The Epic of New York City (28 page)

The
Turtle
was spotted by red-coated British soldiers and blue-clad Hessian mercenaries standing on the parapets of Governors Island. Puzzled by the craft's odd shape, some of them climbed into a barge and pushed off to investigate. Having failed to blow up the flagship, Lee now decided to try to destroy the barge. He disengaged the magazine holding the gunpowder. It floated free of the
Turtle.
The men in the barge hastily rowed back toward Governors Island.

The tide was flowing shoreward. The dangerous egg-shaped magazine swirled into the East River, where it exploded thunderously but did no harm. Water, wood, and iron flew high into the air. Lee painfully cranked his way back to the Battery, where Washington and the others were waiting for him. There the weary sergeant climbed out of the
Turtle
to receive congratulations for his daring. Although
he had not managed to accomplish his mission, he had thrown a scare into the enemy. One British officer wrote that “the ingenuity of these people is singular in their secret modes of mischief.”

In the Battle of Long Island the Americans had suffered some 1,500 casualties, while the British had lost only about 400 men. King George was so pleased that he conferred the Order of the Bath on General Howe. The Tories thought that the war was almost over. Howe felt that the Americans now might be willing to talk peace, and he arranged a conference with their representatives. Congress chose John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Benjamin Franklin to learn the British intentions. On September 11 they met in a stone mansion in the southwestern corner of Staten Island, across from Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

With every courtesy, Howe received the American delegates in a large room, decorated with a moss carpet and green sprigs. Including dinner—consisting of excellent claret; cold ham, tongue, and mutton; and delicious bread—the meeting lasted three hours. Howe did most of the talking, saying that he had a brotherly feeling for Americans. Despite his every appeal, the committee reported to Congress that Howe seemed to have no authority except to grant pardons if America gave in. If it did so, there was no certainty that its grievances would be redressed. The war went on.

Now a scorched-earth policy was discussed by Congress, Washington, his generals, and other influential men. Should New York be burned to the ground? It was of no use to the Americans because the British controlled the city's waterways. Most inhabitants had fled, and two-thirds of all local property was owned by loyalists. By destroying the city, the Americans would deprive the British officers of a headquarters and the loyalists of housing. Washington couldn't make up his mind, but when Congress finally decided against razing New York, he concurred.

Washington now disposed his troops for the Battle of New York City. He left 5,000 men in the city itself near the Battery. He posted 5 brigades along the East River, chiefly near Kip's Bay, at East 34th Street and at Turtle Bay, at East 45th Street. Then he withdrew the bulk of his army to the high ground between 125th Street and the northern tip of Manhattan. For his new headquarters Washington chose the vacant house of Colonel Roger Morris, a Tory refugee in England. This house, later called the Jumel Mansion, still
stands at Edgecombe Avenue and 160th Street. Washington now had his troops strung out the 13-mile length of Manhattan. The two ends were fairly strong, but the center consisted of green militia.

Howe struck at the center. Having kept his men idle since August 27, he launched an attack the hot Sunday of September 15. About 11
A.M
. British warships, which had sailed up the East River, opened fire with 80 guns against American entrenchments near East Thirty-fourth Street. For 2 hours this heavy bombardment pinned the Americans in their lines. Then, as the last shell slammed to earth and the smoke drifted away, the first wave of British and Germans crossed the East River in 84 flatboats. The clustered redcoats looked to one observer like “a clover field in full bloom.” The invaders jumped ashore at Kip's Bay. Washington's raw recruits, stunned by artillery fire and frightened by glinting sunlight on bayonets, broke and ran without firing a shot. The British captured 20 American officers and about 300 men.

Washington was three miles to the north when the bombardment began. He vaulted into the saddle and galloped to the scene of action. When he arrived at the present intersection of Lexington Avenue and Forty-second Street, he saw some of his men throwing away coats, hats, knapsacks, and even muskets in a wild scramble for safety. “Take to the cornfield!” Washington roared. “Take to the wall!” But most of the frenzied militia ignored him and kept running. Washington crimsoned with rage. Dashing his hat on the ground, he bellowed, “Are these the men with whom I am to defend America?” Still on horseback, he yanked his sword from its scabbard. The blade flashed as he laid its broad side on the shoulders of the men nearest him—privates, a colonel, and even a brigadier general.

