Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader (22 page)

The next day, September 16, British carelessness and contempt for their enemy produced what the Americans called the Battle of Harlem Heights, hardly more than a skirmish between several hundred light infantry and Colonel Thomas Knowlton’s Connecticut militia, just forward of the southernmost American lines. As Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie confided to his
Diary
, the light infantry pursued the Americans on the heights without “proper precautions or support” and blundered into an unfavorable position, where they “were rather severely handled by them.” This affair gave American soldiers at least a shred of confidence, but at the cost of Knowlton’s life. He had been one of the best regimental commanders in the army.
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The battle had one other effect. It reinforced Howe’s reluctance to engage the Americans in a frontal assault, especially when they held ground that favored the defense. Howe’s delay in attacking his enemy sometimes degenerated into paralysis, or so it seemed to Washington,
puzzled by Howe’s inaction and wondering when he would attack again. The answer was slow in coming, but on October 12 Howe put four thousand troops ashore from Long Island at Throgs Neck, which jutted into Long Island Sound almost due east of American lines. The neck, sometimes a point or peninsula and sometimes an island, depending on tides, was guarded by American troops at its points of exit. There was an exchange of artillery fire from both sides, but the British had made no real effort to drive their enemy from their positions. Washington then decided to march from Harlem Heights to White Plains, about twenty miles to the north. Howe’s intentions now seemed clear: The effort to trap Washington’s army on New York Island would be through a wide swing from Long Island.
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The campaign that followed for the rest of the year saw Washington fall back from one post to another. The move to White Plains proved slow and difficult, for horses and wagons were lacking. The troops themselves pulled most of their heavy guns, and it is safe to say they felt fatigue when they arrived at White Plains. Their stay was short after October 28, when the British assaulted and captured Chatterton’s Hill, on the far right of their defensive lines. Three days later, Washington withdrew his army back to North Castle and a new line of entrenchments. Howe followed as far as the old lines, but on the night of November 4, he led his army southward—a retreat, according to Washington—to the area near Fort Washington, the American strongpoint on the east side of the North River below Kingsbridge. The fort lay on high ground and held promise of dominance over the river and the land around it.

On his way to Fort Washington, Howe looked in on Dobbs Ferry, on the North River, a stop that helped confirm Washington’s suspicions that the enemy’s objectives included the capture of Philadelphia. But no one in the American army could be absolutely certain what Howe’s purposes were. Speculation ranged over possibilities that the British were also going to plunder the New Jersey countryside. Underlying all thought about what was afoot was also the concern to deny the British full control of the North River. The Canadian campaign had compelled Washington to think of what might result if the British focused all their efforts on opening up the corridor between New York and the St. Lawrence.
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The two forts on the North River, Lee and Washington, had seemed critical to keeping the British from establishing the linkage to Canada. Evidence of such intentions had mounted since the summer, when the Howe brothers returned with powerful naval and military forces. They had in fact sailed up and down the river whenever they liked. Additional evidence now appeared as they forced their way past Fort Washington, on the New York side, and Fort Lee, almost directly across in New Jersey. The American gunners in both forts proved unable to stop such passage, even though their cannon on both sides of the river fired on British ships. Obstacles created by sinking old hulks in the river also proved porous.

Early in November, when Washington learned that two British warships had made their way past the forts, he concluded there was little reason to defend them. If they could not be made to deny the British the river, why attempt to hold them? He wrote Nathanael Greene early in November with this question and added, “I am therefore inclined to think it will not be prudent to hazard the Men and Stores at Mount Washington, but as you are on the spot, leave it to you to give such Orders as to evacuating Mount Washington as you judge best, and so far revoking the Order given Colonel Magaw to defend it to the last.”
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Not being on the spot may have, to some extent, stayed Washington’s hand. He was a commander who wished to see the ground on which he was to fight, an understandable desire undoubtedly shared by most leaders who sent men into battle. In Washington’s case, the desire was born from experience as much as from prudence. He was a man who had studied the earth, surveyed it as a youth, farmed it as a planter, and bought and sold it for much of his life. As a commander, he used maps, but sketches on paper of the terrain were not enough; he wanted to see the sites of action for himself. Thinking of what decision to make about Mount Washington, a place he did not know well, he naturally listened to Nathanael Greene, a bright young man whom he had come to trust.

