Studies military and diplomatic, 1775-1865

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The Battle of Buxkek Hill 1

Battle of Long Island 22

II

''The dilatoriness and stupidity of the enemy saved us/' wrote General Charles Lee to Washington in July, 1776, immediately after the repulse of the British fleet under Sir Peter Parker by the guns of Fort Moultrie on the first attempt at the occupation of Charleston, South Carolina. The same qualities in those opposed to AVashington, combined with an almost amazing run of pure luck, saved him and the cause of American independence at New York less than two months later. Not often has a military force on which great results depended found itself in a more critical position than did the patriot army then; and seldom has any commander so completely in the toils been afforded equal opportunities for extrication.

Analyzed from any thoughtful as well as military point of view, it was a strange fiasco that enacted in and about what are now the cities of Brooklyn and New York during the months of August, September and October, 1776 — a fiasco on the part of all responsible for what occurred, though very tragic for many of those involved on the American side. So far as the British were concerned, the failure of those in command then to avail themselves of oppor-

1 The substance of this paper appeared in two articles ; the first printed in the American Historical Review, Vol. 1, pp. 650-670, July, 1896; the second, in the Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc. Vol. XLIV, pp. 233- 253, December, 1910. These articles have been re^-nsed and largely rewritten. Where not given, citations to authorities, etc., can be found by reference to the original publications.

timities repeatedly offered both is, and at the time was, so apparent that the modern tendency is to attribute what they did, or failed to do, to secret instructions or, perhaps, some tacit understanding; military advantages were, for some occult reasons of state, not to be pressed too far, or to any decisive result. On the other hand, upon the American side, not only was a great cause put in extreme jeopardy, but, through the unskilful pursuance of a policy altogether wrong, many and valuable lives were unnecessarily sacrificed.

Major General Howe, afterwards Sir William Howe, K. C. B., is, as an historical character, of no great moment, and investigators are free to do with him as they may see fit ; but that Washington should have then been responsible for grave errors of judgment which ought under any reasonable weighing of probabilities to have ruined the American cause and deprived the world of one of its immortalities, — that he should have involved his army in disaster and disgrace through bad judgment and because of frequent and long hesitations at a time when quick decision was essential, — these are things not readily now to be admitted ; nor does the record thus in any way so read in the pages of the distinctively American historian. Though manifestly not in accord with long-accepted traditions, or, perhaps, even with the everlasting fitness of things, such seem, however, to be the only inferences fairly to be drawn from the evidence in the case, when that evidence is studied in a cold and purely critical spirit, uninspired by patriotism, and devoid of sympathy for those concerned either on the one side or the other. But, so studied, the necessary conclusion would seem to be that if there was at Bunker Hill gross military blundering on both sides, before Brooklyn and on Manhattan Island that blundering was on both sides fairly outdone. The British commander there almost wantonly threw away the certainty of a decisive and, probably, a final victory; while not even the ''dilatoriness and stupidity of the enemy" saved the patriots from disasters and from disgrace which in no way, moral or otherwise, could be exploited as a victory.

The course of events leading up to the operations referred to were, briefly, as follows. The British evacuated Boston on the 16th of March. By those in charge of the patriot cause the point at which the next blow would be struck could only be surmised ; but New York naturally suggested itself. Obviously it was the strategic centre of the very extensive region in which the war had to be carried on ; and, as such, invited attack. From it as a base, and from it alone of American Atlantic seaports, could large and intricate combined operations, covering all the Provinces, be conducted. A movement by the British in that direction had naturally been anticipated by the American leaders early in 1776, and General Charles Lee was, accordingly, detached from the army before Boston, and by order of Washington repaired to New York, there to make suitable provision against attack. Arriving on the 4th of February, he at once took in the difficulties of the situation. '^What to do with this city," he wrote to Washington, ''I own, puzzles me- It is so encircled with deep navigable water, that whoever commands the sea must command the town." The command of the sea being manifestly the key of the situation, that the British held that key was no less manifest.

