NAVAL ACTION AT BOSTON, CHARLESTON, NEW YORK, AND NARRAGANSETT
BAY--ASSOCIATED LAND OPERATIONS UP TO THE BATTLE OF TRENTON
1776
The opening conflict between Great Britain and her North American
Colonies teaches clearly the necessity, too rarely recognised in
practice, that when a State has decided to use force, the force
provided should be adequate from the first. This applies with equal
weight to national policies when it is the intention of the nation to
maintain them at all costs. The Monroe Doctrine for instance is such
a policy; but unless constant adequate preparation is maintained also,
the policy itself is but a vain form of words. It is in preparation
beforehand, chiefly if not uniformly, that the United States has
failed. It is better to be much too strong than a little too weak.
Seeing the evident temper of the Massachusetts Colonists, force would
be needed to execute the Boston Port Bill and its companion measures
of 1774; for the Port Bill especially, naval force. The supplies for
1775 granted only 18,000 seamen,--2000 less than for the previous
year. For 1776, 28,000 seamen were voted, and the total appropriations
rose from £5,556,000 to £10,154,000; but it was then too late. Boston
was evacuated by the British army, 8000 strong on the 17th of March,
1776; but already, for more than half a year, the spreading spirit of
revolt in the thirteen Colonies had been encouraged by the sight
of the British army cooped up in the town, suffering from want
of necessaries, while the colonial army blockading it was able to
maintain its position, because ships laden with stores for the one
were captured, and the cargoes diverted to the use of the other. To
secure free and ample communications for one's self, and to interrupt
those of the opponent, are among the first requirements of war. To
carry out the measures of the British government a naval force
was needed, which not only should protect the approach of its own
transports to Boston Bay, but should prevent access to all coast ports
whence supplies could be carried to the blockading army. So far from
this, the squadron was not equal, in either number or quality, to the
work to be done about Boston; and it was not until October, 1775, that
the Admiral was authorized to capture colonial merchant vessels, which
therefore went and came unmolested, outside of Boston, carrying often
provisions which found their way to Washington's army.
After evacuating Boston, General Howe retired to Halifax, there to
await the coming of reinforcements, both military and naval, and of
his brother, Vice-Admiral Lord Howe, appointed to command the North
American Station. General Howe was commander-in-chief of the forces
throughout the territory extending from Nova Scotia to West Florida;
from Halifax to Pensacola. The first operation of the campaign was to
be the reduction of New York.
The British government, however, had several objects in view, and
permitted itself to be distracted from the single-minded prosecution
of one great undertaking to other subsidiary operations, not always
concentric. Whether the control of the line of the Hudson and Lake
Champlain ought to have been sought through operations beginning at
both ends, is open to argument; the facts that the Americans were back
in Crown Point in the beginning of July, 1776, and that Carleton's
13,000 men got no farther than St. John's that year, suggest that the
greater part of the latter force would have been better employed in
New York and New Jersey than about Champlain. However that may be, the
diversion to the Carolinas of a third body, respectable in point
of numbers, is scarcely to be defended on military grounds. The
government was induced to it by the expectation of local support from
royalists. That there were many of these in both Carolinas is
certain; but while military operations must take account of political
conditions, the latter should not be allowed to overbalance elementary
principles of the military art. It is said that General Howe
disapproved of this ex-centric movement.
The force destined for the Southern coasts assembled at Cork towards
the end of 1775, and sailed thence in January, 1776. The troops were
commanded by Lord Cornwallis, the squadron by Nelson's early patron,
Commodore Sir Peter Parker, whose broad pennant was hoisted on board
the _Bristol_, 50. After a boisterous passage, the expedition arrived
in May off Cape Fear in North Carolina, where it was joined by two
thousand men under Sir Henry Clinton, Cornwallis's senior, whom Howe
by the government's orders had detached to the southward in January.
Upon Clinton's appearance, the royalists in North Carolina had risen,
headed by the husband of Flora Macdonald, whose name thirty years
before had been associated romantically with the escape of the young
Pretender from Scotland. She had afterwards emigrated to America. The
rising, however, had been put down, and Clinton had not thought
it expedient to try a serious invasion, in face of the large force
assembled to resist him. Upon Parker's coming, it was decided to make
an attempt upon Charleston, South Carolina. The fleet therefore
sailed from Cape Fear on the 1st of June, and on the 4th anchored off
Charleston Bar.
