The Epic of New York City (27 page)

As usual, the army attracted prostitutes, gamblers, and saloonkeepers. North of the city, near the present Washington Square, there was a squatters' camp of huts and tents housing loose women and lusty men. Cynics dubbed it the Holy Ground. “The whores,” a shocked New England colonel wrote his wife, “continue their employ which is become very lucrative. . . . I was never within the doors
nor 'changed a word with any of them except in the execution of my duty as officer of the day in going the grand round with my guard of escort, have broke up the knots of men and women fighting, pulling caps, swearing, crying ‘murder!'” Drunken soldiers actually had their heads and arms and legs cut off.

Some of the Tories left in town were stripped, tarred and feathered, and ridden through the streets on rails. This rough treatment resulted as much from fear as from resentment, and there really were grounds for such fear. From his floating refuge in the harbor Governor Tryon directed a conspiracy of British officials and hundreds of loyalists to end the war by murdering or capturing American leaders, by inciting American troops to mutiny, and by seizing or destroying local army supplies. Two of Washington's own bodyguards were bribed. A third, who pretended to accede, revealed the plot.

The Tory mayor, David Matthews, was arrested and charged with “dangerous designs and treasonable conspiracies against the rights and liberties” of Americans. One ringleader, a member of Washington's bodyguard, was Private Thomas Hickey, a deserter from the British army. He tried to poison the general by stirring Paris green in a dish of peas. Hickey was put on trial. Refusing to name any conspirators, he defended himself so weakly that he was sentenced to be hanged. Stripped of his uniform, the disgraced private was led to a field near Bowery Lane, where 20,000 persons watched him dangle at the end of a rope. This was the first military execution of the Revolution and the first in the history of the American army. Although no other defendant was convicted, Washington kept Mayor Matthews in jail, being convinced that he too was involved in the plot.

At daybreak on June 29 an American, named Daniel McCurtin, glanced out of his waterfront home and stiffened with shock. The harbor was a forest of British masts. General Howe had arrived from Halifax with more than 100 vessels. In the next few days more and more ships heaved into sight. Admiral Richard Howe brought an entire army from England in a second fleet. Then Admiral Peter Parker arrived from Charleston with his fleet. Ships of the line, frigates, transports, and other vessels—nearly 500 in all—rocked at anchor on the very threshold of New York. It was the greatest expeditionary force ever mounted by England.

Included in this army of 32,000 soldiers were 9,000 German mercenaries. In 1776 perhaps 1,000,000 men of fighting age lived in
Britain, but the American war was so unpopular there that the government couldn't recruit or impress enough fighting men at home. King George tried unsuccessfully to hire soldiers from Russia and Holland. At last he got mercenaries from petty German princes, among them the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. American patriots wrongly called all of them Hessians and regarded them with corrosive hatred.

During this awesome buildup of British strength in New York Bay the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Declaration of Independence. Washington ordered the document read aloud to all his soldiers on July 9, 1776. Here and there in New York regiments were drawn up on parade grounds, the men spick-and-span in their uniforms, bayonets fixed on heavy muskets. One hollow square was formed in front of the present City Hall, and Washington sat astride his horse within this square as an officer began reading aloud, “When in the course of human events—” That evening, as bells clanged and men cheered, a mob spilled down Broadway to Bowling Green and pulled to earth the statue of George III. Washington later reprimanded the few soldiers who took part in this affair, but he was glad that the statue's 2 tons of lead melted down into 42,088 bullets for his army.

Meantime, 10,000 British and German soldiers had landed on Staten Island, where they set up camp, tore down fences for firewood, swilled Jersey applejack, and roamed drunkenly through the thickets. A British officer wrote that “a girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most immediate risk of being ravished.”