Lee, nevertheless, proceeded to plan such a system of defences as seemed practicable ; but, being subsequently assigned by Congress to the command of the Department of the South, he left New York on the 7th of March, leaving Major General Lord Stirling, as he was called, in temporary charge. Stirling, shortly after, was in his turn superseded by General Israel Putnam, under instructions from Washington to go on with the preparations for defence in accordance with Lee's plans. On the 13th of April, Washington himself arrived, and assumed command.

Washington had taken it for granted that, after its evacuation of Boston in March, 1776, the British armament would proceed at once to New York; but, instead of so doing, it went to Halifax, there to refit. Not until June 29 did the reenforced expedition reach Sandy Hook, inside of which it came to anchor; and, landing his army on Staten Island, General Howe there awaited the arrival of additional ships and still further reenforcements, then shortly looked for, under command of his brother. Admiral Lord Howe. These appeared in July.

Washington at that time found himself in command of some 9000 so-called effectives, ''2000 of whom were entirely destitute of arms." This force was very imperfectly organized. Insufficiently armed, clothed and equipped, it was largely composed of unreliable militia. Without adequate artillery, it had no cavalry at all. Of naval support there was not even a pretence. How, with such means, to defend a place at the command of whoever controlled the sea, against a thoroughly equipped and disciplined force twice the size of his, and that force supported by a powerful fleet, was the problem with which the Commander-in-Chief found himself confronted. For two whole months did he study his problem doubtless in its every aspect ; and not once in all that time does it seem to have occurred to him that it was not only insoluble, but that any considerable attempt at its solution was fraught with extreme danger. During these months he wrote many letters and prepared some formal reports; but in not one of them does he even suggest that the course pursued was opposed to his military judgment or based on incorrect strategic principles. He never even hints that under the pressure of an assumed political necessity he is taking what seems to him a dangerous military risk. On the contrary, even after the inevitable disaster had befallen him, he truthfully and frankly wrote ''Till of late, I had no doubt in my own mind of defending this place."

Yet in the course of this attempt at a defence Washingtion was compelled to violate, and did violate, almost every recognized principle of warfare. To defend New York it was absolutely necessary to hold the heights of Brooklyn, opposite the city; for those heights, as Bunker Hill in the case of Boston, commanded New York within easy artillery range. But Brooklyn, separated from New York by deep navigable water, was on an island. Above New York, on both sides east and west, were other wide, navigable waterways, which also had to be covered by defences. Again, if, under such conditions, successful resistance was possible, it was only possible through holding to a policy of intrenchments. The patriot force should have been kept within the strongest line of defence possible to be devised ; and, as at Bunker Hill, prepared to resist attack in front, it had to trust to the incompetence of its opponents that the attack would indeed be in front, and not in rear : but if, perchance, the attack should be from the rear, with the enemy in absolute control of the water, and free to strike when and where he pleased, the American army manifestly stood in imminent danger of destruction. Precipitate retreat by any route left open could alone save it.

Under these circumstances and conditions, Washington not only divided his inadequate army, but when his opponent obliged him by attacking just where alone he could hope to resist an attack, that is, in full front, instead of awaiting the assault within his lines, as did Prescott at Bunker Hill, Washington actually went out to meet it, thus challenging the fate which befell him. Finally, even his own excellent management, in the hour of disaster he had thus provoked, could not have saved the patriot cause from irretrievable ruin and himself from hopeless failure and disgrace, had it not been combined with almost miraculous good luck, to which the ''dilatoriness and stupidity of the enemy" most effectively contributed. This, too, at the very juncture when those under Howe confidently wrote that the British commander would not give his opponent '4ime to breathe, but push his successes like a winning gamester."