Charleston Harbour opens between two of the sea-islands which fringe
the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. On the north is Sullivan's
Island, on the south James Island. The bar of the main entrance was
not abreast the mouth of the port, but some distance south of it.
Inside the bar, the channel turned to the northward, and thence led
near Sullivan's Island, the southern end of which was therefore chosen
as the site of the rude fort hastily thrown up to meet this attack,
and afterwards called Fort Moultrie, from the name of the commander.
From these conditions, a southerly wind was needed to bring ships
into action. After sounding and buoying the bar, the transports
and frigates crossed on the 7th and anchored inside; but as it was
necessary to remove some of the _Bristol's_ guns, she could not follow
until the 10th. On the 9th Clinton had landed in person with five
hundred men, and by the 15th all the troops had disembarked upon Long
Island, next north of Sullivan's. It was understood that the inlet
between the two was fordable, allowing the troops to coöperate with
the naval attack, by diversion or otherwise; but this proved to be a
mistake. The passage was seven feet deep at low water, and there were
no means for crossing; consequently a small American detachment in
the scrub wood of the island sufficed to check any movement in that
quarter. The fighting therefore was confined to the cannonading of the
fort by the ships.
Circumstances not fully explained caused the attack to be fixed
for the 23d; an inopportune delay, during which Americans were
strengthening their still very imperfect defences. On the 23d the wind
was unfavourable. On the 25th the _Experiment_, 50, arrived, crossed
the bar, and, after taking in her guns again, was ready to join in
the assault. On the 27th, at 10 A.M., the ships got under way with a
south-east breeze, but this shifted soon afterwards to north-west, and
they had to anchor again, about a mile nearer to Sullivan's Island. On
the following day the wind served, and the attack was made.
In plan, Fort Moultrie was square, with a bastion at each angle. In
construction, the sides were palmetto logs, dovetailed and bolted
together, laid in parallel rows, sixteen feet apart; the interspace
being filled with sand. At the time of the engagement, the south and
west fronts were finished; the other fronts were only seven feet
high, but surmounted by thick planks, to be tenable against escalade.
Thirty-one guns were in place, 18 and 9-pounders, of which twenty-one
were on the south face, commanding the channel. Within was a traverse
running east and west, protecting the gunners from shots from the
rear; but there was no such cover against enfilading fire, in case
an enemy's ship passed the fort and anchored above it. "The general
opinion before the action," Moultrie says, "and especially among
sailors, was that two frigates would be sufficient to knock the town
about our ears, notwithstanding our batteries." Parker may have shared
this impression, and it may account for his leisureliness. When the
action began, the garrison had but twenty-eight rounds for each of
twenty-six cannon, but this deficiency was unknown to the British.
[Illustration]
Parker's plan was that the two 50's, _Bristol_ and _Experiment_, and
two 28-gun frigates, the _Active_ and the _Solebay_, should engage the
main front; while two frigates of the same class, the _Actæon_ and the
_Syren_, with a 20-gun corvette, the _Sphinx_, should pass the fort,
anchoring to the westward, up-channel, to protect the heavy vessels
against fire-ships, as well as to enfilade the principal American
battery. The main attack was to be further supported by a bomb-vessel,
the _Thunder_, accompanied by the armed transport _Friendship_, which
were to take station to the southeast of the east bastion of the
engaged front of the fort. The order to weigh was given at 10.30
A.M., when the flood-tide had fairly made; and at 11.15 the _Active_,
_Bristol_, _Experiment_, and _Solebay_, anchored in line ahead, in the
order named, the _Active_ to the eastward. These ships seem to have
taken their places skilfully without confusion, and their fire, which
opened at once, was rapid, well-sustained, and well-directed; but
their position suffered under the radical defect that, whether from
actual lack of water, or only from fear of grounding, they were too
far from the works to use grape effectively. The sides of ships being
much weaker than those of shore works, while their guns were much more
numerous, the secret of success was to get near enough to beat down
the hostile fire by a multitude of projectiles. The bomb-vessel
_Thunder_ anchored in the situation assigned her; but her shells,
though well aimed, were ineffective. "Most of them fell within the
fort," Moultrie reported, "but we had a morass in the middle, which
swallowed them instantly, and those that fell in the sand were
immediately buried." During the action the mortar bed broke, disabling
the piece.