Time passed, and still there was no British attack. Both General Howe and Admiral Howe genuinely liked Americans and, before leaving England, had been named by the king to act as peace commissioners. So, before both sides locked in combat, the Howe brothers put out peace feelers. Under a flag of truce a British officer landed in Manhattan with a letter for “Mr. Washington.” This envoy was received by an American officer who said, “Sir, we have no person here in our army with that address.” Of course, there was a
General
Washington. After the proper form of address had been resolved, Washington met with a British lieutenant colonel, who reported that the Howe brothers wanted to settle the unhappy differences with America. Suspicious of this olive branch and unsure of the Howes' authority, Washington refused to treat with the British high command.

Now the English attacked. At dawn on August 22, 1776, a vanguard of troops shoved off from Staten Island near the western end of what today is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Under a bright sun and on calm water the redcoats ferried across the Narrows in 88 craft specially built for this amphibious operation. They were in a carefree mood. When their boats grounded on the flat beach of Gravesend Bay in Brooklyn, they jumped out, splashed ashore, ran to nearby apple trees, shinnied up, and threw apples at one another. No American force opposed this invasion. Back and forth across the mile-wide Narrows the landing craft plied, until by noon 15,000 British had been transferred to Long Island. Three days later they were reinforced by 5,000 Hessians.

Washington hadn't known whether the first enemy thrust would come at Manhattan or Brooklyn. He realized that to hold New York City, he must hold Brooklyn Heights, but this meant splitting his 19,000 effectives between the two places. Long before the British landed on Long Island, the Americans had thrown up forts and earthworks from Gowanus Bay on the south to Wallabout Bay (later the Brooklyn Navy Yard) on the north. These strongholds were protected on the eastern inland side by thickly wooded hills. Stretching southwest to northeast, the hills were almost impassable except where they were cut by four roads. The enemy now lay on the flat-lands to the south.

On each of the two days after the British landing Washington left his New York headquarters and ferried across the East River to reconnoiter. Convinced that the big British push was being made against Brooklyn, he rushed over reinforcements until 7,000 Americans faced 20,000 Englishmen and Germans. Unfortunately, two-thirds of Washington's men on Long Island were militia. Some had been under arms less than two weeks, and none had ever faced an enemy in battle. Discipline was so lax that some wandered miles beyond their fixed posts.

Worst of all, Washington and his generals neglected one of the four passes cut through the hills. This was the Jamaica Pass, just west of the present intersection of Fulton Street and Broadway in Brooklyn. Only five young militia officers were left to guard it.

The Battle of Long Island was fought on August 27, 1776. That morning the sun rose “with a red and angry glare.” Later the day turned clear, cool, and pleasant. About 8
A.M
. Washington once more arrived from Manhattan, this time to lead his troops in action.
Despite his service in the Seven Years' War and at the siege of Boston, never before had he directed a stand-up battle. It also marked the first time that Americans and British clashed in formal battle array in the open field.

Superior in numbers, weapons, experience, discipline, and strategy, the British pushed north. Most of the important action took place within the 526 acres now constituting Prospect Park. Perhaps the most dramatic and gallant episode occurred near Third and Eighth streets just west of Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue. There a Maryland battalion tried to hold off the enemy long enough for retreating Americans to scamper into the forts. The price they paid was 684 casualties. Standing on a hilltop and watching this action through field-glasses, Washington groaned, “Good God! What brave fellows I must this day lose!”

By early afternoon most Americans who had not been shot, bayoneted, captured, drowned, or driven panic-stricken from the field were cooped up within forts and redoubts on Brooklyn Heights. They were frightened. They were bloody and tired. They sweated out the danger of a British frontal attack. They nibbled biscuits “hard enough to break the teeth of a rat,” as one private expressed it. But General Howe was not willing to risk a headlong charge on these strongholds. His caution won a battle and helped lose a war. With a little more daring Howe might have captured George Washington and the entire Long Island army and put an end to the revolution then and there.

Up at four o'clock the next morning, Washington saw that the British still lay on their arms and that the wind kept enemy warships from closing in to bombard his position. He ordered even more Americans across the East River to reinforce his beleaguered men. The afternoon came and went with still no British attack. Toward evening a cold rain began and developed into a downpour that made it impossible for the Americans to build cooking fires. Their ammunition became wet and useless. In some trenches men stood waist-deep in water. All that night the northeasterly wind blew.

