III
“OPINIONS HERE ARE VARIOUS,” Joseph Reed confided to his wife, following a council of war during which he had kept the minutes.
Some of the generals thought the British were headed for Fort Washington, or were bound for the Hudson to board ships and proceed upriver to attack from the rear. “Others, and a great majority, think that, finding this army too strongly posted, they have changed their whole plan…intending to penetrate the Jerseys and so move on to Philadelphia.”
Who had said what or the most in the course of the meeting, Reed did not mention. In his own opinion, however, it was too late in the season for any British movements of consequence, other than a few “excursions” into New Jersey perhaps, to revive the “drooping” spirits of the many Loyalists there.
Washington doubted that Howe would close the campaign “without attempting something more,” as he wrote to John Hancock. Almost certainly Howe was headed for New Jersey.
Nearing the close of the letter, Washington added a further worry: “I expect the enemy will bend their force against Fort Washington and invest it immediately,” he said, the term “invest” meaning to surround and lay siege, not necessarily to attack all-out.
Like most of the army he led, Washington was still exhausted and dispirited. To some who were closest at hand he seemed a little bewildered and unsuitably indecisive. Reed in particular, as he would later reveal, was having second thoughts about Washington’s capacity for leadership.
Increasingly worried over Fort Washington, the commander pondered whether to pull the troops out while there was yet time. In a letter to Nathanael Greene from White Plains dated November 8, Washington had reasoned, as he might well have earlier:
If we cannot prevent vessels passing up [the Hudson], and the enemy are possessed of the surrounding country, what valuable purpose can it answer to attempt to hold a post from which the expected benefit cannot be had. I am therefore inclined to think it will not be prudent to hazard the men and stores.
Yet he left the decision to Greene. “But as you are on the spot, [I] leave it to you to give such orders as to evacuating…as you judge best.”
Central to all that had to be taken into consideration was the Hudson River, which loomed as large in everyone’s calculations as it had for nearly a year, from the time Washington first dispatched Charles Lee south from Cambridge to take charge of fortifying New York—the Hudson, key to the whole British strategy.
Would the British decide to take care of the unfinished business of Fort Washington on this side of the river? Or would they cross over and strike into New Jersey? Or might they do both? And what in any case should be done?
Howe and his army were known to have reached Dobbs Ferry on the Hudson, less than ten miles above King’s Bridge, and were now moving south.
Once again, Washington decided to divide his army, and this time four ways. Seven thousand troops, much the largest part of the army, were to remain east of the Hudson under General Lee, to check any British move on New England. General Heath and another 3,000 were to guard the Hudson Highlands at Peekskill, New York, thirty miles to the north. Washington, with what was left of the army—only 2,000 men or so—would cross to the other side of the river, where, it was expected, he would be joined by New Jersey and Pennsylvania reinforcements. Nathanael Greene was to maintain his same position on the river, with overall command of the troops at Fort Washington and Fort Lee.
Washington and his 2,000 left White Plains on November 10. At midmorning, November 12, at Peekskill, he crossed the Hudson and headed directly south for New Jersey, reaching Fort Lee on November 13—all told, a sixty-five-mile march in three days.
For the better part of two days he and Greene conferred. Greene, who had yet to fight a battle, remained optimistic, convinced that Fort Washington could be held, and especially as he had more than doubled the number of troops at the fort, bringing the total force there to more than 2,000.
It was a remarkable reversal of roles. Washington, who in September had refused to abandon New York, seemed ready now to do so. Greene, in September, had seen no reason to remain a day longer on York Island, and had he had his way, the whole present crisis would have been avoided. Yet it was Greene now who wanted to make a stand on the last bit of the island still in American hands, arguing that it would keep communications open across the river, tie up British troops that might otherwise join in an attack on New Jersey (and ultimately Philadelphia), and lead possibly to another slaughter of the enemy as at Bunker Hill. Further, Greene reasoned, one more retreat could be devastating to the army’s already demoralized state.
Despite its formidable presence high over the river, its steep, rock-bound approaches, Fort Washington was, in several ways, not the impregnable bastion it seemed. An irregular pentagon in plan, it covered about four acres, its walls made of piled-up earth. There were no barracks for the troops, and there was no water supply, other than what could be hauled up from below—hardly what was needed in the event of a long siege with winter approaching.
Nonetheless, its commander, Colonel Robert Magaw, thought the fort could hold out until the end of December, and Greene agreed.
In his letter to Greene from White Plains, Washington had said he was “inclined to think” it prudent to abandon the fort, but left the decision to Greene, who was “on the spot.” Now that he himself was on the spot, Washington still could not decide what to do and so again, in effect, he let the decision be Greene’s.
“His Excellency General Washington has been with me for several days…but finally nothing concluded on,” Greene wrote to Henry Knox.
