USA > New York > New York City > The story of the city of New York > Part 18
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An incident that occurred in June of this year shows admirably the temper of the men of that day. The one hundred men of the Royal Irish Regiment which had been garrisoning the city, were ordered to Boston to reinforce General Gage, who was closely besieged by the patriot army under Washington and Putnam. The Asia lay at the dock, foot of Broad Street, to receive them. The Committee of One Hundred had consented that the troops should be allowed to embark, against the protest of the Sons of Liberty. On the morning of the 6th, therefore, the column took up its line of march down Broad Street, but a spying Son of Liberty chanced to note that there were six cartloads of spare arms preceding the British column, and hurried with the news to Colonel Willett. Now these spare arms belonged to the colony, and the patriots had long cast covetous eyes upon them, arms and munitions of war being the things they then stood most in need of. Colonel Willett, therefore, bade the man alarm the city, and himself hastened to the head of the column and seized the leading horse by the bit. The column stopped and Major Hamilton, commanding, hurried forward and began an angry colloquy with the in- truder. Colonel Willett declared that no permission to remove the arms had been granted, and continued arguing until a great crowd, including many of his fellow-leaders, had collected ; when he turned the cart to the right and told the carman to drive up Beaver Street. The other five carts were made to follow amid the huzzas of the people, while the despoiled British were allowed to file on board the
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Asia These arms were later used in equipping the four New York regiments.
All through the summer of 1775, and the winter of 1775-76, the British remained cooped up in Boston, closely watched by Washington, while the world looked on in surprise. New York, soon to be the theatre of events, was neglected. It was a sad, de- pressing year for her. All business was suspended. The present was unsettled, and the future terrible with forebodings. John Morin Scott, in a letter dated November 15, 1775, thus described the general depression :
" Every office shut up almost but Sam Jones', who will . work for 6 / a day and live accordingly. All business stagnated, the city half deserted for fear of a bombard- ment. A new Congress elected. Those for New York, you will see by the papers, changed for the better. All staunch Whigs now. Nothing from t' other side of the water but a fearful looking for of wrath. Our Con- tinental petition most probably condemned-the bulk of the nation, it is said, against us ; and a bloody campaign next summer. But let us be prepared for the worst. Who can prize life without liberty ? it is a bauble only fit to be thrown away."
Early in January Washington discovered that Lord Howe had a movement in hand, and, con- vinced that New York was his objective point, called the attention of Congress to it, and on the 6th sent General Charles Lee thither to take com- mand and fortify the city. Lee was a regularly educated soldier, having been an officer in the British service, and was therefore well adapted for
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the position. The British movement was, in fact, the expedition of Sir Henry Clinton against the Carolinas, and as it happened, Clinton, his fleet, and General Lee came into New York on the same day. The former, however, remained but a few days, and then departed for the South.
General Lee's first step was to map out a series of fortifications for the defence of the city. His next, to call before him the Tories, who had long been noted for their virulence and bitterness, and admin- ister an iron-clad oath, of which the following, omit- ting a few forms and repetitions, is a faithful copy :
"I, -, here in the presence of Almighty God, as I hope for ease, honor, and comfort in this world, and happiness in the world to come, most earnestly, devoutly, and religiously do swear, that I will neither directly nor indirectly assist the wicked instruments of ministerial tyranny and villainy commonly called the King's troops and navy, by furnishing them with provisions and re- freshments of any kind unless authorized by the Con- tinental Congress. I do also swear, by the terrible and Almighty God, that I will neither directly nor indirectly convey any intelligence ... to the enemy, and I also pledge myself if I should by accident get knowledge of such treasons to immediately inform the Committee of Safety, and to take arms and defend my country when- ever called upon by the voice of the Continental Con- gress."
Captain Sears was sent out into Long Island to administer this oath to the Tories there, who had been particularly active. He was pretty successful, for he soon wrote General Lee, that at Newtown he
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had administered the oath to four "grate Tories." At Jamaica he sent out scouting parties, but had been able "to ketch but five Tories," although, to make amends, they were " of the first rank," all of whom "swallowed the oath." "I can assure your Honor," he concludes, "they are a set of villains in this country, and I believe the better half of them are waiting for support and intend to take up arms against us." On March 12th, Lee began entrenching. " We are now a city of war," wrote one of the letter- writers soon after. Lee was soon sent south to take command in that quarter, and Lord Stirling, a brave and efficient officer was appointed in his place.