Owing to the scarcity of ammunition in the fort, the garrison had
positive orders not to engage at ranges exceeding four hundred yards.
Four or five shots were thrown at the _Active_, while still under
sail, but with this exception the fort kept silence until the ships
anchored, at a distance estimated by the Americans to be three hundred
and fifty yards. The word was then passed along the platform, "Mind
the Commodore; mind the two 50-gun ships,"--an order which was
strictly obeyed, as the losses show. The protection of the work proved
to be almost perfect,--a fact which doubtless contributed to the
coolness and precision of fire vitally essential with such deficient
resources. The texture of the palmetto wood suffered the balls to sink
smoothly into it without splintering, so that the facing of the work
held well. At times, when three or four broadsides struck together,
the merlons shook so that Moultrie feared they would come bodily in;
but they withstood, and the small loss inflicted was chiefly through
the embrasures. The flagstaff being shot away, falling outside into
the ditch, a young sergeant, named Jasper, distinguished himself by
jumping after it, fetching back and rehoisting the colours under a
heavy fire.
In the squadron an equal gallantry was shown under circumstances which
made severe demands upon endurance. Whatever Parker's estimate of
the worth of the defences, no trace of vain-confidence appears in his
dispositions, which were thorough and careful, as the execution of
the main attack was skilful and vigorous; but the ships' companies,
expecting an easy victory, had found themselves confronted with a
resistance and a punishment as severe as were endured by the leading
ships at Trafalgar, and far more prolonged. Such conditions impose
upon men's tenacity the additional test of surprise and discomfiture.
The _Experiment_, though very small for a ship of the line, lost 23
killed and 56 wounded, out of a total probably not much exceeding 300;
while the _Bristol_, having the spring shot away, swung with her head
to the southward and her stern to the fort, undergoing for a long
time a raking fire to which she could make little reply. Three
several attempts to replace the spring were made by Mr. James
Saumarez,--afterwards the distinguished admiral, Lord de Saumarez,
then a midshipman,--before the ship was relieved from this grave
disadvantage. Her loss was 40 killed and 71 wounded; not a man
escaping of those stationed on the quarter-deck at the beginning of
the action. Among the injured was the Commodore himself, whose cool
heroism must have been singularly conspicuous, from the notice it
attracted in a service where such bearing was not rare. At one
time when the quarter-deck was cleared and he stood alone upon the
poop-ladder, Saumarez suggested to him to come down; but he replied,
smiling, "You want to get rid of me, do you?" and refused to move.
The captain of the ship, John Morris, was mortally wounded. With
commendable modesty Parker only reported himself as slightly bruised;
but deserters stated that for some days he needed the assistance of
two men to walk, and that his trousers had been torn off him by shot
or splinters. The loss in the other ships was only one killed, 14
wounded. The Americans had 37 killed and wounded.
The three vessels assigned to enfilade the main front of the fort did
not get into position. They ran on the middle ground, owing, Parker
reported, to the ignorance of the pilots. Two had fouled each other
before striking. Having taken the bottom on a rising tide, two floated
in a few hours, and retreated; but the third, the _Actæon_, 28,
sticking fast, was set on fire and abandoned by her officers. Before
she blew up, the Americans boarded her, securing her colours, bell,
and some other trophies. "Had these ships effected their purpose,"
Moultrie reported, "they would have driven us from our guns."
The main division held its ground until long after nightfall, firing
much of the time, but stopping at intervals. After two hours it had
been noted that the fort replied very slowly, which was attributed to
its being overborne, instead of to the real cause, the necessity for
sparing ammunition. For the same reason it was entirely silent from
3.30 P.M. to 6, when fire was resumed from only two or three guns,
whence Parker surmised that the rest had been dismounted. The
Americans were restrained throughout the engagement by the fear of
exhausting entirely their scanty store.
