side-tracked far away from the city, in order to clear the tracks for
provisions. The authorities, with the Citizens’ Committee, unable to
guess what the enemy might do, had decided that all efforts must be
subservient to the effort to stock the town with food.
Already the city had taken over the entire business of distributing
food-stuffs. Nothing could be sold except in quantities and at prices
fixed by ordinance.
_The Edge of Famine_
The city’s people often had been told by their statisticians that they
always were within a few days of famine. Now they realized what it
meant. The congested tracks had cut down their coal supply. All
interurban transportation had to be reduced to save power. Somewhere in
the narrow valleys leading from Lake Champlain on crowded rails were the
enormous rolls of paper needed to feed the city’s presses. The morning
newspapers had to be cut down to four pages of small size. There was no
sporting news in the papers, no foreign news and no financial news.
Within the short time that had elapsed since the occupation of New
England’s mill cities, the city had used up a great part of its stocks
of textiles. There was shortage of coffee, of spices, of all the stuffs
that ordinarily came in by sea.
Hostile cruisers and destroyers patrolled all the Atlantic coast, taking
the precaution merely to stay out of range of the harbor defenses. They
captured every vessel, large or small, that
[Illustration: “The only activity that remained in full progress was the
activity of the bulletin-boards.”]
ventured to leave a port, and sent it into Narragansett Bay or Buzzards
Bay as a prize.
So thoroughly had New York’s sea-gate been locked, that it had trouble
even to dispose of its garbage, because tugboat captains feared to
venture far enough to sea to dump it.
Wherever men turned, whatever they tried to do, it was as if there lay a
great, dead hand on the city.
_Closing in on New York_
The only activity that remained in full progress, apparently, was the
activity of the news bulletin-boards. The newspapers had erected them
everywhere, in all the squares. Far into the night they were served.
Almost continually since the Battle of the Connecticut they had been
announcing the names of New England places successively taken by the
approaching army. Now, suddenly, their news shifted. A bulletin went up
dated from Eaton’s Neck, Long Island. “Large fleet of steamers,” it
said, “crossing Long Island Sound from direction of New Haven,
apparently bound for this shore.”
“Two passenger steamers of New Haven Line,” said the next bulletin,
“five large freighters, eight lighters. Making for coast east of Oyster
Bay.”
From Oyster Bay came a dispatch: “Fifteen vessels putting into Cold
Spring Harbor, with large number of troops. It is believed that these
are forces convoyed over the Sound in vessels captured at New Haven, to
move against New York through Long Island.”
“Village of Cold Spring occupied. Troops approaching Oyster Bay,” was
the news that grew in great letters on the boards an hour later. Nothing
more came from either of these two points. Evidently the enemy had cut
communications at once.
_Along the Connecticut Shore_
News began to arrive now from the Connecticut shore. The advancing
forces, having joined west of Bridgeport, were moving in mass along the
contracted coastal plain of southwestern Connecticut. Troop trains,
preceded by armored pilot engines, rolled in long procession along the
whole system of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, all the
tracks of which had been repaired by civilians impressed to do the
work. On all the many tracks there was traffic in only one
direction,--westward, toward New York. The trains, moving in echelon,
went forward steadily as clock work.
Along the magnificent motor road that was the old Boston Post Road,
cavalry and motor patrols and detachments advancing in the same
direction, seized town after town.
They occupied Fairfield, where Paul Revere stopped over night on his way
to report to Washington. They entered with swords clanking and imperious
motor horns croaking into old Saugatuck, where the Colonials had fought
General Tryon when he landed to burn Danbury. They took Norwalk and
South Norwalk. They quartered men in the estates of Darien.
They swept on through rich Stamford, whose inhabitants are Connecticut
people by residence and New Yorkers by occupation. They took Greenwich.
_The Invaders of Long Island_
From Roslyn, Long Island, came word that all the invading vessels that
could find room at the Cold Spring wharves were unloading material. The
character of the derricks that had been rigged, said the report,
indicated that extremely heavy guns were being handled.