On March 17, 1776, Howe evacuated Boston. Washington and his generals supposed that he would at once attack New York; but instead he sailed to Halifax to await the coming of a greater armament from England. The patriot army, however, was hasti- ly transferred from Cambridge to New York, as it was evident that that city would be the next point of attack. General Israel Putnam arrived April 4th, and made head-quarters in the fine mansion of Captain Kennedy, of the British army, at No. I Broadway. He held command until Washington arrived, which event occurred on the 13th of April, the Commander- in-Chief selecting as head-quarters the Richmond Hill House, later occupied by Vice-President Adams, and still later by Colonel Aaron Burr; and where he was soon joined by Mrs. Washington and his family. " The people here do not seem so apprehensive of the soldiers' landing since the account of the happy fact of our enemies evacuating the city of Boston,
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on which I congratulate you and every other friend of Liberty," wrote John Varick to his brother, on April Ist.
The summer was devoted mainly to drilling, or- ganizing, and fortifying, for every one knew that a powerful armament would soon attack the city. Stirring and startling incidents, however, were con- tinually occurring to break the monotony of en- trenching. One day, for instance, a party is sent off . to break up a camp of Tories who had fortified themselves without the city, and were raiding the country. Another day two negroes are arrested for conveying intelligence to Governor Tryon, "that villainous rascal on board the Duchess of Gordon," as one of the letter-writers put it. Another day a letter came from Kinderhook detailing an affair which had recently happened at a quilting frolic there, which convulsed the young officers with mirth, and " heartened " them more than a great victory. At this quilting it seems but one young man was present, the others being in the army. He was a Tory, and very soon began to cast aspersions on Congress, whereupon he was seized by the young women present, stripped to his waist, coated with molasses in lieu of tar, and feathered with the down from the tops of flags 'or "cat-tails" found in the marshes. The daughter of Parson Buell, a noted patriot and divine of the day, is said to have been a ring-leader in the work.
" Tory rides " were another diversion. " We had some grand Tory rides in this city this week, and in particular yesterday," wrote Peter Elting on June
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13th. "Several of them were handled very rough, being carried through the streets on rails, their . clothes torn from their backs, and their bodies pretty well mingled with the dust."
Thus the summer flew on, and the momentous Fourth of July, 1776, arrived. The Declaration of Independence was adopted. Washington received an official copy on the 9th of July, with instructions to have it read to the troops. Accordingly, at six o'clock in the evening, the brigades were drawn up on their respective parades, while the instrument was read by the brigade commanders or their aides. One of the brigades was honored by the presence of the Commander-in-Chief. It was drawn up in a hol- low square on the historic Common. Within the square Washington sat on horseback, while an aide in a clear voice, read the Declaration. "When it was concluded," says an eye-witness, " three hearty cheers were given." In the city, bells were rung and guns fired in honor of the event, and a multitude of soldiers and citizens gave further expression to their feelings by attacking and demolishing a leaden statue of George III., which had been erected in 1770 on the Bowling Green. With grim irony they mounted the statue on a cart and drew it with oxen into the heart of Connecticut (Litchfield), where the ladies, under the lead of Oliver Wolcott, a famous patriot leader of that State, ran it into bullets for the army. This conversion of King George's statue into bullets wherewith to destroy King George's soldiers formed the butt of joke, lampoon, and pun for many a day.
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Next morning, at White Plains, the Provincial Congress listened to the reading of the Declaration, and at its close pledged themselves to sustain it "at the risk of their lives and fortunes." There were men, too, among them, with fortunes and position to lose. To Van Cortlandt, Van Rens- selaer, Schuyler, the Morrises, and the Livingstons, that pledge meant the sacrifice of feudal rights and manorial privileges, yet they seem not to have
hesitated an instant. They sent a swift messenger to the New York delegates in Congress empowering them to vote for the Declaration. They had it pro- claimed by beat of drum in White Plains, and ordered that it should be publicly read from the City Hall in Wall Street, within reach of the guns of the British fleet.