"About 9 P.M.," Parker reported, "being very dark, great part of our
ammunition expended, the people fatigued, the tide of ebb almost
done, no prospect from the eastward (that is, from the army), and no
possibility of our being of any further service, I ordered the ships
to withdraw to their former moorings." Besides the casualties among
the crew, and severe damage to the hull, the _Bristol's_ mainmast,
with nine cannon-balls in it, had to be shortened, while the
mizzen-mast was condemned. The injury to the frigates was immaterial,
owing to the garrison's neglecting them.
The fight in Charleston Harbour, the first serious contest in which
ships took part in this war, resembles generically the battle of
Bunker's Hill, with which the regular land warfare had opened a year
before. Both illustrate the difficulty and danger of a front attack,
without cover, upon a fortified position, and the advantage conferred
even upon untrained men, if naturally cool, resolute, and intelligent,
not only by the protection of a work, but also, it may be urged, by
the recognition of a tangible line up to which to hold, and to abandon
which means defeat, dishonour, and disaster. It is much for untried
men to recognise in their surroundings something which gives the unity
of a common purpose, and thus the coherence which discipline imparts.
Although there was in Parker's dispositions nothing open to serious
criticism,--nothing that can be ascribed to undervaluing his
opponent,--and although, also, he had good reason to expect from the
army active coöperation which he did not get, it is probable that he
was very much surprised, not only at the tenacity of the Americans'
resistance, but at the efficacy of their fire. He felt, doubtless,
the traditional and natural distrust--and, for the most part,
the justified distrust--with which experience and practice regard
inexperience. Some seamen of American birth, who had been serving in
the _Bristol_, deserted after the fight. They reported that her crew
said, "We were told the Yankees would not stand two fires, but we
never saw better fellows;" and when the fire of the fort slackened and
some cried, "They have done fighting," others replied, "By God, we are
glad of it, for we never had such a drubbing in our lives." "All the
common men of the fleet spoke loudly in praise of the garrison,"--a
note of admiration so frequent in generous enemies that we may be
assured that it was echoed on the quarter-deck also. They could afford
it well, for there was no stain upon their own record beyond the
natural mortification of defeat; no flinching under the severity of
their losses, although a number of their men were comparatively raw,
volunteers from the transports, whose crews had come forward almost
as one man when they knew that the complements of the ships were short
through sickness. Edmund Burke, a friend to both sides, was justified
in saying that "never did British valour shine more conspicuously,
nor did our ships in an engagement of the same nature experience
so serious an encounter." There were several death-vacancies for
lieutenants; and, as the battle of Lake Champlain gave Pellew his
first commission, so did that of Charleston Harbour give his to
Saumarez, who was made lieutenant of the _Bristol_ by Parker. Two
years later, when the ship had gone to Jamaica, he was followed on her
quarter-deck by Nelson and Collingwood, who also received promotion in
her from the same hand.
The attack on Fort Moultrie was not resumed. After necessary repairs,
the ships of war with the troops went to New York, where they
arrived on the 4th of August, and took part in the operations for the
reduction of that place under the direction of the two Howes.
* * * * *
The occupation of New York Harbour, and the capture of the city were
the most conspicuous British successes of the summer and fall of 1776.
While Parker and Clinton were meeting with defeat at Charleston, and
Arnold was hurrying the preparation of his flotilla on Champlain, the
two brothers, General Sir William Howe and the Admiral, Lord Howe,
were arriving in New York Bay, invested not only with the powers
proper to the commanders of great fleets and armies, but also with
authority as peace commissioners, to negotiate an amicable arrangement
with the revolted Colonies.
