By the middle of July the two brothers were at New York.The soldier, having waited at Halifax since the evacuation of Boston, had arrived, and landed his army on Staten Island, on the day before Congress made the Declaration of Independence, which, as now we can see, ended finally any chance of reconciliation.The sailor arrived nine days later.Lord Howe was wont to regret that he had not arrived a little earlier, since the concessions which he had to offer might have averted the Declaration of Independence.In truth, however, he had little to offer.Humor and imagination are useful gifts in carrying on human affairs, but George III had neither.He saw no lack of humor in now once more offering full and free pardon to a repentant Washington and his comrades, though John Adams was excepted by name* in repudiating the right to exist of the Congress at Philadelphia, and in refusing to recognize the military rank of the rebel general whom it had named: he was to be addressed in civilian style as "George Washington Esq." The King and his ministers had no imagination to call up the picture of high-hearted men fighting for rights which they held dear.
* Trevelyan, "American Revolution", Part II, vol.I (New Ed., vol.II), 261.
Lord Howe went so far as to address a letter to "George Washington Esq.&c.&c.," and Washington agreed to an interview with the officer who bore it.In imposing uniform and with the stateliest manner, Washington, who had an instinct for effect, received the envoy.The awed messenger explained that the symbols " &c.&c." meant everything, including, of course, military titles; but Washington only said smilingly that they might mean anything, including, of course, an insult, and refused to take the letter.He referred to Congress, a body which Howe could not recognize, the grave question of the address on an envelope and Congress agreed that the recognition of his rank was necessary.
There was nothing to do but to go on with the fight.
Washington's army held the city of New York, at the southerly point of Manhattan Island.The Hudson River, separating the island from the mainland of New Jersey on the west, is at its mouth two miles wide.The northern and eastern sides of the island are washed by the Harlem River, flowing out of the Hudson about a dozen miles north of the city, and broadening into the East River, about a mile wide where it separates New York from Brooklyn Heights, on Long Island.Encamped on Staten Island, on the south, General Howe could, with the aid of the fleet, land at any of half a dozen vulnerable points.Howe had the further advantage of a much larger force.Washington had in all some twenty thousand men, numbers of them serving for short terms and therefore for the most part badly drilled.Howe had twenty-five thousand well-trained soldiers, and he could, in addition, draw men from the fleet, which would give him in all double the force of Washington.
In such a situation even the best skill of Washington was likely only to qualify defeat.He was advised to destroy New York and retire to positions more tenable.But even if he had so desired, Congress, his master, would not permit him to burn the city, and he had to make plans to defend it.Brooklyn Heights so commanded New York that enemy cannon planted there would make the city untenable.Accordingly Washington placed half his force on Long Island to defend Brooklyn Heights and in doing so made the fundamental error of cutting his army in two and dividing it by an arm of the sea in presence of overwhelming hostile naval power.
On the 22d of August Howe ferried fifteen thousand men across the Narrows to Long Island, in order to attack the position on Brooklyn Heights from the rear.Before him lay wooded hills across which led three roads converging at Brooklyn Heights beyond the hills.On the east a fourth road led round the hills.
In the dark of the night of the 26th of August Howe set his army in motion on all these roads, in order by daybreak to come to close quarters with the Americans and drive them back to the Heights.The movement succeeded perfectly.The British made terrible use of the bayonet.By the evening of the twenty-seventh the Americans, who fought well against overwhelming odds, had lost nearly two thousand men in casualties and prisoners, six field pieces, and twenty-six heavy guns.The two chief commanders, Sullivan and Stirling, were among the prisoners, and what was left of the army had been driven back to Brooklyn Heights.Howe's critics said that had he pressed the attack further he could have made certain the capture of the whole American force on Long Island.
Criticism of what might have been is easy and usually futile.It might be said of Washington, too, that he should not have kept an army so far in front of his lines behind Brooklyn Heights facing a superior enemy, and with, for a part of it, retreat possible only by a single causeway across a marsh three miles long.When he realized, on the 28th of August, what Howe had achieved, he increased the defenders of Brooklyn Heights to ten thousand men, more than half his army.This was another cardinal error.British ships were near and but for unfavorable winds might have sailed up to Brooklyn.Washington hoped and prayed that Howe would try to carry Brooklyn Heights by assault.Then there would have been at least slaughter on the scale of Bunker Hill.But Howe had learned caution.He made no reckless attack, and soon Washington found that he must move away or face the danger of losing every man on Long Island.