The public reading of the Declaration in New York, on July 18th, was one of the great events of the day. Almost the whole city came together and received each noble sentiment with resounding cheers, and on its conclusion a few daring spirits entered the court-room, brought out the royal coat of arms, and burned it in the street. All this was done, it must be remembered, in the face of a powerful enemy, for at that moment Putnam's videttes might have counted, from their post on Columbia Heights, one hundred and thirty enemy sails whitening the Narrows-the fleet of Sir William Howe from Halifax, with the Boston veterans and reinforcements. Only six days before-on the 12th -two frigates, the Rose and the Phoenix, had dashed past the city, fired upon and returning the fire, and
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were now anchored above in the Hudson, a watchful enemy in the rear. But in order to know all about this fleet, and what it was doing, or hoped to do here, it will be necessary to cross over to England and take up the threads of events there.
Parliament had met October 26, 1775. The first and most important subject touched on in the king's opening speech was the American rebellion. " The colonists sought to set up an independent empire," he charged. That " they had raised troops, collected a naval force, seized the public revenues, assumed legislative, executive, and judicial powers," were counts in the long indictment, and he asked Parlia- ment for men and means sufficient for a vigorous prosecution of the war. The king conquered, though Burke, Fox, Barré, Conway, Dunning, and others spoke powerfully in favor of America. An army of 25,000 men was voted for the American war, with a fleet and ample supplies. A plan for a campaign was at once adopted. Sir William Howe, with the main body of the army, was to capture and hold New York. Sir Guy Carleton and General Burgoyne were to march from Canada down the Hudson and divide the Eastern colonies from the Middle and Southern, while Lord Cornwallis was to ravage Vir- ginia and the Carolinas. The one hundred and thirty sail now in the Narrows were here in pursu- ance of that plan. They were joined, about the middle of July, by a large reinforcement from Eng- land under Admiral Howe, and then there were three hundred ships of war and transports in the harbor. On August 1st Generals Clinton and Corn-
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wallis came in, having been repulsed at Charleston ; and on August 12th the third and last reinforcement arrived in the person of the British Guards and of De Heister's division of Hessians. To explain the presence of these Hessians we will digress briefly. The war was extremely unpopular with the masses in England. Pitt, Burke, and other Whig leaders carried the people with them, and when the king came to ask for volunteers for the American war, he could not find them. Instead, placards were posted in London streets calling for volunteers to join the Americans. Victory to America and the re-establish- ment of the British constitution was the prevailing toast at Whig banquets. The clever bon mot of the American wits, that General Gage, on returning to England, was to be created " Lord Lexington, Baron of Bunker Hill," was nowhere more greatly relished than in London. A bright woman's epigram on Ear! Percy, who commanded the British at Concord and Lexington-
" Earl Percy, there as well as here, The ladies think is very queer ; They give him tea and keep him warm, For surely he can do no harm "-
was widely quoted in the English newspapers, while the London Morning Chronicle thus wrote of the brave Continentals who stormed Ticonderoga :
" Brave race of men that lately showed The British fire in you renewed. May God your land secure, defend, (Your constant guardian, your best friend, ) Unite your hearts, your councils bless, And grant your just designs success."
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Another straw, indicating the state of popular feeling, is seen in the case of a young fellow who went into a cook-shop in Covent Garden with his companions, and while there proposed to show them how the Americans would serve Boston. "Sup- pose," said he, " that pan over the charcoal fire to be the town, and the sausage in it to be General Gage and the king's troops. In that case they will be served thus" : and he threw a paper of gunpowder under the pan, which blew its contents high into the air.
King George, finding it impossible to recruit his army with English yeomen, turned his attention to foreign mercenaries. At first he tried to buy Rus- sian peasants ; but Catherine, Empress of Russia, said she thought it beneath the dignity of her crown to sell her subjects to conquer brave and oppressed people. In the little German principalities along the Rhine, however, the British agent, Colonel Fawcett, was more successful. From the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel he bought 1,200 infantry; from the Duke of Brunswick 3,900, and a few cavalry; and from the Count of Hanau 660, the price paid being $34.50 per man, three wounded men to count as one dead. The arrival of this great armament-much larger than the famous Armada launched by Philip II. of Spain against England in 1588,-while it in- spired great terror among non-combatants, does not seem to have discouraged the Continentals.
