The Battle For New York: The City At The Heart Of The American Revolution, Barnet Schecter, c.2002

Additional Notes: April, 2022 

 

Maps:

• New York City in the 1760s: 17
• The Eastern Seaboard 1776: 73
• Battle of Brooklyn: 133
• Manhattan, September 1776: 192
• Westchester County 1776: 234
• The Battle for Fort Washington November 16, 1776: 249
• New Jersey in 1776: 261
• The Hudson River in 1776: 294
• Sandy Hook, New Jersey, July 11-22, 1778: 315
• The  Battle of Yorktown October 6 - 17, 1781: 351

Prologue

Notes:

• battles that framed thee Revolutionary War
• first battle: Lexington
• last battle: Yorktown
• key battle: New York (preceded by three-month siege of Boston, driving the Brits out)
• early on: America's precarious defensive line, from New Jersey to Long Island, via Manhattan
• Manna-hata: hilly island
• New York: strategic
• separated New England states from southern states
• Brit soldiers loved the ambience: women and liquor
• port: enabled Brit Navy to land soldiers and armament
• religious centere
• 22 churches -- great meeting places
• explains all the "sermons" we read in early American history
  
• two political factions
  
• De Lanceys: the Tories
• Livingstons: the rebels
• 70-ish y/o governor despised: Cadwallader Colden
  

Chapter 1: Bastions of Authority

 

The fight:

• "the state" vs the "rebels"
• Scots vs Brits
• Tories vs Whigs
• Landowners vs merchants, lawyers
• Anglicans vs Presbyterians

Tipping point: Stamp Act, late 1765 ... note how far this is from 1776

Bastions of authority:

• religious center
• 22 churches -- great meeting places
• explains all the "sermons" we read in early American history
  
• two political factions
  
• De Lanceys: the Tories
• Livingstons: the rebels
• 70-ish y/o governor despised: Cadwallader Colden

Chapter 2: The Monster Tyranny Begins to Pant

 

Original Note

 

Earlier (Before the Book)

1675 - 1678: King Philip's War; First Indian War; 
1740s and 1750s: expansion; but also the "quadrilateral ocean trade": West Indies (slaves needed for sugar cane fields; food from colonies to support West Indies); NYC port -- base of operations: food to West Indies; slave trade from Africa for West Indies; slave markets NYC/Boston; London, of course; and, west Africa -- the points on the quadrilateral: London; NYC; West Indies; Africa

• piracy; London unable to control graft; taxes; etc; London getting tired of illegal North American trade

1754: French and Indian War (Brits declare war on French, American Indian allies of the French)

• Brits along the coast move to the interior, pretty much held by the French; 
• came to a head in Ohio; then Virginia
• Major George Washington sent to Ohio to warn the French; George has a brother who had investments in Ohio

1756: second phase of this British-French war -- which becomes a "world war" -- expands from North American to Europe, Africa and the Philippines; reversed the usual pattern of war starting in Europe and then spreading around the world; the French and Indian War (North American) became the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763); resulted in the French being kicked out of North America

• although not mentioned (yet), that may be a reason the French were eager/willing to join the colonists in the Revolutionary War; payback for the Seven Years' War
• Sons of Liberty (p. 7) -- from humble beginnings, these merchants made fortunes on the Seven Years' War -- they galvanized the resistance; they were the true radicals

1766: Stamp Act riot -- first time colonists had openly clashed with British regulars

1775: Lexington and Concord

1776:

• the Howes (Admiral and General) had an older brother who distinguished himself during the French and Indian War; cozy, friendly relationship between New Yorkers and Brits
• "NYC was America"
• largest city in America: Philadelphia

Prologue

Timeline:

