his great surprise and mortification, that our troops were flying before the enemy, and that others, ordered to

PANIC OF THE MILITIAMEN support them, were in confusion. With the officers around him he quickly rode in among the fugitives and did his best to face them about. We have it on official record that he shouted out to the men, "Take to the wall! Take to the cornfield!" but nothing could stop them. The chief's indignation was unbounded, and lashing some of the runaways over the shoulders with his cane, he demanded with intense feeling whether these were the men with whom he was to defend America ! The scene of this incident can be located with considerable precision near Park Avenue and Fortieth Street. With Bull Run " following nearly a century later, we may interpose a word for these fugitives of Seventy- Six, for whom our historians generally have no mercy, and recall that most of them were poorly armed militia, who had been away from home but a few weeks, that it was not a momentary sense of fear that had created the panic, but a sustained sense of danger aroused by all that they had seen and experienced for some hours, — the terrible fire of the ships, which veterans could not have withstood, and the crossing of a formidable flotilla, — v/hile the knowledge that the best part of the army was safe above them at Harlem was not likely to lessen the haste of their retreat. The rolls of the Continental army show that many of these Kip's Bay cowards, officers and men alike, remained in the service to the end and cancelled their record for this day by gallant conduct on other fields.

Most of our troops had retreated to and along the Bloomingdale road further west, and on to Harlem Heights, but they were not pursued. The day was one of intense heat, and as Clinton had no cavalry he could not expect to overtake the Americans. At Murray Hill, along the line of Park Avenue, he halted until the remainder of the army, or six more brigades, could cross. This took time, and it was not until four or five o'clock in the afternoon that he was ready to move again.

Meanwhile, what about Silliman's brigade, and the artillery down in the city? The former were posted at the works on the line of Grand Street, west of the Bowery. Finding that the British had landed above, Putnam attempted a bold manoeuvre. Dashing back from Murray Hill down the road, and slipping by the Hessians, he proposed to extricate Silliman by getting past the enemy through the lanes and woods on the west side. Putnam's aid, Major Aaron Burr, seems to have bravely taken the responsibility of starting Silliman along, and the general, joining them at some point, the brigade, after a hard march and narrow escape, reached Harlem Heights late in the evening, when it had been given up as lost. Most of the artillerymen also escaped, but without their guns. The experiences of Captains Samuel Shaw and Sebastian Bauman of this corps are given by themselves in letters Nos. 12 and 38 among the "Authorities." Silliman himself tells us it was a most trying march, and David Humphreys,

LUNCH AT MRS. MURRAY'S one of his adjutants, writes about Putnam's efforts to get them through. " I had frequent opportunities that day," he says, "of beholding him, for the purpose of issuing orders, and encouraging the troops, flying on his horse, covered with foam, wherever his presence was most necessary. Without his extraordinary exertions, the guards must have been inevitably lost, and it is probable the entire corps would have been cut in pieces."

Why the enemy failed to head off and capture Putnam and Silliman has been usually explained by the familiar incident of Mrs. Murray's hospitality. Robert Murray, father of Lindley Murray, the grammarian, was a well-to-do Quaker merchant whose country seat stood at about the corner of Park Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street. His farm included all the high ground in the vicinity, and was known as " Inclenberg." Being a loyalist, it is assumed that his wife was one. The British generals, including Howe, who had come over with or soon after the advance, are represented as having adjourned to the Murray mansion for lunch. General Vaughn had been slightly wounded in advancing up the slope, and was probably cared for in this house. Mrs. Murray, we are told, entertained these officers so agreeably on the occasion that they neglected to run a cordon of guards or detachments across the Island to intercept any late retreating rebels. Another version makes Mrs. Murray an ardent American sympathizer, who, knowing that time was the one thing our distressed troops needed that day, exhausted the resources of her wit and larder to detain the generals long enough to save Silliman. The incident probably occurred, but it fails as an explanation. Howe is simply chargeable with over-confidence, irrespective of lunch. He knew nothing about Silliman, and it is difficult to see how Mrs. Murray, whether a friend or foe, could have known. Upon landing at Thirty-fourth Street Donop and his Hessians had been sent to the main road south of Murray Hill, and would naturally occupy the point of its junction with the Bloomingdale road at the present corner of Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. It was evidently believed that all the rebels had made good their retreat, or that any large body must attempt to pass at that point. Silliman, however, pushed along a mile to the west, near Ninth and Tenth Avenues. That the British officers were ou^twitted by a genial hostess is less likely than that they had confidently assumed that the first effect of their early morning movements would be to clear the city immediately of every American. The praiseworthy featm^e of the affair is the resolution of our belated troops to push through and rejoin the main army when they felt that the chances of success were heavily agamst them.