Greene in turn relied to some extent on Colonel Robert Magaw, a Pennsylvanian, in command of the fort. Magaw was not certain that Howe would attack the fort; nor was Greene. Shortly before the attack occurred, Greene reinforced the garrison, apparently to help convince himself and perhaps Howe that the fort could not be taken. But taken it was, in a battle on November 20 that lasted less than a day.

Washington watched the woeful collapse of the Americans from across the river at Fort Lee. He was not inclined then or later to blame Nathanael Greene for this debacle. Had he known that the enemy’s casualties were not light despite the brevity of the battle—about 69 dead, 335 wounded—he might have felt better, temporarily at least, but that knowledge, after it came to him, could not ease his disappointment. He had lost more than 3,000 men—2,858 captured and 150 killed or wounded—as well as valuable pieces of artillery and much ammunition.
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Cornwallis, Howe’s second-in-command, apparently under orders to allow Washington to yield, unintentionally allowed him to pull together his forces, which were split between Hackensack and Fort Lee. On November 20, the British had loaded Hessians and their own regulars into boats and crossed the North River at Lower Closter, New Jersey, about six miles above Fort Lee. The American army lacked the strength to hold Fort Lee or to make any realistic attempt to stop the enemy, and on November 21 it began its retreat. From that day until it crossed the Delaware River at Trenton, on December 7, it barely held itself together and on several occasions barely escaped attack by its pursuers. Its route led it to Newark on November 22; there it rested for five days, its rear guard pulling out just as Cornwallis’s van arrived. The following day it entered New Brunswick, and the day following it said farewell to two thousand militia from New Jersey and Maryland whose enlistments had expired. Others came into the American camp at about the same time, but they carried no promise of staying for any lengthy period. Three months was the limit of service for most.
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During a part of this period, the weather slowed Cornwallis’s pursuit—rain was frequent, the roads muddy, and he was burdened by a heavy baggage train. Washington made it to Princeton on December 1, his men tired, cold, and hungry. Reaching Trenton on the seventh, he took his troops across the Delaware River, a formidable obstacle. He made it even more of a barrier by clearing the river up and down from Trenton of all small craft. When the British arrived they were in effect stuck—no way to get at the Americans unless they manufactured boats. They seem not even to have considered this option, and in a few days Howe returned to New York City, leaving several
regiments at posts along the river. These troops were mostly Hessians, and Howe placed Colonel Johann Rall as the commander.

The retreat from Fort Lee and Hackensack can be plotted easily on a map, with the route taken, the days of rapid flight and near disaster, and the eventual respite offered by the crossing of the Delaware. Washington exercised his command effectively in these weeks, and his withdrawal to temporary safety appears to be a simple story. Within the story, however, were other stories of much greater complexity, which demonstrate that his escape called on his ability to manage disparate problems on the run. For while he was clearing out of Fort Lee with his army, he was also recruiting another as the troops he had begun his march with finished their service and went home. When he left Fort Lee, he had a small number of Continental regiments in his army, but these units had been badly depleted by fighting on Long Island and New York Island. It soon became clear that he would have to rely on soldiers he considered unreliable: newly recruited militia sent to him by Governor William Livingston of New Jersey. Their tour of duty would end in six weeks. The authorities in Connecticut and Massachusetts promised to provide additional militia, who had been lured into military service by promises of advanced and augmented pay. Washington dreaded the effects of such terms on men already under arms. He had reason to feel concern—there was already rivalry among the soldiers of various states, and all, whatever their condition, felt underpaid and badly supplied. Most needed better food and clothing soon after they arrived, and many found themselves living in the open even when they were not on the move—tents were lacking, and no one believed that barracks would be put up for them. Washington feared that if these conditions produced low morale and genuine grievances, an attempt to pay some better than others might yield a violent reaction, even “mutiny.”