A bulletin that went up immediately afterward announced that the army
was crossing the State line from Connecticut into New York, and that
advance patrols already were passing through the New York State town of
Port Chester.
The enemy was now only twenty-five miles from New York City. This, and
the actual entrance into State territory, caused a senseless, headlong
fright. It spread even into the councils of the Citizens’ Committee and
city officials in the City Hall. Men jumped to their feet and exclaimed
that the bridges over the Harlem must be dynamited at once. Others
proposed to demolish the great suspension bridges by cutting away the
suspending rods and letting the roadways fall into the East River, that
the Long Island invader might be kept from crossing.
It was only the final flare-up of nerve-rasped, helplessly cornered men.
The least intelligent people in the streets could perceive that nothing
except cannons, and cannons again, could stop this invader who came with
a war-machine that made war a matter of systematic business. As Boston
had learned it, so New York was learning it. There could not be even the
barren relief of desperate, futile activity. The city, richer than many
a kingdom, more populous than any State in the Union except three, was
as utterly unable to ward off its doom as a trapped animal. Trapped by
its own wealth, it could only wait for the hunter to take it.
If any men adhered to the belief that the city might gain anything by
destroying its approaches, a telephone message that came through from
Port Chester presently was sufficient to convince even the most
recklessly daring that it would be madness in the face of the iron will
that actuated the enemy. The telephone call was from the corps
commander, who asked for the Mayor.
“I have the honor,” he said, “to inform you that the American army,
having abandoned the defense of the City of New York and surrounding
territory, all military resistance against us has ceased, and we claim
occupation. Under the rules of war, your civilian citizens lay
themselves open to penalties if they destroy bridges, railways, or other
lines of communication. Should such destruction occur, I shall have to
exact compensation for any suffering that it may cause to the troops
under my command.”
“_Invader Can Do What He Pleases_”
“He is straining the law!” cried one of the Citizens’ Committee who was
an authority on international law. “He has not yet occupied the
territory contiguous to the city.”
“I think that he has made his occupation good,” said another. “In our
own Army’s Rules of Warfare, paragraph 290 expressly states that ‘it is
sufficient that the occupying army can, within a reasonable time, send
detachments of troops to make its authority felt within the occupied
district.’”
“It makes little difference,” interposed the Mayor. “We can’t take him
before a Court of Appeals to argue hair-splitting distinctions. He has
us, and can do to us what he pleases. He needs only the color of law to
go to any extremity. We should be insane to argue with him. The only
thing to do is to give renewed and urgent orders that the population
must absolutely avoid any act of violence.”
Again the cold logic of inexorable circumstances forced humble
submission. Through all the districts north of the Harlem and through
Westchester County almost to the line of the enemy patrols, there was
sent by every possible method of communication the following warning:
“The invading forces assert occupation of the territory in which you
reside. Under this occupation, any act of disorder involving raiding,
espionage, damage to railways, war material, bridges, roads, canals,
telegraphs or other means of communication is punishable by death as war
treason. Communities in which such acts occur may be punished
collectively. All persons are warned earnestly to yield full obedience
to the occupying military forces and to abstain from all offensive
acts.”[147]
_A Matter of Lawyers’ Logic_
Thus for the men of New York war was no matter of glorious resistance or
of a splendid death. It was a matter of cold lawyers’ logic with
imprisonment or execution as felons the only answer should they try to
assert their manhood.
The knowledge held all the territory passive. Men and horses and motors
moved into Westchester County with no more opposition than if they were
pleasure-seekers moving through friendly country. Guns jolted along the
highways with their artillerists sitting at ease. The Westchester hills
and valleys echoed no shots, no cries of battle.
In every village and town the American flag fluttered down from the
flag-staffs of schools and town halls.
The corps commander that evening established his headquarters in one of
the great houses in the famous residence colony of Orienta Point,
Mamaroneck. His columns, advancing along the shore, spread out, occupied
New Rochelle and Mount Vernon, and encamped for the night in a great
line that stretched from the Long Island Sound to the Hudson River,
fencing New York City on the north with a wall of men and artillery.
It was a wall of silence. Not a word came through to the city from
Yonkers, from Mount Vernon, from Pelham, or from any of the other places
already taken.