Later in the afternoon Clinton's corps advanced up the Kingsbridge road to encamp for the night. Howe's critics can here find a pretty commentary on his generalship in the fact that while his lordly troops

ESCAPE OF SILLIMAN'S BRIGADE were marching along the east side of what is now Central Park, Putnam's and Silliman's sweltering militiamen were toiling up on a parallel line west of the park, and somewhat below him, without his knowing it. As Clinton's column neared the corner of what are now Ninety-sixth Street and Fifth Avenue, where the Kingsbridge road entered the park and went on through McGowan's Pass, it found drawn up before it Colonel Smallwood's regiment of Marylanders, which had been posted there for observation and to cover the retreat of our artillerymen from the Horn's Hook battery. Smallwood reports that the enemy manoeuvred with the view of outflanking him, when he retired and joined our main army on Harlem Heights at dusk. From Ninety-sixth Street there ran across the park a road, called the " New Bloomingdale cross road,'* which came out on the west side at about Ninety-first Street and continued to the Bloomingdale road. Instead of keeping on to McGowan's Pass, Clinton's corps turned into this cross road and reached the Bloomingdale end just as Silliman's troops were passing north. Had the British been a few minutes earlier Silliman would have been intercepted. He was obliged, indeed, to keep the enemy's advance at bay with some of his men while the others continued to retreat. Almost the only man to fall in this brief skirmishins; was the commanding: officer of the last regiment in the line of march — Lieutenant-Colonel Jabez Thompson, of the second Connecticut militia. Silliman retired to the American camp, while the enemy, darkness now setting in, bivouacked for the night where they were.

Late in the afternoon a detachment from the enemy's fleet had taken possession of the city, and thus New York and the island south of Harlem passed into British hands. The first object of their campaign had been secured ; but it was September 15th, or two months and a half since they had arrived with their powerful armament.

As to criticisms suggested by these movements, following the Battle of Long Island, we may hold Howe responsible for delay when he was in perfect control of the situation. With a cooperating fleet he permitted the East River to stand as a barrier between himself and the " rebels " for nineteen days. After crossing he missed the easy capture of an entire brigade and some general officers. On the other hand Washington, it has been observed, delayed one day too long in evacuating the city and island below Harlem. Had he withdrawn on the 14th there would have been no Kip's Bay disgrace. We can justify him in remaining in the city as long as the enemy took no boats or ships into the East River. It was known that they had accumulated many of the former by the 12th, when a speedy withdrawal would have been advisable. When four men-of-war passed up on the evening of the 14th it would seem that there was not an hour to lose. But it was much to have kept the enemy at bay in spite of a panic and loss of a few militiamen. The main

GROUNDS OF CONFIDENCE body of our troops had not been in peril since the Long Island defeat. Discouraged as he was with the conduct of the men on the 15th, and obliged to report another retreat, with loss of stores and prisoners, Washington could still look across the lines that evening and reflect that thus far he had been taken at a disadvantage ; that opportunities would yet offer to face the enemy on more equal terms ; that the British navy would be a less important factor in the movements to follow, and that with a better organized and appointed army, such as Congress was soon to provide for, he could present a different record in the field. Certainly the errors and experiences of this summer's campaign at New York were not to be repeated during the war.

m

POSITION OF THE TWO ARMIES, SEPTEMBER 16TH — COLONEL KNOWLTON AND HIS RANGERS.

"YTTITH the foregoing review of the earlier

^ ^ events of this campaign we reach the 16th of September, when the Battle of Harlem Heights occurred. A brief chapter on the position of the two armies on the morning of the action will assist us in following the details.

It is important, first, to ascertain where the British were encamped on the evening of the 15th. We left them at dusk along the Bloomingdale cross road — in what is now Central Park, on the line of Ninety-first to Ninety-sixth Street. Sir William Howe reports that, "the position the king's army took, on the 15th in the evening, was with the right to Horen's Hook, and the left at the North River near to Bloomingdale." It is this left which we must fix accurately. " Near to Bloomingdale " might be too indefinite for our purposes, did not other references fully explain Howe's meaning. On the maps of the period " Bloomingdale " is marked by name at a point near the house of Charles Apthorpe, which stood, until pulled down in 1891, just below the cross road or south of Ninety-first Street a little west of Ninth

THE BRITISH ENCAMPMENT

Avenue. That section was known generally as Bloomingdale, but the Apthorpe mansion, the Striker place, just above on the Hudson, and the cross road gave it some centrality. Adjutant-General Kemble is more definite. He says : " The advance of our army marched to the Black Horse, and across from thence by Apthorpe's House to North River and had very near cut olf Mr. Putnam's retreat, who brought off the Rebel rear guard from New York, most of whom and their troops in general got off by the North River road." Captain Hutcheson confirms him in his letter of September 24th, 1776, with the statement that " our advanced post is at the Black Horse tavern, and the Army is posted from the North to the East rivers quite across the country above Mr. Apthorp's." Kemble and Hutcheson, as well as Montresor, — all officers at the British headquarters, — are the best of authorities, and only recently have their letters and journals become accessible. Where before we were uncertain, we now have the desired information. Howe's left is very clearly associated with Apthorpe's. "Near" to Bloomingdale in his report means near to this house — across "by" it, or "above" it, say Kemble and Hutcheson.

Furthermore, certain references will be made, in connection with the battle, to two other houses or farms lying north of Apthorpe's, which make it impossible to put Howe's "evening" encampment much further up on that flank. Near the present

One Hundred and Sixth Street, west of the Bloom-