“The movements and designs of the enemy are not yet understood,” Washington reported to John Hancock.
***
TO THE BRITISH CAPTAIN Frederick Mackenzie it was all-but-perfect campaigning weather. There had been a frost nearly every night, but it disappeared once the sun was up. The only thing lacking was a stiff breeze to accommodate the navy. “No wind for some days past,” he recorded in his diary, “so that if it was intended to send any number of ships up the North River, it could not have been effected.”
The entry, dated November 7, affirmed that General Howe had by then established headquarters just six miles above King’s Bridge, and that the next move would “probably be against Fort Washington.” But then Captain Mackenzie never doubted that “reduction” of the fort was “the first object,” and like others, he felt more confident than ever of success, for a fund of timely and accurate intelligence had unexpectedly fallen into British hands. If Washington failed still to understand British “designs,” the British now knew quite a lot about the American situation, or at least a great deal more than they might have.
On November 2, when Howe’s army was still at White Plains, an American staff officer named William Demont (whom Mackenzie referred to as William Diamond), turned traitor, defecting to the British from Fort Washington and bringing with him copies he had made of plans of the fort and the placement of cannon, as well as accounts of the mounting discontent and animosity between the rebels from New England and those from the South.
Only days before a packet of letters written by Washington, Reed, and others of Washington’s staff wound up in British hands, after being left unguarded at an inn at Trenton by a careless post rider bound for Philadelphia. In one letter Washington complained bitterly of the lack of discipline in the army and wrote with scorn of the “dreaming, sleepy-headed” officers he had to contend with. Another letter, written by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hanson Harrison of Washington’s staff, provided the far more important revelation that Washington was dividing his army.
The purloined letters and the plan of Fort Washington provided by Demont’s treachery may not have greatly altered the course of events to follow. But the British rightfully considered them a windfall, as both Mackenzie’s diary and that kept by Ambrose Serle attest. Washington’s decision to divide the army was taken as a clearest possible sign of weakness. “It is easy to see whit
her all this tends, and what will be the probable consequence of such a division,” wrote Serle, who as Lord Howe’s secretary had been the first to see the letters. If the rebels could not “find spirit to act under the encouragement of their present numbers, there is little reason to believe that their courage will increase upon a reduction of their strength.” The letters, thought Mackenzie, were certain to be “of much service to General Howe.”
The British by this time had doubtless picked up sufficient information from deserters to know a considerable amount about the state of things at Fort Washington, but having the plans and Demont’s account were of importance all the same, if only as confirmation.
Be that as it may, the famously cautious William Howe, who, supposedly, would never risk a frontal attack on a heavily fortified rebel position, because of the painful lesson learned at Bunker Hill, was about to disprove that theory, and with the full agreement of his commanders.
Frederick Mackenzie had total confidence in the attack, predicting further, “from the general appearance of matters,” that as soon as Fort Washington was taken, Howe would move on to New Jersey. The fact that the rebel troops from New Jersey and Pennsylvania that Washington counted on for help had never materialized was also well known to the British, and this, thought Mackenzie, left little “to prevent our arrival at Philadelphia.”
By November 12, the day Washington crossed the Hudson, Howe’s army was within four miles of King’s Bridge. The plan was for a four-part assault, with the Hessians playing the major role.
The plan began to unfold at midday, November 15, when Howe sent Colonel James Paterson under a white flag to deliver a message to the American commander at Fort Washington, Colonel Magaw. Paterson was the same British officer who, in July, had carried letters to Washington from Lord Howe proffering the possibility of peace. This time he bore an ultimatum: surrender the fort or face annihilation.
Told he had two hours to make up his mind, Magaw responded at once with a written reply:
Sir, if I rightly understand the purport of your message…‘this post is to be immediately surrendered or the garrison put to the sword.’ I rather think it is a mistake than a settled resolution in General Howe to act a part so unworthy [of] himself and the British nation, but give me leave to assure his excellency that actuated by the most glorious cause that mankind ever fought in, I am determined to defend this post to the very last extremity.
Howe had no intention of carrying out his threat of slaughter. The ultimatum was designed to play on the fears and distress of the rebels. Magaw’s bold response was written in the belief that he and his men could indeed hold out, or if need be, escape across the Hudson after dark.
***
WHEN WORD OF THE ULTIMATUM, and of Magaw’s answer, reached Fort Lee later that afternoon, Nathanael Greene dispatched a rider to tell Washington, who, earlier, had ridden to Hackensack, six miles away, where his army had pitched camp.
Washington dashed back, arriving at Fort Lee at nightfall. Finding that Greene and Israel Putnam had been rowed across the river to meet with Magaw and appraise the situation, Washington followed in a small boat.