_The Battle in the Night_
Only the harbor defenses of the city were still speaking to each other.
From the forts on Throgs Neck in Westchester County and from Fort Totten
on Long Island, the commanders at Forts Hamilton and Wadsworth in the
Narrows received requests for more men. Large forces, said the Sound
defenses, were closing in rapidly to invest them on land from the rear.
It would be an artillery and infantry fight in which the mammoth coast
guns could take little part, if any. The end was certain if
reënforcements could not be sent through the East River and the Sound.
The commanders of the Narrows were helpless to give aid. The commanders
of the Sandy Hook defenses were helpless. All the men, regulars and
militia, of the coast artillery who could be obtained, were not enough.
Fort Hamilton, being on the Long Island shore itself, dared not denude
itself further than it had done. At any moment there might be an attack
on it, too. The southern defenses had no choice but to tell the eastern
defenses that they must do the best they could.
[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON THE NEW YORK DEFENCES
=A.= _Attack on Ft. Totten._
=B.= _Attack on Ft. Schuyler._
=C and D.= _Course of Troops Capturing New Jersey Manufacturing Cities._
=EE.= _Attack on Sandy Hook Forts._
]
It was about one o’clock in the morning when the people of northern Long
Island, and the inhabitants of the Borough of the Bronx and Westchester
County, sprang from their beds in wild alarm. Without warning, as if a
hurricane had struck with instant concentrated force, all their windows
had crashed. Their walls were shaking, and pictures and plaster falling.
The air itself was shaking like a throbbing pulse.
It was like no gun-fire that men ever had imagined. It was not a series
of explosions. It was like one explosion, whose crescent violence would
not dwindle. The people of far Brooklyn and the people of lower
Manhattan heard it. To their ears it was as if all the thunders of a
storm-riven Heaven had been loosed to roll incessantly.
_Bands of Flame_
Men on vantage points along the Sound that night saw the attacking lines
from end to end plainly as if it were day. So continuous was their fire,
that it painted their positions with broad, unwavering bands of flame.
It needed not the star bombs and rockets that curved everywhere under
the sky to fall glaring into the defenses. It needed not the magnesium
lights that floated from parachutes dropped by aeroplanes. On both
sides of the Sound the night was a red sea.
Into the mortar pits and gun emplacements of the defenses, like a red
surf from that red sea, beat the unending fire. Shrapnel that wailed
like the bride of the storm, and flew apart in the air, and flung
bullets as if mines had burst inside of the defense! Eleven inch shells
that hammered into concrete facing, and split it apart with the
irresistible agony of their explosion! Five inch shell and solid
projectile! Bombs from the air, and every agency that man had yet
devised to wreck and destroy!
As suddenly as it had begun, the fire stopped. The night became utterly
still. The rockets ceased curving. But in all the defenses there shone
white glares, from search-lights and magnesium flares, illuminating
rushing masses of men who clambered over the ruins of guns and mounds,
and took the works. There was none left to oppose them.
When the dawn came, the watchers rubbed their eyes. The great defenses
lay apparently unharmed. Their mounds and embankments betrayed nothing
of the ruin that the night’s battle had worked within. But against the
brightening sky there arose a visible sign of what had been done. The
flag of the Coalition floated over them and greeted the American
sunrise.
Within a few hours after dawn, artillery began to move through Long
Island’s boulevards toward Brooklyn. North of the city, the army began
marching through the Borough of the Bronx toward the Harlem River.
Before noon, guns were posted along the Harlem Heights, on University
Heights, at High Bridge, and down past the mouth of the Harlem River.
The Long Island Railroad brought guns to the high ground behind Newtown
Creek, to the summit of Eastern Parkway, and to the Prospect Park Slope.
_Captured Vessels Enter River_
Through Hell Gate into the East River came a motley fleet--Sound and
River steamers captured at New Haven and Bridgeport, wall-sided
freighters and lighters, side-wheelers and screw propellers, and a
flotilla of motor boats, the pick of the beautiful little navy of
pleasure that filled all the Sound harbors.