Sir William Howe had awaited for some time at Halifax the arrival of
the expected reinforcements, but wearying at last he sailed thence
on the 10th of June, 1776, with the army then in hand. On the 25th
he himself reached Sandy Hook, the entrance to New York Bay, having
preceded the transports in a frigate. On the 29th, the day after
Parker's repulse at Fort Moultrie, the troops arrived; and on July 3d,
the date on which Arnold, retreating from Canada, reached Crown Point,
the British landed on Staten Island, which is on the west side of the
lower Bay. On the 12th came in the _Eagle_, 64, carrying the flag of
Lord Howe. This officer was much esteemed by the Americans for his own
personal qualities, and for his attitude towards them in the present
dispute, as well as for the memory of his brother, who had endeared
himself greatly to them in the campaign of 1758, when he had fallen
near Lake Champlain; but the decisive step of declaring their
independence had been taken already, on July 4th, eight days before
the Admiral's arrival. A month was spent in fruitless attempts to
negotiate with the new government, without recognising any official
character in its representatives. During that time, however, while
abstaining from decisive operations, cruisers were kept at sea
to intercept American traders, and the Admiral, immediately upon
arriving, sent four vessels of war twenty-five miles up the Hudson
River, as far as Tarrytown. This squadron was commanded by Hyde
Parker, afterwards, in 1801, Nelson's commander-in-chief at
Copenhagen. The service was performed under a tremendous cannonade
from all the batteries on both shores, but the ships could not
be stopped. Towards the middle of August it was evident that the
Americans would not accept any terms in the power of the Howes to
offer, and it became necessary to attempt coercion by arms.
[Illustration]
In the reduction of New York in 1776, the part played by the British
Navy, owing to the nature of the campaign in general and of the
enemy's force in particular, was of that inconspicuous character which
obscures the fact that without the Navy the operations could not have
been undertaken at all, and that the Navy played to them the part
of the base of operations and line of communications. Like the
foundations of a building, these lie outside the range of superficial
attention, and therefore are less generally appreciated than the
brilliant fighting going on at the front, to the maintenance of
which they are all the time indispensable. Consequently, whatever of
interest may attach to any, or to all, of the minor affairs, which
in the aggregate constitute the action of the naval force in such
circumstances, the historian of the major operations is confined
perforce to indicating the broad general effect of naval power upon
the issue. This will be best done by tracing in outline the scene of
action, the combined movements, and the Navy's influence in both.
The harbour of New York divides into two parts--the upper and lower
Bays--connected by a passage called the Narrows, between Long and
Staten Islands, upon the latter of which the British troops were
encamped. Long Island, which forms the eastern shore of the Narrows,
extends to the east-north-east a hundred and ten miles, enclosing
between itself and the continent a broad sheet of water called Long
Island Sound, that reaches nearly to Narragansett Bay. The latter,
being a fine anchorage, entered also into the British scheme of
operations, as an essential feature in a coastwise maritime campaign.
Long Island Sound and the upper Bay of New York are connected by a
crooked and difficult passage, known as the East River, eight or ten
miles in length, and at that time nearly a mile wide[15] abreast the
city of New York. At the point where the East River joins New York
Bay, the Hudson River, an estuary there nearly two miles wide, also
enters from the north,--a circumstance which has procured for it
the alternative name of the North River. Near their confluence is
Governor's Island, half a mile below the town, centrally situated to
command the entrances to both. Between the East and North rivers, with
their general directions from north and east-north-east, is embraced
a long strip of land gradually narrowing to the southward. The end of
this peninsula, as it would otherwise be, is converted into an island,
of a mean length of about eight miles, by the Harlem River,--a narrow
and partially navigable stream connecting the East and North rivers.
To the southern extreme of this island, called Manhattan, the city of
New York was then confined.
As both the East and North rivers were navigable for large ships,
the former throughout, the latter for over a hundred miles above its
mouth, it was evident that control of the water must play a large
part in warlike operations throughout the district described. With the
limited force at Washington's disposal, he had been unable to push the
defences of the city as far to the front as was desirable. The
lower Bay was held by the British Navy, and Staten Island had been
abandoned, necessarily, without resistance, thereby giving up the
strong defensive position of the Narrows. The lines were contracted
thus to the immediate neighbourhood of New York itself. Small detached
works skirted the shores of Manhattan Island, and a line of redoubts
extended across it, following the course of a small stream which then
partly divided it, a mile from the southern end. Governor's Island was
also occupied as an outpost. Of more intrinsic strength, but not at
first concerned, strong works had been thrown up on either side of the
North River, upon commanding heights eight miles above New York, to
dispute the passage of ships.