" I could not get your shoes," wrote Peter Elting to Captain Varick, July 9th, " on account of the alarm on the arrival of the fleet, since which almost all business in town is knocked up. The fleet," he
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adds, "now lays very quiet at the watering-place waiting a reinforcement from England, when, they say, they shall little regard our batteries. We as little regard them. Our men are in high spirits, and ready to meet them at any hour."
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XV.
TWO BATTLES.
ON the 18th of August it was apparent to all that a battle was at hand. Washington felt it, and issued a stirring address to his army, exhorting them that the time had come when the future of America was to be determined. "The fate of unborn millions will now depend under God on the courage and conduct of this army," he said. "Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to conquer or die !" But though all knew that the blow must soon fall, none could tell with certainty where it would strike. The enemy might sail up the Hudson or the East River, land in West- chester, and attack the city from the rear ; he might disembark on Long Island and advance from that - quarter ; or he might make a direct attack. Howe chose the Long Island approach ; but while he is slowly making preparations, let us sketch the posi- tion, the numbers, and the personnel of the contend- ing forces. New York at this time contained 25,000 inhabitants and 4,000 houses, the latter built along both rivers, forming an acute angle, thus <. Most of the town was below the present Chambers Street. and comprised an area less than one mile square.
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But one highway led off the island-the Kingsbridge, or " Post Road," which left Broadway at the present post-office, followed the line of Chatham Street to Chatham Square, thence the Bowery and Fourth Avenue to 14th Street, crossed Union Square diago- nally and followed Broadway to Madison Square, then turned northeast and continued on between Fourth and Second avenues to 53d Street, turned farther east beyond the line of Second Avenue until it reached 92d Street, where it turned west and en- tered Central Park, leaving it again at a hollow in the hills called McGowan's Pass from the fact that a man named McGowan had his farm-house there. This pass was about on the line of 107th Street, and beyond, the road followed Harlem Lane to the end of the island, crossing the Harlem by a long wooden bridge known as the " King's Bridge "; a short dis- tance beyond, it forked, one branch leading to Al- bany, and the other to Boston. This was the only bridge and road by which an army could leave the island. There was another road called the " Bloom- ingdale Road," on the west side, which left the Kingsbridge Road at about the present corner of 23d Street and Fifth Avenue, and passed through the district of Bloomingdale to the farm-house of Adrian Hoofland at 108th Street. There was still another road leading up from the city along the present line of Greenwich Street to the village of Greenwich on the Hudson, which stood about on the present line of 14th Street, and which then connected with a lane running northeast with the Bloomingdale Road at 43d Street.
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The reader will please keep these highways in mind, as we shall again recur to them. It was evi- dent that the city and island being surrounded by navigable waters, were entirely at the mercy of a naval armament unless its defences were sufficiently strong to repulse an attack. Washington had faith in his defences.
Let us see what they were. On the Hudson River side the principal ones were McDougall's and the Oyster Batteries on a little eminence in the rear of Trinity Church, the first of two, and the last of three guns. Fort George and the Grand Battery came next, on the north line of the present Battery, the first mounting six guns and the last twenty- three. Then on the East River front were the Whitehall Battery on Whitehall Dock, at the foot of the present Whitehall Street ; Waterbury's, on the dock at the angle of Catharine and Cherry streets ; Badlaw's, between Madison and Monroe ; Spencer's, between Clinton and Montgomery ; Jones Hill, a little north of the intersection of Broome and Pitt, and connected with Spencer's by a line of redoubts ; a circular battery on the corner of Grand and the Bowery, and another corner of Grand and Eldridge. Last, but not least, was the Bayard Hill redoubt, one of the strongest of the city's defences. It stood on the corner of Grand and Mulberry, and is described as having been " a powerful, irregular heptagonal redoubt mounting eighteen guns, and commanding the city and its approaches." As for barricades, Paris under the Commune presented no more grisly spectacle. Every street leading up from the water
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THE BATTERY AND BOWLING GREEN DURING THE REVOLUTION.