Though General Howe had come to anchor inside of Sandy Hook June 29, and been joined there by Lord Howe and the fleet July 1, it was not until August 22 that active operations on Long Island began. During that long interval of over seven weeks of the best campaigning weather of the whole year, the British army rested quietly in its summer camp on Staten Island. On July 12 two English ships, respectively of forty and twenty guns, had run by the North River defences without sustaining any injury, and gone up the Hudson to the Tappan Sea ; where, until August 18, they lay in apparent perfect security, with awnings stretched, sleeping in the summer sunshine. Altogether a somewhat contemptuous demonstration of how complete was the British command of the sea, and how futile were the American efforts to obstruct the navigable channels. August 7 thirty transports, under convoy of three frigates, put to sea with the design of going around Long Island, and so threatening New York from the Sound and East River side. The line of American retreat from Brooklyn to the mainland was imperilled. All this time the two Howes were in daily communication with the royalist governor,

Try on, of New York, who was on board one of the English ships-of-war ; and, through other sympathizers on the mainland and Long Island, they could get all the information they chose to ask for, not only as to localities and roads, but in regard to the movements of the patriots. Plentifully supplied with provisions, the invaders lacked neither guides on the land nor pilots by water. Under these circumstances, it was small matter of surprise that, as the weeks dragged on, many of Washington's ablest advisers looked on the situation with ever increasing uneasiness. They feared being entrapped ''on this tongue of land, where," as one of them later expressed it, "we ought never to have been."

Besides the fleet, the British commander had, by the middle of August, an army 30,000 strong in a high state of efficiency, with a large park of artillery and a small, but completely equipped, body of cavalry. Washington at the same time had nominally 17,500 men, of whom about 14,000 were reported fit for duty. With a few pieces of artillery, he still had no mounted force. And with such means at his command, incredible as it seems, he actually thought he could defend a land and water front of nearly thirty miles, open to attack front, flank and rear, besides being cut in two by a navigable channel both broad and deep. His opponent, meanwhile, was obviously free to concentrate whatever of force might be necessary for a decisive blow at any selected point. Neither did Washington indulge in any false confidence in the efficacy of his water-batteries to hold in check, at least to a certain degree, the enemy's maritime supremacy; on the contrary, as he himself wrote a whole month before actual operations against him began, he ''had most religiously believed that a vessel with a brisk wind and strong tide cannot, unless by a chance shot, be stopped by a battery."

The interior works at Brooklyn alone called for a force of at least 8000 men to hold them with any prospect of success ; while the exterior lines before Flatbush required an equal number, if the enemy was to be retarded there even for a day. In other words, if Howe was, as at Bunker Hill, obliging enough to attack full in front, and by land alone, the position on Long Island Washington had undertaken to defend, seeking no cooperation from the British fleet and leaving his opponent's New York rear quite unmolested, — even in this case, more than the whole force of the patriot army would be needed for the defence of Brooklyn alone.

At last, everything, after weeks of apparently needless procrastination, being in readiness, the Howes determined to strike, and on the 22d of August, Sir Henry Clinton, with 15,000 men, one regiment of ^cavalry, and forty pieces of artillery, crossed over from Staten to Long Island and landed, unopposed, at Gravesend. It was now evident where the blow by land was to be looked for. Brooklyn was the enemy's objective ; or, at least, one of his objectives.