The crucial weakness in this scheme of defence was that the shore of
Long Island opposite the city was much higher than that of Manhattan.
If this height were seized, the city, and all below it, became
untenable. Here, therefore, was the key of the position and the chief
station for the American troops. For its protection a line of works
was thrown up, the flanks of which rested upon Wallabout Bay and
Gowanus Cove, two indentations in the shores of Long Island. These
Washington manned with nine thousand of the eighteen thousand men
under his command. By the arrival of three divisions of Hessian
troops, Howe's army now numbered over thirty-four thousand men, to
which Clinton brought three thousand more from before Charleston.[16]
On the 22d of August the British crossed from Staten Island to
Gravesend Bay, on the Long Island shore of the Narrows. The Navy
covered the landing, and the transportation of the troops was under
the charge of Commodore William Hotham, who, nineteen years later,
was Nelson's commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. By noon fifteen
thousand men and forty field-guns had been carried over and placed on
shore. The force of the Americans permitted little opposition to the
British advance; but General Howe was cautious and easy-going, and
it was not till the 27th that the army, now increased to twenty-five
thousand, was fairly in front of the American lines, having killed,
wounded, and taken about 1,500 men. Hoping that Howe would be tempted
to storm the position, Washington replaced these with two thousand
drawn from his meagre numbers; but his opponent, who had borne a
distinguished part at Bunker's Hill, held back his troops, who were
eager for the assault. The Americans now stood with their backs to
a swift tidal stream, nearly a mile wide, with only a feeble line of
works between them and an enemy more than double their number.
On the morning of the 27th, Sir Peter Parker, with a 64-gun ship, two
50's, and two frigates, attempted to work up to New York, with a view
of supporting the left flank of the army; but the wind came out from
the north, and, the ebb-tide making, the ships got no nearer than
three miles from the city. Fortunately for the Americans, they either
could not or would not go farther on the following two days.
After dark of the 28th, Howe broke ground for regular approaches.
Washington, seeing this, and knowing that there could be but one
result to a siege under his condition of inferiority, resolved to
withdraw. During the night of the 29th ten thousand men silently
quitted their positions, embarked, and crossed to Manhattan Island,
carrying with them all their belongings, arms, and ammunition. The
enemy's trenches were but six hundred yards distant, yet no suspicion
was aroused, nor did a single deserter give treacherous warning. The
night was clear and moonlit, although a heavy fog towards daybreak
prolonged the period of secrecy which shrouded the retreat. When
the fog rose, the last detachment was discovered crossing, but a few
ineffectual cannon-shot were the only harassment experienced by the
Americans in the course of this rapid and dexterous retirement. The
garrison of Governor's Island was withdrawn at the same time.
The unmolested use of the water, and the nautical skill of the
fishermen who composed one of the American regiments, were essential
to this escape; for admirable as the movement was in arrangement
and execution, no word less strong than escape applies to it. By it
Washington rescued over half his army from sure destruction, and,
not improbably, the cause of his people from immediate collapse. An
opportunity thus seized implies necessarily an opportunity lost on the
other side. For that failure both army and navy must bear their share
of the blame. It is obvious that when an enemy is greatly outnumbered
his line of retreat should be watched. This was the business of both
commanders-in-chief, the execution of it being primarily the duty of
the navy, as withdrawal from the American position could be only
by water. It was a simple question of look-out, of detection, of
prevention by that means. To arrest the retreat sailing ships were
inadequate, for they could not have remained at anchor under the guns
of Manhattan Island, either by day or night; but a few boats
with muffled oars could have watched, could have given the alarm,
precipitating an attack by the army, and such a movement interrupted
in mid-course brings irretrievable disaster.