• Sugar Act of 1764
• Currency Act of 1764
• Stamp Act of 1765, and Stamp Act crisis of 1765 - a defining moment -- page 8
• traditionally identified as the start of the American Revolution
• first skirmish may properly be dated November 1, 1765 -- eleven years before the arrival of the British fleet -- when the mutual resentment between the people of the city and British authority erupted as street theater and then escalated ito rioting against government targets
• HUGE GAP here: between 1765 and 1775 -- ten years
• Lexington and Concord: April 19, 1775
• Boston siege: patriots held Brits inside Boston from opening days until St Patrick's Day, 1776
• Declaration of Independence: issued by Congress on July 4, 1776
• Declaration of Independence read to Washington's army in New York on July 9, 1776
• Continental Congress // Continental Army
• Summer of 1776 -- Brits dispatched to NYC
• Admiral Richard Howe
• General William Howe
• followed in the footsteps of their older brother, to whom Massachusetts had erected a monument for his valor in the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)
• General Henry Clinton: second in command to William Howe; replaced Howe in 1778
• Elizabeth Loring, the mistress of William Howe; may explain a lot for his dithering
• ".. as Cleopatra lost Mark Antony the world, so did Elizabeth Loring lose Sir William Howe the honour, the laurels ..."
• 427 ships; transport vessels were not counted; masts as thick as trees in a forest
• August 22, 1776: Brits land en mass on Long Island
• Washington's troops: a long, thin defensive line, west to east, from New Jersey thru Manhattan to Long Island, manna-hata -- "hilly land"
• August 27, 1776: Battle of Brooklyn; first battle ever fought by the US as an independent nation
• largest battle of the Revolutionary War when measured by the number of participants
• a disaster for the Americans
• originally called the Battle of Long Island; at the time, Brooklyn was the name of a township and a tiny village in Kings County;
• latter referred to as the Battle of Brooklyn 
• next three months, battles of:
• Harlem Heights
• Pelham Bay
• White Plains
• and then back to Manhattan
• Philadelphia: largest American city at the time
• NYC: second in size
• New York harbor: turned out to be the worst place for a naval base; Sandy Hook -- sand bars bottled up the British Navy when the French sailed in
• Revolutionary War: NYC the fixed point, a compass for orienting oneself; center of "attention" from Trenton to Saratoga to Yorktown and beyond, and final departure of the Brits in 1783 
• New York, without exaggeration, the pivot on which the entire Revolutionary War turned (p. 8) -- based on geography, culture, and location

Geography:

This is why I'm reading the book, to get a better understanding of the New York geography. From pp. 5 - 6:

The entire area was then, and remains, an archipelago, its islands and peninsulas, rivers, channels and straits, creeks adn inlets formed by the advance and retreat of a glacier. The underside of the thick, heavy ice sheet raked the flat terrain some 50,000 years ago, carrying rocks and soil forward while leaving behind new troughs and valleys. Where the glacier stopped, it deposited the rocks and soil and created a terminal moraine -- a line of hills that runs lengthwise across the middle of Long Island and continues on the southern part of Staten Island. The portion of this ridge at the western edge of Long Island includes the hills of today's Prospect Park and was called Gowanus Heights.

When the climate became warmer, about 17,000 years ago, these hills trapped the melting ice, and the New York area was submerged under glacial lakes. Several thousand years later, the water broke through the hills, creating the Narrows (between Staten Island and Brooklyn (now spanned by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge) and draining the landscape. However, as temperatures increased, approximately 9,000 years ago, rising sea levels sent water coursing back up through the Narrows, flowing into the depressions that the glacier had excavated and establishing New York's waterways: Upper New York Bay, the Arthur Kill, the East River, the Harlem River, Long Island Sound, and numerous smaller creeks and inlets.

Below the Narrow, the Lower Bay connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the gap between Coney Island and Sandy Hook. A wide sandbar extended almost continuously between these two points, leaving only a few narrow channels by which ships could enter (and exit) the port. The only other access to New York from the Atlantic was farther north, through Long Island Sound. Here, too, ships had to pass through a narrow strait -- Hell Gate -- an aptly named, rocky passage at the western end of the Sound where it meets the East River, and where the colliding currents, at that tie, created roaring whirlpools. Native American lore recalled that towering ancestors used to cross the treacherous channel on foot by stepping from rock to rock. 

"... all five boroughs and Westchester County ..."

In NYC, the "Common": the wedge of land now occupied by City Hill Park and the converging traffic lanes of Broadway and Park Row.

Much of this comes from Joseph Plumb Martin; 15 years old when he was "captured" from his grandparents' Connecticut farm; he fought in the war from the beginning all the way to Yorktown, and kept an incredible diary.