When he first ordered his army out of Hackensack, he knew that adding to its numbers through enlistments presented him with a challenge. But for a brief moment he believed that he might strengthen his force by pulling together those units that had been detached for special missions. There were several of these detachments, one of which was at times as large as the force immediately under Washington’s command.
Charles Lee had led this unit in northern New York since February, and for several months afterwards had tightened patriot control in the city and the waters around it. With Governor Tryon acting to protect the Crown’s interests, maintaining a government sympathetic to the policies of the Continental Congress was impossible. The arrival in the summer of British naval and military forces stopped whatever consolidation of authority the state’s council could claim, which Lee had supported.

Lee had enjoyed his New York command but had not managed to do anything important for American interests after Washington brought the body of the Continental Army to New York in April. He was in the Highlands when Fort Washington fell in November, and he soon worked out his version of his mission when Washington began his retreat across New Jersey. Washington wrote him on November 21, suggesting that Lee bring his part of the army to Washington’s in New Jersey. Lee, whose army was in North Castle, had objected to the idea that he leave New York, writing that “it wold give us the air of being frighte’d [and] it wou’d expose a fine fertile Country to their ravages.”
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Lee composed this letter on November 19 and may not have received Washington’s until November 23 or 24. If he had received this letter earlier, it would have made little difference in his conduct; nor did the letters Washington wrote—at least six—in November and December telling him to come. In his letters Washington observed the proprieties of gentlemen. He was the commanding officer, but he remained polite as he sent letter after letter commanding Lee to join him in New Jersey. He also explained the necessity of adding Lee’s army to the main force: He was losing troops as militia enlistments expired, and he could not depend upon recruiters to find replacements. He was also on the run, with Cornwallis pressing on his heels. To help explain the urgency of joining Lee’s troops to his own, he told Lee that Philadelphia was Cornwallis’s objective. Congress had met there since its beginnings in 1774—and the loss of the city would be such a blow that the Revolution itself might collapse.

Lee’s replies nowhere indicate explicit refusal to follow his commander’s orders, but instead offer reasons for delay. He was remaining in northern New York to protect its people from the Tories who, he implied, abounded there. About the time he made this answer, he was also ordering General Heath, who was in command of forces Washington
had left at Peekskill, to send two thousand of his men to Washington. Heath refused, though Lee informed him that he, Lee, was second-in-command of the Continental Army and that Heath was obliged to follow his orders. Washington knew nothing of Heath’s difficulty with Lee, and his own problems must have seemed intolerable when he read Lee’s magisterial pronouncement that he hoped Washington would “bind me as little as possible—not from any opinion, I do assure you, of my own parts—but from a persuasion that detach’d Generals cannot have too great latitude—unless They are very incompetent indeed.” This detached general promised to cross the river “the day after tomorrow,” December 2, but actually did not do so until December 5.
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The reasons for Lee’s disobedience in the face of Washington’s orders cannot be known, shrouded as they were by his various promises and claims. Through it all, he let Washington know that he thought the most productive course would be to hang on the rear of the British army, a tactic that would allow him to operate free of the encumbrance of his chief’s orders.

During the effort to entice Lee to join the main army, Washington opened a letter Lee had sent to Joseph Reed, his aide, that seemed to be on official business, only to discover that it was private. In it Lee criticized Washington’s “indecision of mind which in war is a much greater disqualification than stupidity.”
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Had Washington read Reed’s letter to which Lee’s was a response, his shock would have been greater. Reed’s was obsequious, despite claims that “I do not mean to flatter, nor praise you at the Expense of any other” (which he then proceeded to do). It urged Lee to “go to Congress & form the Plan of the new Army,” a suggestion that, if followed, would have openly challenged Washington’s appointment as commander of the Continental forces.
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