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was defended by a cordon of boxes and barrels, kegs, mahogany logs, stones, and branches of trees. City Hall Park was quite enclosed by them. There was one across Broadway opposite St. Paul's Church, one. at the head of Vesey, of Barclay, Warren, and Murray streets. A cordon of logs closed Beekman Street to travel. There was a right-angled bulwark on the present site of the Tribune building. An- other at the point where Centre Street leaves the Common. Frankfort and Chatham were also barred.
But the batteries on Manhattan Island were not the only ones relied on by Washington to protect the city. As can now be seen, Brooklyn and Columbia Heights across the river commanded the city, and there the more powerful works had been constructed. A chain of earthworks, whose sites are now occu- pied by Brooklyn mansions, was thrown up across the promontory from Gowanus Marsh to Wallabout Bay. First, and nearest Gowanus Creek, was Fort Box, on the line of the present Pacific Street. Fort Greene came next, three hundred yards to the left of Fort Box, between the present State and Scher- merhorn streets. It was a star-shaped battery of six guns, the largest in the series. A small circular battery, called "the oblong redoubt," came next ; and to the northeast crowning the hill now form- ing a part of Washington Park, was Fort Put- nam. A small redoubt about the middle of the present Cumberland Street completed the series, which were connected throughout by a line of in- trenchments, and protected by ditches and abatis. These forts were intended to defend the Heights.
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There were also supporting fortsone on Cobble Hill, near the intersection of Court and Atlantic streets; a redoubt at the mill, corner of Degraw and Bond ; Fort Defiance, at Red Hook; and Fort Stir- ling, commanding the East River channel. In reality, the Brooklyn forts were the key to the position.
Swarming like bees upon these fortifications, marching through the streets, drilling on parade, was perhaps the most incongruous and oddly- caparisoned army recruited since Falstaff's day. There were the tow frocks and tarnished scarlet regimentals-mementos of the bloody French wars -- of the Connecticut troops; the dark-blue coats, with red facings, of the Delaware militia ; the green hunting shirts and leggins of the Marylanders. There were the New Jersey riflemen : some in short, red coats and striped trousers ; some in blue coats with leather breeches, ending in blue-yarn stockings, and heavy shoes with brass buckles. Now a Penn- sylvania regiment marched by in variegated costume : one company clad in brown coats, faced with white, and adorned with huge metal buttons; another, showing blue coats, faced with red; a third, brown coats faced with buff. Many wore buckskin frocks and leggins. Some marched and fought in their shirt-sleeves. The Virginians created some feeling by their superior uniform-white frocks, adorned with ruffles at neck, wrists, and elbows ; black, broad-brimmed slouch hats; black stocks, and hair in long queues. The arms of this impromptu army were quite as diverse and incongruous. The shot- gun and old king's arm of the New England farmer,
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the long "goose gun" of the New York Knicker- bocker, the musket of the Jerseyman and Mary- lander, the deer-slaying rifle of the Pennsylvania and Virginia rangers, were all represented. Very few were furnished with bayonets or proper accoutre- ments. There were ostensibly 28,000 men in this army, but only 19,000 in reality, the others being on the sick-list. A few had seen service in the French and Indian wars; the regiments of the Continental line had had the benefit of a year's drill; but the others were raw levies hastily summoned from farms and workshops for the defence of the city. The army was divided into five divisions: Putnam's, which comprised the brigades of Clinton, Scott, and Fellows ; Heath's division, comprising the brigades of Mifflin, Clinton, Spencer, Parsons, and Wads- worth ; Sullivan's division, consisting of Stirling's and McDougall's brigades; Green's division, of Nixon's and Hand's brigades; the Connecticut Militia, under General Wolcott; the Long Island Militia, under General Woodhull ; and Knox's di- vision of artillery, in which, as captain of a battery, served Alexander Hamilton. In the same army, serving as aide to General Putnam, was a young man with whom, later, his name was associated- Aaron Burr, a youth of twenty, son of President Burr, of Princeton College, and grandson of the famous divine, Jonathan Edwards. The general officers, with one exception-Spencer,-were young in years, and had had little or no military training. Many of the subordinate officers, though acquitting themselves like men, were but boys in years ;
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