Why the two Howes decided on this plan of campaign is not apparent. Strategically considered, Washington had put himself in a position exactly similar to that in which Prescott had tactically been placed fourteen months before at Bunker Hill. With his opponent in undisputed command of navigable surrounding and intersecting waters, he was in a trap. The true policy of his opponents would seem to have been so to lay their plans as, not to drive him out of the trap, but to spring its door, so catching him. This they could easily have done, had Howe only learned thoroughly his 17th of June lesson. He had, however, done so only in part. He had derived from it, as will presently be seen, a wholesome caution as to bull-headed, frontal assaults, but the far-reaching significance of a command of the sea under certain conditions seems quite to have escaped his intellectual grasp, at best limited. Except on this assumption, it is still a mystery, why, under cover of the overwhelming broadsides of his brother's fleet, Howe did not go up the comparatively unobstructed Hudson to Bloomingdale, landing about where Sixtieth Street now is, three miles above the outskirts of the New York of that day ; and then, crossing a strong division of his army to the East side, sweep down on Washington, by the Boston road, now Third Avenue, forcing him into the East River. To counteract such a movement it would have been necessary for the Americans precipitately to withdraw their forces from the Brooklyn side of the East River, and concentrate them at the point of British attack. This movement would have consumed much important time ; if, in presence of a detachment of the British fleet in the East River, practicable at all. The combined British naval and military forces could have effected the manucevre with certainty and ease, the broadsides of the fleet then covering the Bloomingdale, or Albany road, now Broadway, and demoralizing the flank and rear of the patriots just as they demoralized and broke the patriot line of battle a fortnight later at Kips Bay. The weight of attack being down the East side, the patriots would have been between two fires. From both the strategic and the tactical points of view the movement was so obvious and its success so certain that the failure of the Howes to adopt it must forever remain unaccountable. They elected, however, to attack Washington squarely on his Brooklyn front, with his army cut in two by the East River, and his means of communication uncovered on the water side. Even that situation was bad enough for the patriots; in fact could not have been from the purely military point of view much worse or more ill-considered. The door of the Brooklyn trap behind them might any day be snapped.

The difficulties of his situation, not to say its impossibilities, must, it would seem, now have dawned on Washington's mind. As he himself mildly put it,^ making no allusion to a hostile fleet, operating in the broad navigable waters which on three sides compassed him, the problem was '^ to oppose an army of 30,000 experienced veterans with about one-third (10,514) the number of raw troops, and those scattered some fifteen miles apart."

Though the British force was transferred across from Staten Island to Gravesend August 22, it was not until the evening (9 o'clock) of the 26th, or four days later, that a forward movement was made. Constant skirmishing had meanwhile been going on, and the Americans had thus been allowed ample time in which to take the situation in, and make preparations accordingly. In the enemy's advance, there was no element of surprise. During the earlier stages of preparation for defence. General Nathanael Greene had been in charge of the Brooklyn wing of the patriot army; but he, taken down by a summer fever, had some time before been rendered wholly unfit for duty. General Sullivan succeeded him in temporary charge. All along, Washington and Greene had seen, what indeed was obvious, that, with the means at their disposal, a landing of the British on Long Island could not be prevented ; but, if Brooklyn was once occupied by the enemy. New York became untenable. The British in that case would hold the heights, and the Americans the town commanded by the heights. The problem immediately involved was, therefore, the defence of Brooklyn against an attack from the land side, in all probability supported by a simultaneous 1 Writings (Sparks), IV, 34.

attack on its water front, and the American rear. Greene had, accordingly, sought to cover Brooklyn by constructing a line of intrenchments and redoubts back of the village from Gowanus Cove on the south to Wallabout Bay on the north, presenting to an enemy approaching from the south and west a front of a little less than a mile in extent, well protected by creeks and morasses on either flank, and, at its centre, about one mile and a quarter from the landing-place of the East River ferry across to New York. From these intrenchments to Gravesend, the natural landing-place for the British, was some eight miles, while between the two, about five miles from Gravesend and three from Brooklyn, rose a difficult, heavily wooded ridge, forming a natural longitudinal barrier practically passable at three points : one close to the bay, the shore road ; the second, three miles further inland, in front of Flatbush, being the direct and ordinary road between Gravesend and Brooklyn ; and the third the Jamaica road, two miles further still to the east. Under these circumstances, assuming that they were in sufficient force and resolved to hold New York, the course to be pursued by the Americans was obvious. As soon as the landing of the British at Gravesend was known, that is, on August 22, the largest force available ought to have been concentrated under cover of the Brooklyn intrenchments, while strong infantry outposts should have been put at each of the three passes, the roads beyond being constantly watched by mounted patrols. To do this work at least 15,000 men, with adequate artillery and cavalry, would have been required, a certain mounted force being on such extended lines indispensable to safety. The force actually there was 5500 infantry, mostly militia, none of whom had ever been in battle, with six pieces of light field artillery, and no cavalry whatever.