Washington now withdrew the bulk of his force to the line of the
Harlem. On his right, south of that river and commanding the Hudson,
was a fort called by his name; opposite to it on the Jersey shore was
Fort Lee. A garrison of four thousand men occupied New York. After
amusing himself with some further peace negotiations, Howe determined
to possess the city. As a diversion from the main effort, and to cover
the crossing of the troops, two detachments of ships were ordered to
pass the batteries on the Hudson and East rivers. This was done on
the 13th and the 15th of September. The East River division suffered
severely, especially in spars and rigging;[17] but the success of
both, following upon that of Hyde Parker a few weeks earlier, in his
expedition to Tarrytown, confirmed Washington in the opinion which he
expressed five years later to de Grasse, that batteries alone could
not stop ships having a fair wind. This is now a commonplace of naval
warfare; steam giving always a fair wind. On the 15th Howe's army
crossed under cover of Parker's ships, Hotham again superintending the
boat work. The garrison of New York slipped along the west shore of
the island and joined the main body on the Harlem; favored again,
apparently, in this flank movement a mile from the enemy's front,
by Howe's inertness, and fondness for a good meal, to which a shrewd
American woman invited him at the critical moment.
Despite these various losses of position, important as they were, the
American army continued to elude the British general, who apparently
did not hold very strongly the opinion that the most decisive factor
in war is the enemy's organised force. As control of the valley of
the Hudson, in connection with Lake Champlain, was, very properly, the
chief object of the British government, Howe's next aim was to loosen
Washington's grip on the peninsula north of the Harlem. The position
seeming to him too strong for a front attack, he decided to strike for
its left flank and rear by way of Long Island Sound. In this, which
involved the passage of the tortuous and dangerous channel called
Hell Gate, with its swift conflicting currents, the Navy again bore
an essential part. The movement began on October 12th, the day after
Arnold was defeated at Valcour. So far as its leading object went it
was successful, Washington feeling obliged to let go the line of the
Harlem, and change front to the left. As the result of the various
movements and encounters of the two armies, he fell back across the
Hudson into New Jersey, ordering the evacuation of Fort Washington,
and deciding to rest his control of the Hudson Valley upon West Point,
fifty miles above New York, a position of peculiar natural strength,
on the west bank of the river. To these decisions he was compelled
by his inferiority in numbers, and also by the very isolated and
hazardous situation in which he was operating, between two navigable
waters, absolutely controlled by the enemy's shipping. This conclusion
was further forced upon him by another successful passage before the
guns of Forts Washington and Lee by Hyde Parker, with three ships, on
the 9th of October. On this occasion the vessels, two of which were
frigates of the heaviest class, suffered very severely, losing nine
killed and eighteen wounded; but the menace to the communications of
the Americans could not be disregarded, for their supplies came mostly
from the west of the Hudson.
It was early in November that Washington crossed into New Jersey with
five thousand men; and soon afterwards he directed the remainder of
his force to follow. At that moment the blunder of one subordinate,
and the disobedience of another, brought upon him two serious blows.
Fort Washington not being evacuated when ordered, Howe carried it by
storm, capturing not only it but its garrison of twenty-seven hundred
men; a very heavy loss to the Americans. On the other hand, the most
explicit orders failed to bring the officer left in command on
the east of the Hudson, General Charles Lee, to rejoin the
commander-in-chief. This criminal perverseness left Washington with
only six thousand men in New Jersey, seven thousand being in New York.
Under these conditions nothing remained but to put the Delaware also
between himself and the enemy. He therefore retreated rapidly through
New Jersey, and on the 8th of December crossed into Pennsylvania
with an army reduced to three thousand by expiry of enlistments. The
detachment beyond the Hudson, diminishing daily by the same cause,
gradually worked its way to him; its commander luckily being captured
on the road. At the time it joined, a few battalions also arrived
from Ticonderoga, released by Carleton's retirement to the foot of
Champlain. Washington's force on the west bank of the Delaware was
thus increased to six thousand men.
In this series of operations, extending from August 22d to December
14th, when Howe went into winter-quarters in New Jersey, the British
had met with no serious mishaps, beyond the inevitable losses
undergone by the assailants of well-chosen positions. Nevertheless,
having in view the superiority of numbers, of equipment, and of
discipline, and the command of the water, the mere existence of the
enemy's army as an organised body, its mere escape, deprives the
campaign of the claim to be considered successful. The red ribbon of
the Bath probably never was earned more cheaply than by Sir William
Howe that year. Had he displayed anything like the energy of his two
elder brothers, Washington, with all his vigilance, firmness,
and enterprise, could scarcely have brought off the force, vastly
diminished but still a living organism, around which American
resistance again crystallised and hardened. As it was, within a month
he took the offensive, and recovered a great part of New Jersey.
