The battle for New York
Having made up its mind to crush the rebellion, the British government sent General Howe and his brother, Richard, Admiral Lord Howe, with a large fleet and 34,000 British and German troops to New York. It also gave the Howes a commission to treat with the Americans. The British force sailed on June 10, 1776, from Halifax to New York and on July 5 encamped on Staten Island. The Continental Congress, which had proclaimed the independence of the colonies, at first thought that the Howes were empowered to negotiate peace terms but discovered that they were authorized only to accept submission and assure pardons.
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Their peace efforts getting nowhere, the Howes turned to force. Washington, who had anticipated British designs, had already marched from Boston to New York and fortified the city, but his position was far from ideal. His left flank was thrown across the East River, beyond the village of Brooklyn, while the remainder of his lines fronted the Hudson River, making them open to a combined naval and ground attack. The position was untenable since the British absolutely dominated the waters about Manhattan. Howe drove Washington out of New York and forced the abandonment of the whole of Manhattan Island by employing three well-directed movements upon the American left.
On August 22, 1776, under his brotherâs guns, General Howe crossed the narrows to the Long Island shore with 15,000 troops, increasing the number to 20,000 on the 25th. He then scored a smashing victory on August 27, driving the Americans into their Brooklyn works and inflicting a loss of about 1,400 troops. Washington skillfully evacuated his army from Brooklyn to Manhattan that night under cover of a fog.
On September 15 Howe followed up his victory by invading Manhattan. Though checked at Harlem Heights the next day, he drew Washington off the island in October by a move to Throgâs Neck and then to New Rochelle, northeast of the city. Leaving garrisons at Fort Washington on Manhattan and at Fort Lee on the opposite shore of the Hudson River, Washington hastened to block Howe. The British commander, however, defeated him on October 28 at Chatterton Hill near White Plains. Howe slipped between the American army and Fort Washington and stormed the fort on November 16, seizing guns, supplies, and nearly 3,000 prisoners.
British forces under Lord Cornwallis then took Fort Lee and on November 24 started to drive the American army across New Jersey. Though Washington escaped to the west bank of the Delaware River, his army nearly disappeared. Howe then put his army into winter quarters, with outposts at towns such as Bordentown and Trenton.
On Christmas night Washington struck back with a brilliant riposte. Crossing the ice-strewn Delaware with 2,400 troops, he fell upon the Hessian garrison at Trenton at dawn and took nearly 1,000 prisoners. Though almost trapped by Cornwallis, who recovered Trenton on January 2, 1777, Washington made a skillful escape during the night, won a battle against British reinforcements at Princeton the next day, and went into winter quarters in the defensible area around Morristown. The Trenton-Princeton campaign roused the country and saved the struggle for independence from collapse.