Whack!
Damn ye!
Whack! Sixty to seventy Hessians trotted toward Washington, hoping to capture the American commander in chief. He was so blinded by rage that he took no notice of them. But his terrified foot soldiers bolted in every direction, leaving the general and his aides to face the attackers without a single musket. Fortunately, a young officer seized the bridle of Washington's horse and pulled him away. Sputtering and cursing, he was hustled north toward Harlem and safety.

The main body of British troops now pushed farther inland, spreading as far north as Murray Hill, rearing between Thirty-fourth and Forty-second streets, Third Avenue, and Broadway. There they were halted by General Howe. His objective for the day had been to
capture Murray Hill. Now he wished to rest his men and wait for reinforcements. The British and German soldiers grounded their arms in meadows stretching south from the present Grand Central Station.

Murray Hill was named for Robert Murray, whose mansion stood at the corner of what is now Park Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street. According to legend, his wife beguiled General Howe and his staff into dallying in her home so that the Americans might escape. This isn't quite true. That sweltering day Mrs. Murray did send a servant to invite Howe to stop for refreshments, and he accepted her hospitality. Far from being a
femme fatale,
however, she was a middle-aged Quaker lady with twelve children. Besides, as we know, Howe had already decided to pause.

Meantime, American troops left in the toe of Manhattan learned that most roads leading north were held by the British. At first they thought that they would have to cut their way through the enemy to join Washington's force in Harlem. But Aaron Burr declared that he could lead them to safety without a fight and without detection. The Americans began sneaking up a road on the west side of Manhattan. About the same time a British column started pushing up the Boston Post Road on the east side of the island. Separating the two hostile columns by only about two miles were a tangle of swamps and trees and low hills, constituting the present Central Park. It was a silent and secret race along parallel roads, for neither force knew about the other. Burr won, bringing 5,000 American soldiers into Washington's camp.

The western end of the present West 125th Street was then a valley, called the Hollow Way. The American army lay on the hills to the north. Advance posts of the British lay on the hills to the south. Their front lines were less than two miles apart.

In the early morning on September 16, Washington sent out a reconnoitering party of 150 Connecticut rangers, led by Major Thomas Knowlton. The general stood on a hill at 126th Street to watch them as best he could. Near 112th Street and Riverside Drive, Knowlton's men ran into British pickets. They clashed. Then, with a skirl of bagpipes, kilted Black Watch warriors advanced to help the pickets. The outnumbered Americans soon broke off the engagement and retreated in orderly fashion two and one-half miles north.

Superior in force, the cocky British followed, descending into the Hollow Way. When the pursuers came within sight of the main American army, a British bugler blew a call—not the signal to attack,
but the call of hunters who have killed a fox. At this insult Americans quivered with rage. Until then Washington had been undecided about what to do. Now he feinted at the advancing British as though to offer open battle, at the same time sending two columns of Americans by detours to fall on the enemy's rear.

The outraged Americans did more than feint. Pouring down from the hills, they counterattacked in force. The very militiamen who had fled from Kip's Bay the day before raced with ferocious yells toward the advancing scarlet lines. The affair developed into a general engagement, which raged for two hours. Then the redcoats faltered, stopped, broke, and retreated. Whooping with joy, the Americans pushed them back to a buckwheat field on the present site of Barnard College. Again the enemy fell back, this time to an orchard farther south. Twice more the British gave ground, retreating to what is now 103d Street. But Washington, realizing that he would be outnumbered in a major conflict, ordered his men to halt before British reserves could be thrown into action.