This fleet anchored in a long line below Blackwell’s Island close under
the Manhattan shore.
All the larger vessels had guns on their forward and upper decks. As
soon as the craft had swung to the tide, the weapons were pointed at the
city.
Then the telephone bell in the City Hall called the Mayor again. The
corps commander, speaking from temporary quarters in the University of
New York buildings, announced that he wished to send commissioners into
the city to treat with the authorities for the terms of capitulation. He
desired that the Mayor send an escort to meet them at the Lenox Avenue
Bridge over the Harlem.
None of the people in the streets realized that the automobiles that
sped down Lenox Avenue a few hours later, through Central Park and down
Broadway, were bearing enemy soldiers. The population had become
accustomed to men in field uniforms hurrying through the city.
_Demand Surrender of Forts_
Arrived in the City Hall, the commissioners presented a demand signed by
the commander, for unconditional surrender of the city. The Mayor and
his advisers read it, and turned to the soldiers.
“What does this mean?” asked the Mayor, pointing to a clause that called
for the surrender of all fortifications with troops and munitions of
war. “We possess no fortifications.”
“It means Forts Hamilton and Wadsworth, on the Narrows,” answered the
Chief Commissioner.
“But those are United States property,” said the Mayor. “We have no
authority over them.”
“Then I should advise you to consult with the commandant of these places
at once,” answered the Commissioner. “Their surrender is an
indispensable condition in the terms of capitulation.”
The Mayor reached for the telephone. “Stop all other business, however
important,” he said to the operator. “Connect me with the Commandant at
Fort Hamilton.”
His conversation with that officer was brief. “He declines absolutely to
surrender any part of the defenses or other government property,” he
reported.
“Then, sir,” said the officer, rising, “I regret to inform you that we
shall shell the city. We are authorized to give you twenty-four hours.
Precisely at the end of that time, we shall order the firing to begin. I
call your attention to the fact that our artillery, as at present
placed, commands the Borough of Manhattan to about 59th Street, and that
our guns in Brooklyn command a great part of the most valuable sections
of that borough. You will take note, also, that guns on the vessels
anchored in the river can sweep both the New York and Brooklyn streets.”
_Claims That City Is Unfortified_
“But,” exclaimed an old Judge who was on the Citizens’ Committee, “we
are willing to surrender the city without opposition. As a matter of
fact, it lies wide open to your entrance. You cannot possibly mean to
bombard an undefended and unfortified town!”
Without hesitation the officer drew a paper from his pocket and
presented it. It read: “The City of New York, having Forts Hamilton and
Wadsworth not only within its harbor limits, but actually within its
municipal limits, is plainly a fortified place under all accepted
definitions. Also, while troops occupy these forts the town clearly
falls under the definition of a ‘defended place,’ under the clause that
‘a place that is occupied by a military force is a defended
place.’”[148]
With a bow he handed the paper to the Mayor.
“We shall bombard the city within twenty-four hours,” he repeated.
The New York men looked at each other. “We are quite helpless, sir,”
said the old Judge, then. “We cannot force United States officers to
surrender. I propose to my colleagues that a deputation shall go to
Washington at once to lay your terms before the President as
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. I assure you that we shall
represent to him, most strongly, the advisability of yielding. Will you,
for your part, give us more time?”
“I cannot go beyond my orders,” answered the officer. “Twenty-four
hours, I fear, is the extreme limit. It will give you ample time, since
the matter to be considered is most simple. You might inform His
Excellency the President, if you wish, that we have succeeded in
reducing and taking Forts Schuyler, Slocum and Totten. We shall proceed
to invest Fort Hamilton before to-morrow morning. Surrender will prevent
useless loss of life and destruction of property.”
_Government Surrenders Forts_
A special train brought the deputation into Washington before daylight
next morning. The New York men went at once to the White House where
they were received by the President, who had not been in bed. “You have
no doubt that they mean to make good their threat of bombardment?” asked
the President, after receiving their report. “Then, gentlemen, there is
only one action for this Government to take.” He sighed, and echoed the
refrain of all the past days. “There is nothing else that we can do.”