Whatever verdict may be passed upon the merit of the military conduct
of affairs, there is no doubt of the value, or of the unflagging
energy, of the naval support given. Sir William Howe alludes to it
frequently, both in general and specifically; while the Admiral sums
up his always guarded and often cumbrous expressions of opinion in
these words: "It is incumbent upon me to represent to your Lordships,
and I cannot too pointedly express, the unabating perseverance and
alacrity with which the several classes of officers and seamen have
supported a long attendance and unusual degree of fatigue, consequent
of these different movements of the army."
The final achievement of the campaign, and a very important one, was
the occupation of Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay by a combined
expedition, which left New York on the 1st of December, and on the 8th
landed at Newport without opposition. The naval force, consisting
of five 50-gun ships and eight smaller vessels, was commanded by
Sir Peter Parker; the troops, seven thousand in number, by
Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton. The immediate effect was to
close a haven of privateers, who centred in great numbers around an
anchorage which flanked the route of all vessels bound from Europe
to New York. The possession of the bay facilitated the control of the
neighbouring waters by British ships of war, besides giving them
a base central for coastwise operations and independent of tidal
considerations for entrance or exit. The position was abandoned
somewhat precipitately three years later. Rodney then deplored its
loss in the following terms: "The evacuating Rhode Island was the most
fatal measure that could possibly have been adopted. It gave up the
best and noblest harbor in America, capable of containing the whole
Navy of Britain, and where they could in all seasons lie in perfect
security; and from whence squadrons, in forty-eight hours, could
blockade the three capital cities of America; namely, Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia."
At the end of 1776 began the series of British reverses which
characterised the year 1777, making this the decisive period of the
war, because of the effect thus produced upon general public opinion
abroad; especially upon the governments of France and Spain. On the
20th of December, Howe, announcing to the Ministry that he had
gone into winter-quarters, wrote: "The chain, I own, is rather too
extensive, but I was induced to occupy Burlington to cover the county
of Monmouth; and trusting to the loyalty of the inhabitants, and the
strength of the corps placed in the advanced posts, I conclude the
troops will be in perfect security." Of this unwarranted security
Washington took prompt advantage. On Christmas night a sudden descent,
in a blinding snow-storm, upon a British outpost at Trenton, swept off
a thousand prisoners; and although for the moment the American leader
again retired behind the Delaware, it was but to resume the offensive
four days later. Cornwallis, who was in New York on the point of
sailing for England, hurried back to the front, but in vain. A series
of quick and well-directed movements recovered the State of New
Jersey; and by the 5th of January the American headquarters, and main
body of the army, were established at Morristown in the Jersey hills,
the left resting upon the Hudson, thus recovering touch with the
strategic centre of interest. This menacing position of the Americans,
upon the flank of the line of communications from New York to the
Delaware, compelled Howe to contract abruptly the lines he had
extended so lightly; and the campaign he was forced thus reluctantly
to reopen closed under a gloom of retreat and disaster, which
profoundly and justly impressed not only the generality of men but
military critics as well. "Of all the great conquests which his
Majesty's troops had made in the Jersies," writes Beatson, "Brunswick
and Amboy were the only two places of any note which they retained;
and however brilliant their successes had been in the beginning of
the campaign, they reaped little advantage from them when the winter
advanced, and the contiguity of so vigilant an enemy forced them to
perform the severest duty." With deliberate or unconscious humour
he then immediately concludes the chronicle of the year with this
announcement: "His Majesty was so well pleased with the abilities and
activity which General Howe had displayed this campaign, that on the
25th of October he conferred upon him the Most Honourable Order of the
Bath."
[Footnote 15: At the present day reduced by reclaimed land.]
[Footnote 16: Beatson's "Military and Naval Memoirs," vi. 44, give
34,614 as the strength of Howe's army. Clinton's division is not
included in this. vi. 45.]
[Footnote 17: Admiral James's Journal, p. 30. (Navy Records Society.)]