The second day after the battle Washington was hard at work by 4:30
A.M
., writing Congress about the “engagement between a detachment of our men and the enemy” on August 27. This chore done, he sent orders to Manhattan to gather all available boats and assemble them by dark on the west side of the East River. Next, he held a war council with his seven generals in the Brooklyn forts. Beset by a
superior land force and in peril of being cut off from escape by the British fleet, the Americans agreed to evacuate.

Soon after dusk the first boats from Manhattan nosed into the Brooklyn shore at what today is the eastern end of the Brooklyn Bridge. The northeasterly wind still kept enemy warships from closing in for the kill. Now a fog fell like a white pillow on the area. Besides blurring vision, it muffled sound. Speaking in whispers, groping through blackness, and squashing along muddy paths, American soldiers filed down to the evacuation point. A few panicked and tried to rush the boats and crawl over comrades' heads to get a seat. But most of the shivering miserable men behaved well and stepped in orderly fashion into scows, barges, and rowboats; anything that floated had been brought to the scene. The craft were manned by seafaring New Englanders, who rowed with aching muscles from the east shore to the west and back again, all that fog-shrouded night. The last man to pick his way down slippery steps into a boat was George Washington.

By seven o'clock on the morning of August 30 the last of his 10,000 men were back on Manhattan. They brought all their food, equipment, and arms, leaving behind only a few heavy and rusted cannon. A British military critic later wrote that “this retreat should hold a high place among military transactions.” Howe's victory at the Battle of Long Island was indecisive because he let the American army regroup. England had lost its golden opportunity.

On September 7, 1776, for the first time in history, a submarine made an underwater attack on a warship. A Yale graduate, named David Bushnell, designed this submarine and managed to present his idea to Washington, who gave the thirty-four-year-old inventor all the money and men he needed to construct his strange craft.

Bushnell's submarine was made of huge oak timbers, scooped out and fitted together in the shape of a clam. Because of its appearance it was called Bushnell's
Turtle.
The oak timbers were bound with iron bands, the seams were calked, and everything was tarred to make the vessel watertight. The
Turtle
was big enough for one man to stand inside. Seven hundred pounds of lead stored in the bottom kept it upright. Two foot-operated pumps enabled the operator to dive or ascend. The submarine's forward movement was provided by a hand crank that turned a two-bladed wooden screw propellor.

Bushnell and Washington planned to use the crude submarine to
blow up one of the British warships anchored in New York Harbor. Sergeant Ezra Lee, of Lyme, Connecticut, was chosen to operate the
Turtle.
One night a whaleboat towed the submarine to the foot of Whitehall Street at the Battery. An egg-shaped magazine, containing 130 pounds of gunpowder, was attached by a screw to the back of the submarine. The Americans hoped that the magazine could be detached from the
Turtle
and fastened to the underside of a British man-of-war. A timing device would give Lee 30 minutes in which to escape.

Bushnell, Washington, and a group of American officers gathered at the Battery at midnight on September 7 to watch Lee depart on his historic mission. The night was so dark that the enemy on nearby Governors Island could not see what was going on. After the sergeant had submerged, he steered his craft by a compass set near decayed phosphorescent wood, called foxwood. This eerie glow was his only light. Busily working his controls, Lee glided through the black and silent water of the harbor out toward Admiral Howe's flagship, the sixty-four-gun
Eagle,
anchored off Staten Island.

As planned, the submarine came up under the keel of the
Eagle.
Protruding from the top of the submarine and operated from inside was a drill. Lee tried to force this screw into first one spot and then another on the
Eagle
but was thwarted by iron plates reinforcing her copper sheathing. He worked hard and long until dawn began creeping over the harbor. Lee realized that he had to make a getaway, but to his dismay he discovered that his compass wasn't working. Time after time he had to surface to get a visual fix on the Battery.