An hour later the wires to New York, cleared by orders from the War
Department, carried a dispatch to the commandants at Fort Hamilton and
Fort Wadsworth. It ordered them to surrender.
From his headquarters the enemy commander ordered detachments to go
down the harbor in boats and occupy the captured defenses. Then he sent
his troops forward into the City.
And now the New Yorkers who had expected that their streets would be
flooded by a great army, were amazed at the ease and simplicity with
which the city fell into military control. Instead of brigades entering
the city, there were not even regiments. Troops of cavalry, companies of
infantry, single machine-gun detachments, moving separately down
separated avenues, with big intervals between them, were all the force
that entered.
Some boatloads of men and artillery passed down the river and landed in
Brooklyn, some to occupy the Navy Yard and others to reënforce the men
who had come in through Long Island; but the army remained outside,
holding the northern districts from the Sound to the Hudson, and
guarding the Hudson River and Putnam Valleys against surprise attack
from the direction of Albany.
_An Easy City to Occupy_
The officers in charge of the men who entered the city asked no
questions and required no directions. Unhesitatingly each led his force
to the point that he wanted. Within two hours New York was wholly in the
hands of the soldiers.
Nobody had thought of it before. Now, all at once, when it was
accomplished, it amazed the people of New York to learn how easy it was
to control the city’s whole life, civic and commercial.
A battalion of infantry occupied the Grand Central Terminal. Another
battalion took the great Pennsylvania terminal with its under-river
tunnels to New Jersey and Long Island. Detachments appeared at the
Twenty-third Street and Forty-second Street ferries over the Hudson
River and by that one seizure controlled all railroad connections with
the West from uptown. The occupation of half a dozen other Hudson River
railroad ferries down-town, and of the Hudson Terminal Tube System,
completed the entire control of all the city’s railroad traffic in every
direction.
Equally simple was the control of its communications. Men appeared at
the two great telegraph buildings and at the telephone building. Within
half an hour they had every trunk line of wires in their hands and
could strike the city dumb at will.
Thus less than three thousand men had their fingers on the big town’s
spinal nerves, and could paralyze it with a slight pressure.
_Still Easier to Guard_
It was still easier to control the city from a military point of view.
The citizens who had expected to see their streets commanded by cannon
on limbers, did not at first comprehend why there were hardly any of
these to be seen, while machine gun detachments scattered and
disappeared as soon as they got well into the town. Only gradually did
the citizens discover that their big, sprawling metropolis was being
held subject by a very simple utilization of the city’s characteristic
feature.
This feature was the sky-scraper. To the eye of the soldier, these high
buildings were nothing so much as inviting and magnificent eminences for
controlling the street-valleys and their population below.
Four men with a machine gun and abundance of ammunition in one of these
stone and steel summits could control more area than half a dozen heavy
field gun batteries posted in the streets could command.
These sentinel watchers were as aloof and as sure as fate. They could
neither be rushed by a mob nor sniped from concealment. At a word from
the telephone in their eyries, they could start death dancing among the
pygmy hordes far under them.
From the top of the Woolworth Building two of the little guns pointed
down into Broadway. Turned southward, they could sweep the town as far
as the Battery. Eastward, they could rain their steel-jacketed bullets
into the river front streets and over the two lower bridges that cross
the East River. Northward, they had Broadway as far up as Canal Street
under their fire.
They were supplemented by a gun on top of the great Municipal Building.
It held a good part of the crowded tenement house district of the Lower
East Side under its zone of fire, notably the doubtful sections of
Cherry Street and other areas known to the police.
_Church Towers as Gun Stations_
On the tall towers of the suspension bridges themselves were other
detachments with a gun each. The churches were not forgotten by the
soldiers. The graceful steeple of Grace Church, standing at an acute
angle of Broadway so that it can be seen from far down town, had been
before men’s eyes so long that they had ceased, almost, to note its soft
beauty. Now they looked at it with a new and acute perception, for its
steeple held a gun that pointed down Broadway, whose southern zone of
fire would just about reach to where the northern zone of fire from the
Woolworth Building would end.