This Battle of Harlem Heights did not change the relative position of either army since no new ground was captured and held. Technically, though, it was an American victory. Various historians have reported different casualty figures, but all agree that American losses were far fewer than those of the British. Morally, too, it was a triumph for the Americans. They had proved that the British army was
not
invincible.

Four days later fire broke out in New York City. It started in a wooden tavern, called the Fighting Cocks, on a wharf near Whitehall Slip and was spread by a gale blowing from the south. The origin of the blaze remains a mystery, but the British and Tories called it a plot to destroy the city. Amid crackling flames and falling timbers, half-naked people staggered through the streets in terror. Ordinary people, aristocratic loyalists, and British soldiers and sailors tried in vain to fight the fire. Tories claimed that holes had been cut in fire buckets. People suspected of touching off the conflagration were spitted on bayonets, hanged, and even tossed alive into the flames. The city's most prominent landmark, Trinity Church, crashed in ruins. One-fourth of the city was left a smoking blackened wasteland. Thousands of homeless people were reduced to beggary. All this was a major disaster to the British high command, which had chosen the city as its headquarters. Washington, who had considered and then rejected the idea of putting the
city to the torch, commented, “Providence, or some good honest fellow, has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves.”

The day after the fire a twenty-four-year-old American, with blue eyes, blond hair, and a fair complexion, was brought to General Howe's headquarters at East Fifty-first Street and First Avenue. He was not an arsonist, but a self-confessed spy. His name was Nathan Hale. Disguised as a teacher, he had penetrated enemy lines in and around the city to sketch fortifications and jot down other pertinent military facts. After his capture in Brooklyn he admitted to being a captain in Washington's army and a spy. Howe questioned the handsome youth and turned him over to the British provost marshal, and on September 22, 1776, Nathan Hale was hanged—probably at Forty-fifth Street and First Avenue.

For several weeks the British let Washington occupy Harlem Heights. Rather than risk a bloody frontal attack, Howe finally decided to use his warships to land part of his army behind the Americans. The foggy night of October 12 a British force was put ashore on Throgs Neck, a slim peninsula jutting out from the Bronx into the East River. Washington had anticipated this move. His Pennsylvania riflemen, crouched behind a woodpile, threw back the enemy in confusion. Howe then made a second landing, three miles north in Westchester County. This jeopardized Washington's army, and he pulled back to White Plains, which was then isolated country. The Battle of White Plains, fought on October 28, resulted in the defeat of 1,400 Americans by 4,000 British.

Washington still had 2,500 men left to defend the last bit of Manhattan held by the Americans. This was Fort Washington, perched on a rocky cliff 230 feet above the Hudson, at what is now the eastern end of the George Washington Bridge. Fort Lee stood on the Jersey Palisades just across the river. In a direct line between the two forts the Americans had sunk ships and lowered chevaux-defrise—heavy timbers studded with iron spikes. Congress had asked Washington to bottle up the Hudson to prevent the British from breaking through to the north. However, the sunken barriers proved ineffectual; enemy ships sailed over them without damage.

Since Fort Washington's main function had been to guard the eastern end of the water barrier, there was no point now in trying to defend it against Howe's gathering might. Major General Nathanael Greene commanded the fort. Unwisely, he elected to make a stand. His troops were jammed within a space barely large enough for
1,000 men. And since the fort lacked a well, water had to be scooped up in buckets from the Hudson far below.

At the head of 5,000 soldiers, Washington retreated across the Hudson, into New Jersey, and down to Hackensack to set up camp. On November 16 he was back at Fort Lee. From a distance of less than one mile he looked through field glasses across the river and saw his brave men being stabbed to death by Hessian bayonets. Helpless and forlorn, Washington sobbed at the grisly sight.

The fall of Fort Washington was one of the greatest American disasters of the war. Greene lost a staggering amount of precious armament and equipment, and hundreds of prisoners were marched down the length of Manhattan and herded into makeshift prisons in churches, sugarhouses, and ships. What's more, the overall battle for New York City, from Long Island to Fort Washington, cost the Americans hundreds of lives and more than 4,400 prisoners.