Battle Week Is Here

Each year, a number of organizations in New York City (and, yes, that includes Brooklyn) commemorate the Battle of Long Island (or, if you prefer, the Battle of Brooklyn).  The Old Stone House, an historic site, and Green-Wood Cemetery host a number of them.  Here's a link to the calendar:  http://theoldstonehouse.org/event/battle-week-the-237thcommemoration-of-the-battle-of-brooklyn/

Round Tabler Lynne Saginaw offers this summary of the beginning of the Battle, below:

Rendering of the Battle of Long Island, Alonzo Chappell, 1858
Courtesy of www.wikipedia.com

Also known at the Battle of Long Island (both perfectly appropriate), this engagement pitted a large but inexperienced Colonial force against the best that Britain could sire or hire. The engagement was too long and too complicated to cover fully in this modest blog. Look into the sources listed below; you’ll find a remarkable story.

The most compelling aspect of that story is what happened after it became clear that the British had broken American lines, that the day was lost. What followed has been described by historian Joseph Ellis as “one of the most brilliant tactical withdrawals in the annals of military history.”

Back to the beginning:  On August 22, 1776, the British landed 15,000 troops in Gravesend, Brooklyn, following up with 5,000 Hessians three days later. The Colonials, having had a week’s warning from deserters, met them with a defensive alignment which would allow the Americans to fight from cover, avoiding the need to give battle on open ground, where superior British discipline and experience would be a significant advantage.

Astonishingly, a gap in the American lines was left undefended. Guided by loyalists, the British penetrated Jamaica Pass under cover of darkness on the night of August 26^th. At nine in the morning on the 27th, the inexperienced Colonials were astonished to find 10,000 British soldiers behind their lines. Panic ensued.

A brave stand by experienced Maryland and Delaware troops provided some cover for the retreat. By noon, when the British halted, hundreds on both sides lay dead, and the Continental forces were traumatized by the sight of British (mostly Hessian) forces roaming the battlefield, bayoneting the wounded without mercy.

For two days Washington tried to rally the troops remaining on Brooklyn Heights, but it became apparent that his only options were flight or surrender. Neither course squared with Washington’s vision on honorable conduct in time of war. On August 29^th, the solution was found when Gen. Thomas Mifflin suggested to Washington that honor would be well served with a careful, clever evacuation, under Washington’s personal direction.

It wasn’t going to be easy. Major Benjamin Tallmadge described it thus: “To move so large a body, across a river full a mile wide, with a rapid current, in face of a victorious well disciplined army nearly three times as numerous as his own and a fleet capable of stopping the navigation, so that not one boat could have passed over, seemed to present most formidable obstacles.”¹
Such obstacles could only be tackled by experts. Fortunately for the army and the course of our history, we had them.

Sources: Ellis, Joseph. Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence. Knopf, 2013.
¹Papers of George Washington, August 29, 1776 Council of War.

Next time: How it was done, and by whom