Under these circumstances, instead of concentrating themselves within the Brooklyn intrenchments when the English, after four days of delay, began to advance, the Americans actually went out in force to meet them on two of the roads, leaving the third, that to Jamaica, not only unprotected, but not even watched. The natural result followed. Taking advantage of their great preponderance in numbers, and excellent information and guidance, the British, advancing by three columns, found, to their great surprise, the Jamaica road unobstructed, — ^'a route we had never dreamed of," as an American officer engaged innocently wrote, — and, by means of it, got in the rear of the detachments under Stirling and Sullivan, who had been either posted or hurried forward to defend the two western, and more direct, approaches ; and the practical destruction of those detachments followed. Both commanders were captured, and more than one-third of the entire force disposable for the defence of Brooklyn was destroyed. The American loss in killed, wounded, and missing was about 1500, out of a total engaged probably not exceeding 3500. Contemporaneous comments are sometimes the best, and it would be difficult to improve on those upon this affair shortly after jotted down by Captain Stephen Olney of the Rhode Island regiment in Stirling's command. They cover the case. " At the time, I did not pretend to know or examine the generalship of posting Sullivan's and Stirling's forces as they were, leaving the forts but poorly manned with sick and invalids. It must be on the supposition that the enemy would come on the direct road, and if our troops were overpowered, they might retreat and defend the fort. But the enemy took a circuitous route, and where it was

said Colonel had neglected to guard, and arrived in

our rear without notice. Had it been left to the British generals to make a disposition of our troops, it is a chance if they would have made it more advantageous to themselves, and but for their tardiness they might have taken our main fort. All that seemed to prevent it was a scarecrow row of palisades from the fort to low water in the cove, which Major Box had ordered set up that morning." ^

It is not putting it too strongly to say that Washington's position, as well as that of the American cause, was then desperate. The disaster occurred under Washington's eyes early in the day ; and before two o'clock the fighting had wholly ceased. With an inadequate and demoralized command, he found himself isolated from the body of his army, such as it was; and, whUe a largely superior force flushed with success was marshalled before him, a fairly overwhelming naval armament threatened the ferry in his rear. In other words, he had got himself and his cause into a wholly false position. Again, luck and ''the dilatoriness and stupidity of the enemy" saved him.

The course for Howe to pursue was now manifest. Six good hours of daylight remained after the commands of Stirling and Sullivan had been demolished. During those hours he should have followed up his success, striking at once and with all his force at Washington himself. Such was the decided opinion at the moment of Howe's subordinates, while the body of the British army was so flushed by victory and absolutely confident of success that it could with difficulty be restrained from immediate assault ; on the other hand, so thoroughly demoralized were the defeated patriots that the general in command of one of the British divisions subsequently asserted, ''the very camp women who followed his regiment took them prisoners." American historians have since asserted, on what authority does not 1 Battle of Long Inland (Long Island Historical Society), 518.

appear, that the British commander was then wise in not pressing his advantage, and that Washington '^ courted a storm in which he was almost sure to be victorious"; but, on the other hand, a general officer, in command of a portion of the Brooklyn lines, described them at the time as ''unfinished in several places" and ''so low that the rising ground immediately without it would have put it in the power of a man at 40 yards Distance to fire under my Horse's belly whenever he pleased." To the same effect another officer then present afterwards wrote, describing the line in front of where he was posted as "low and unfavorable for defence," and "commanded by the ground occupied by the enemy, who entirely enclosed the whole of our position, at the distance of but a few hundred paces"; and, he added, "as to General Howe, I have scarcely a doubt that he might have carried the intrenchments at Brooklyn." And such works as these it has since been confidently asserted could have been victoriously defended by militia, to use Washington's official language, "timid and ready to fly from their own shadows."