Along with diary and notes kept by General Howe's second-in-command, and then commander, General Clinton

Chapter 1: The Bastions of Authority

The end of the Seven Years' War
Currency Act of 1764
The Stamp Act of 1765
The Quartering Act of 1765

Vauxhall: an elegant estate overlooking the Hudson River between Chambers and Warren streets at the northern edge of the city; about twelve streets north of the southern tip of Manhattan

Timeline / background:

• Dutch West India Company founded a trading post on Manhattan: 1624
• called New Amsterdam
• British seized New Amsterdam, 1664; renamed it New York in honor of its new ruler, James Stuart, the duke of York
• Anglican Church, one of many, but grew in power
• Presbyterianism gained many adherents
• Presbyterian-Anglican rivalry: inextricably enmeshed with the Byzantine world of New York politics

The wealthy city Anglicans:

• James De Lancey, acting governor for most of 1750s
• the Schuylers
• the Philipses
• the Van Cortlandts
• also the Stuyvesants
• Waltons
• Bayards
• De Peysters

The landed families:

• Livingston and Morris families
• Robert Livingston, Jr
• Lewis Morris, Jr
• Presbyterians for the most part

Manual workers: called mechanics

The Whig "Triumvirate"
young firebrands, still in their teens
William Livingston
William Smith, Jr
John Morin Scott
all graduated from Yale; clerked for William Smith, SR
had gained renown when he helped defend the printer John Peter Zenger
historic libel case of 1735
vindicated freedom of the press

A third force rises; representing blue collar workers -- the Sons of Liberty, or Liberty Boys
a secret organization; not known when it officially began; probably October, 1764, in response to Stamp Act
leaders of the Liberty Boys in NY:
Isaac Sears
Alexander McDougall
John Lamb
Marinus Willett

Chapter 2: The Monster Tyranny Begins to Pant

Timeline:
After the Stamp Act of 1765, much pamphleteering; some social unrest
Stamp Act of 1765: taxes on all paper documents in the colonies; to pay for costs associated with maintaining British military in the colonies
Stamp Act riot in late 1765 (around December)
May, 1766: Sons of Liberty and the "pole"
August 11, 1766: a riot; the first time American colonists had clashed openly with British regulars; -- this would be almost ten years before Concord/Lexington
June/July, 1767:
Declaratory Act when the Stamp Act was repealed; but new duties
duties on lead, glass, paint, paper, and tea
Townshend Acts became law (proposed in 1775; now law): the new taxes on lead, glass, paint, etc, imported from Britain; led directly to the Boston Massacre
Mutiny Act: punishment for colonists not providing funds for the Quartering Act
1768: boycotts; internecine family politics
1769: Cadwallader Colden, one of the worst, finally, at age 81, becomes acting governor of NY
1769: Assembly caves into the Mutiny Act; appropriated funds to feed/house the Brits
January, 1770: a clash over "the pole" between the Sons of Liberty and the Brits; "the battle of golden Hill"; sixth pole installed -- emergence of Alexander McDougall
1771: Cadwallader Colden defeated by William Tryon for governorship of NY
1771 - 1772: things going relatively well
1772, June: collapse of the British credit system; many NY businesses failed; many more unemployed



Politics at the time:
Cadallader Colder: acting governor vs
De Lanceys: in the Assembly
Williams Smith tried to win support of Sons of Liberty

1770: The story of Alexander McDougall -- pp 32 - 33.
38 years old
huge hostility toward De Lanceys and the British government
Scottish
rabid Presbyterian
exposed to writings of the Sons of Liberty through Presbyterian Church
put in jail for his writings
April 1770: legal precedence (printer John Peter Zenger in 1735) would have him vindicated but "packed jury" would find him guilty -- but before they could decide, the main witness, the printer died, and the case dismissed


For me, the Alexander McDougall story is the link I've been looking for: a link that pretty much proves the Revolutionary War was a continuation of conflicts in the British Isles as well as a religious war
Irish-Scots vs the English ("the Brits")
Presbyterian vs the Anglicans


1770: during the McDougall trial, the colonists win again; the boycott of British goods had begun in November 1768; Brits gave in
Townshend Acts repealed except for tax on tea
like the Declaratory Act which followed the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts were a face-saving act -- but tax on tea remained




Chapter 3: A General Insurrection of the Populace

One year: 1775
Chapter opens on December, 1774, with Benjamin Franklin playing chess with Caroline Howe in London
Franklin meeting with folks representing the prime minister: Frederick Lord North; and the colonial secretary, William Legge, earl of Dartmouth

Lexington and Concord

News reaches NYC a few days later

Folks abandon NYC

Washington named commander-in-chief by Continental Congress

Bunker Hill: Pyrrhic victory for the Brits

Boston siege

Washington rushes to Boston

The Howes (general and admiral) come to the fore

Chapter ends with plans to raise troops; disarm the Tories, particularly on Long Island; inspect the forts  in the Hudson Highlands forty miles north of the city.