Halfway across, he met Greene and Putnam, who were on their way back, and there, at midriver in the dark, Greene and Putnam gave an encouraging report. The troops were in “high spirits and would make a good defense.” And thus, “it being late at night,” in Washington’s words, the three returned to Fort Lee.
The same night, as went unobserved by the Americans, the British brought a fleet of thirty flatboats up the river with oars muffled, past Fort Washington, into Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and down the Harlem, to be ready for morning.
***
AT FIRST CHANCE, early Saturday, November 16, Washington, with Greene, Putnam, and another of his generals, Hugh Mercer of Virginia, again crossed the Hudson, “to determine,” as Greene wrote, “what was best to be done.” No sooner had their boat pushed off than the sound of heavy cannon carried over the water, and off in the distance, to the left of Fort Washington, they could see the attack had begun.
Landing on the opposite shore, downriver from the fort, the four generals scrambled up the steep slopes to the crest, to a point near the Morris house.
“There we all stood in a very awkward situation,” wrote Greene. “As the disposition [of the troops] was made and the enemy advancing, we durst not attempt to make any new disposition.” Somehow, they still could not see the disaster in store. “Indeed, we saw nothing amiss,” Greene wrote.
Concerned for Washington’s safety, the three generals urged him to leave and go back over the river. Greene volunteered to stay, as in turn did Putnam and Mercer. But Washington thought it “best” that they all go.
***
THE ASSAULT CAME from three directions, after a prolonged pounding of the fort’s outer defenses by British cannon. Four thousand Hessians came down from the north, over the bridge at King’s Bridge, led by General von Knyphausen, who had requested the honor of leading the main attack.
The Hessians were professionals hired to perform a duty, and this was to be their day to show themselves superior in a profession they took extreme pride in. (During the time he had been held prisoner, Lord Stirling had heard Hessian officers remark that they had never considered it their duty to inquire which of the two sides in the American controversy was right.)
A force of British troops under Cornwallis, plus a battalion of Highlanders, struck from the east, crossing the Harlem River in the flatboats that had been brought up during the night. The third force of some 3,000 men, both British and Hessians, came up from the south, led by Lord Percy.
By ten o’clock General Howe had committed 8,000 troops to the assault, nearly four times the number of those defending Fort Washington.
The farthest reach of the fort’s outer defenses was about five miles, north and south, and Knyphausen’s Hessians faced the steepest, roughest terrain and withering fire from Virginia and Maryland riflemen positioned among the rocks under Colonel Moses Rawlings. It was the scene of the most ferocious fighting of the day, and the Hessians were dauntless. The rock slopes they scaled would have been a rough struggle even had no one been firing at them. One of their officers, Captain Andreas Wiederhold, would describe attacking up “this almost inaccessible rock,” and yet, “every obstacle was swept aside…the precipitous rocks scaled.”
A Hessian soldier, John Reuber, wrote in his journal, “We were obliged to drag ourselves by the beech-tree bushes up the height where we could not really stand.”
At last, however, we got about on top of the hill where there were trees and great stones. We had a hard time of it there together. Because they now had no idea of yielding, Col. Rall gave the word of command thus: “All that are my grenadiers, march forwards!” All the drummers struck up the march, the hautboy-players [oboe players] blew. At once all that were yet alive shouted, “Hurrah!” Immediately all were mingled together, Americans and Hessians. There was no more firing, but all ran forward pell-mell upon the fortress.
General Grant, who disliked the Hessians almost as much as he disliked Americans, wrote with unalloyed admiration of how they “surmounted every difficulty,” and after gaining the heights kept on “at a trot…and if General Knyphausen had not stopped Colonel Rall, I am convinced he would have been in the fort in five minutes.”
The other sides of the attack advanced accordingly, with some of the American defenders putting up little resistance, while others fought tenaciously. Alexander Graydon, who commanded a company facing the assault by Lord Percy from the south, described how 150 men with a single 18-pound cannon held off 800 of the British.
When Percy’s attacking troops captured the Morris house, it was, according to Graydon, only fifteen minutes after Washington and his generals made their exit.
But courage was not enough. The Americans were too few to hold such extended lines. The only recourse was to retreat to the fort with all speed. A seventeen-year-old private from York, Pennsylvania, John Adl
um, described running such a distance uphill that he had hardly breath enough to keep going. “As I was a good deal fatigued and the firing had in a great measure ceased, I walked to the fort very leisurely,” he wrote.
Before I was near the fort the British began to fire at it with a field piece with round shot, at the men who were standing in huddles between the fort and the lines within the abbitis that was round the fort. When I arrived at this work, I sat upon it looking at the enemy who were firing at us with the field piece and not more than four hundred yards of us, or from where I was then sitting, when at length a ball took off a part of two men’s heads and wounded another. I then went into the fort.