At Bunker Hill, Howe had been overconfident ; at Brooklyn he was too cautious. The inference is natural that August 27, 1776, he remembered June 17, 1775; and, a burnt child, he feared the fire. In any event, after lying for hours with his advance within gunshot of Washington's lines, which his scouts approached so closely as to report that they could be carried almost instantly by assault, and which his subordinates begged leave to be allowed to attack and fairly "stormed with rage when ordered to retire," — after lying here for hours during a summer noon, he declared that enough had been done for one day, and, drawing back, went into camp. In his official report of these operations he stated that in his judgment the works could have been stormed, and that his soldiers were so eager for the assault 'Hhat it required repeated orders to prevail on them to desist"; but as it was apparent the opposing lines could be carried with slight loss by regular approaches, he commanded a halt.

So far ''the dilatoriness of the enemy" had saved Washington from total disaster. The element of luck next made itself felt in his favor. The British fleet was lying inside of Sandy Hook. It was impossible for a moment to suj^pose that the numerous ships of the line and frigates there idly anchored were not to cooperate with the army in the longplanned and carefully prepared operations. They might engage the batteries on the North River, and cover a landing there, taking the enemy in the rear ; or, most fatal move of all, they might run the batteries on the East River, and, destroying all means of transportation from its Brooklyn rear to the New York side, cut the American army hopelessly in two. It was now the close of August, and in the region of New York the prevailing wind at that season is from the southwest. Such a wind may, indeed, almost be counted upon ; and unquestionably was counted upon by the British commanders in planning their operations. A wind from the southwest and a favoring tide would have carried the British ships swiftly up the East River, under full sail. Chance ordered otherwise. While General Plowe was destroying the commands of Stirling and Sullivan, and threatening Washington's entrenchments, a strong northeast wind was blowing, against which, and the tide, five ships of the line, under command of Sir Peter Parker, in vain endeavored to work into the positions assigned them in the programme. One ship of smaller size alone succeeded in working up sufficiently far to open with its guns on the wholly inadequate battery the Americans had established at Red

Hook, on the western extremitj^ of their Brooklyn lines-, and the fire of even this single ship sufficed sadly to injure the breastworks, and dismount some of the guns. If this was so, the effect of the broadsides of the fleet may be surmised. That exceptional northeast wind in August was for Washington a stroke of luck of the description sometimes classified as '^ providential."

The American historians next lay much stress on the sufferings of the patriot army due to the inclemency of an August storm, — the wet and cold to which the men were subjected, and the privations to which they were compelled to submit. Active campaigning is at no season a holiday business; and, to those at all familiar with its details, alternately monotonous and terrible, it cannot but be open to question whether a cold midsummer storm, accompanied with mist, or even rain, could well in the latitude of New York afford a sufficient excuse for military inactivity, much less for demoralization. But whether it could or no, that cold, August, northeasterly storm and mist, if it did wet and chill the patriot army, also shrouded it and saved it. It prevented Admiral Lord Howe from getting between Brooklyn and New York ; and it seems to have kept General Howe snug in his temporary quarters.

The most reliable regiments of the patriot army had been destroyed on the 27th in the commands of Sullivan and Stirling. Thus during the afternoon of the 27th and the morning of the 2Sth the position of the patriots was even more dangerous than it was forlorn. Militia — wet, cold, hungry, and demoralized by a spectacle of defeat — are not to be depended on at any hour of the day; least of all in a fouro'clock-in-the-morning assault: and had Howe ordered Clinton or Cornwallis to carry the works before them by a vigorous assault at daybreak of the 28th, there is, our patriotic historians to the contrary notwithstanding, hardly room for reasonable doubt that the course of American history would have been other than it has been. It was again the ''dilatoriness of the enemy," and not this time the intervention of Providence, which saved the cause of independence.