Major General Charles Lee: Geo Washington's deputy; second-in-command; a bit of friction between the two; had married a Mohawk Woman; Mohawks called him "boiling water"

Major General Charles Lee sets off for NY immediately accompanied by his newly appointed adjutant, Lt Col Isaac Sears.

Chapter 4: From Bouweries to Barricades

Chapter summary:

• Brits still arguing in London what to do with regard to Sons of Liberty: negotiate a peace settlement or go to war
• Sons of Liberty: under Geo Washington and Charles Lee setting up fortifications around New York
• it appeared that both the Brits and the Sons of Liberty felt NYC was the key to everything
• note:
• Philadelphia: biggest population in the colonies
• Boston: center of resistance (Boston siege, Lexington, Concord)

Page 76:
Horn's Hook
Montresor's Island
shore of Queens County

Page 77:
Geo Washington mistake; agreeing with second-in-command, Lee, not to fortify the Narrows -- which would have kept the Brits out of NYC by sea; instead they fortified Long Island and the East River

Lee wanted the Brits to try to take Manhattan, and then guerilla-style, urban warfare.

Redoubts: small, simple, usually circular forts with dirt walls.

King's County (the future borough of Brooklyn -- six townships -- Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, and New Utrect -- each with its own town center with the same name. Brooklyn was farthest to the northwest, which included Brooklyn Heights

Crossing from Manhattan to Brooklyn, the first sight: Columbia Heights, part of Brooklyn Heights, facing the East River, a "noble bluff"

King's Highway: from Brooklyn, to Bedford, out to Jamaica, and then to end of Long Island

Origin of Bloomingdale. Dutch.

King's Bridge: a small wooden bridge; crossed Harlem River where it narrowed and becamse Spuyten Duyvil Creek -- going into Hudson River.

Chapter 5: We Expect A Bloody Summer in New York

-- Geo Washington at end of chapter, 

predicting summer of 1776

Congress sends Charles Lee to South Carolina where they think he is needed, notwithstanding Manhattan, Canada

William Alexander, Lord Stirling replaces Charles Lee
Lord Stirling: Scottish -- p. 83

Stirling takes over March, 1776
Boston siege: a victory for the Sons of Liberty after a 10-month siege, according to Geo Washington
General Howe removed all his troops to ships in the harbor; city not burned; Sons of Liberty in control and "full possession"
oh, yes, the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga, Canada; dragged to outskirts of Boston (Dorchester Heights)

Continental Army mentioned p. 87; first major engagement had been at Long Island, 1775

John Hancock: president of the Continental Congress -- p. 89.

The story of Major General Israel Putnam, patriot, long history, similar to Geo Washington's it seems

Governor's Island: divides the mouth of the East River; north edge of the Upper Bay where the East River flows into the Upper Bay

Provincial Congress, p. 90 -- I believe these were the independent congresses of the various thirteen colonies, not to be confused with the Continental Congress (the "federal" congress, as it were, in Philadelphia); the First Continental Congress, 1774; the Second Continental Congress, 1775 - 1781;

Putnam got there first; Geo Washington arrived ten days later; NYC officially becomes headquarters of Continental Army, mid-April, 1776.

Four brigades in NYC:
BG William Heath (arriving from Connecticut/Boston, I believe; one of the first brigades to arrive in NYC)
Joseph Spencer
Nathaniel Greene
Stirling

As the only major general in the city, Israel Putnam became Washington's second-in-command (Charles Lee was in South Carolina; Stirling led his own brigade, but was a BG)

Meanwhile, as an aside, Benedict Arnold's siege of Quebec continued (winter/spring of 1776)

Washington's NYC army was depleted when large number sent to reinforce Benedict Arnold; more recruits but greenhorns

May, 1776: Brits hire "Jagers" to make up their own shortfall in men; German sharpshooters, the Jagers -- p. 92

Brits recruit/pay Hessians; George III, the third Hanoverian king, had many, many relatives in German royalty: 20,000 men; more than Parliament had originally anticipated

General Howe's base: Halifax, Nova Scotia; huge contingent of Hessians arrive

Admiral Howe departs Isle of Man, May, 1776

Chapter ends with failure of Benedict Arnold/Quebec; scarring of the Continental Army in Canada north of NYC, upstream on the Hudson.

Chapter 6: A Mighty Fleet of Ships Our Enemies Have Got

Geo Washington's HQ: No 1 Broadway
June, 1776: several British ships finally arrived off Sandy Hook
Washington now had to defend both ends of the Hudson River at once
conspiracy plot traced to Governor Tryon; New York's leading Tories slipped through the lines to the British ships in harbor
King's Bridge: incredibly important; connected Manhattan to the rest of the mainland; over the Harlem River
130 British ships set sail from Nova Scotia (Halifax) to NYC on June 9
General William Howe had arrived on June 25 with a dozen ships, including his own man-of-war, the Greyhound, anchored in the Lower Bay
the story of Boston merchant Joshua Loring, his wife, Betsy Loring, and soon-to-be mistress of General Howe; brought on ship to the harbor; Betsy and Howe addicted to gambling; faro table;
the story of Colonel William Douglas, from New Haven; an ardent patriot;
34 years old; a veteran of the Seven Years' War; as a teenager served under Israel Putnam; Quebec; 1759; promoted to colonel by governor Trumbull
biggest mistake up to this point: creation of choke points at Sandy Hook and the Narrows; the men in the area knew the importance; Provincial Congress dithered;
the Brits from Nova Scotia arrive June 29, 1776
Admiral Howe had left England on June 23, 1776, after six weeks crossing the Atlantic from England
Admiral Howe working as a peace commissioner; worked toward a peaceful settlement
Admiral Howe: Lower New York Bay
General Howe: Staten Island
Staten Island: perfect staging area form which to launch an invasion of the city
status:
Brits arrived in New York
unknown what became of Henry Clinton's expedition against Charleston
Canadian efforts in tatters
Continental Congress anxious to formalize alliances, particularly with France
on the day General Howe's army disembarked on Staten Island, delegates approved the Declaration of Independence, and two later, on July 4, Congress publicly proclaimed the independence of the thirteen former colonies; names of signatories not made public until January, 1777, since signing was an act of treason;
Brits' peace proposal moot
only New York abstained from what would have been a unanimous vote by the thirteen delegations in Philadelphia
newly elected fourth Provincial Congress set up HQ in White Plains, NY, July 9, 1776; declared that New York had been a state since April 20, 1775 (day after Lexington/Concord); changed its name to the Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York;
6:00 p.m. July 9 (?), 1776, the Declaration of Indepencdence read to Washington's troops
 

Chapter 6: A Mighty Fleet of Ships Our Enemies Have Got

Chapter 7: The British Juggernaut Reaches Full Strength

 

Chapter 8: The Invasion of Long Island

Chapter 9: The Battle of Brooklyn

Chapter 10: A Wise and Most Fortunate Retreat

Chapter 11: The First Submarine, a Peace Conference, and a Second Retreat

 

A great Ben Franklin vignette: p. 176

 

 

Chapter 12: The Invasion of Manhattan

 

 

Chapter 13: The Battle of Harlem Heights

Chapter 14: The Great Fire and the Execution of Nathan Hale

Chapter 15: Throg's Neck and the Battle of Pelham Bay

Chapter 16: The Battle of White Plains

Chapter 17: The Fall of Fort Washington

Chapter 18: Trenton and Princeton, the End of the Campaign

Chapter 19: Occupied New York

Chapter 20: Philadelphia, Saratoga, and the Collapse of Britain's Grand Strategy

 

Chapter 21: The Return to New York City, the Fulcrum of the War

Chapter 22: New York's Impact on the War in the South

 

Chapter 23: New York's Role at Yorktown

Chapter 24: The Colonies Lost, New York Regained

Epilogue: Reconciliation, Rebirth, and Remembrance