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Page 17
* * * * *
THE DEFENCE OF NEW YORK, 1776.
By Henry B. Carrington, U.S.A., LL.D.
[The siege of Boston gave to the Continental Army that instruction in
military engineering, and that contact with a disciplined foe, which
prepared it for the immediate operations at New York and in New Jersey.
(See The Bay State Monthly, January, 1884, pages 37-44.)
The occupation and defence of New York and Brooklyn, so promptly made,
was a strategic necessity, fully warranted by existing conditions,
although temporary.]
It is not easy to reconcile the views which we take, in turn, through
the eye and object lenses of a field-glass, so that the real subject of
examination will not be distorted by too great nearness or remoteness.
If we bring back to this hour the events of one hundred years ago, it is
certain that the small armies and the smaller appliances of force then
in use will seem trifling, in contrast with those which have so recently
wearied science and have tasked invention in the work and waste of war.
If we thrust them back to their proper place behind the memory of all
living men, we only see a scattered people, poorly armed, but engaged in
hopeful conflict with Great Britain, then mistress of the seas, proudly
challenging the world to arms, and boldly vindicating her challenge.
In an effort to reproduce that period and so balance the opposing
factors that the siege of Boston and the deliverance of Washington at
Brooklyn and New York shall have fair co-relation and full bearing upon
the resulting struggle for National Independence, there must be some
exact standard for the test j and this will be found by grouping such
data as illustrate the governing laws of military art.
It has never been claimed that the siege of Boston was not the
legitimate result of British blunder and American pluck. In a previous
paper, the siege itself has been presented as that opportunity and
training-school exercise which projected its experience into the entire
war, and assured final triumph. It has not been as generally accepted,
as both philosophical and necessary, that the fortification and defence
of Brooklyn became the wise and inevitable sequence to that siege.
Let us drop a century and handle the old records.
If Great Britain had not called continental auxiliaries to her aid in
1776, her disposable force for colonial service would have been less
than half of the army of Washington.
Until the fortification of Brooklyn and New York had been well advanced,
the British ministry had not been able to assign even fifteen thousand
men for that service. General Clinton did, indeed, anchor at the New
York Narrows, just when General Charles Lee reached that city for its
defence, but did not risk a landing, and sailed for South Carolina, only
to be repulsed.
The British Crown had no alternative but to seek foreign aid. The appeal
to Catharine of Russia for twenty thousand men was met by the laconic
response, "There are other ways of settling this dispute than by resort
to arms." The Duke of Richmond prophetically declared, "The colonies
themselves, after our example, will apply to strangers for assistance."
The opposition to hiring foreign troops was so intense, that, for many
weeks, there was no practical advance in preparations for a really
effective blow at the rebels, while the rebellion itself was daily
gaining head and spirit.
The British army, just before the battle of Long Island, including
Hessians, Brunswickers, and Waldeckers, was but a little larger than
that which the American Congress, as early as October 4, 1775, had
officially assigned to the siege operations before Boston. That force
was fixed at twenty-three thousand, three hundred and seventy-two men.
General Howe landed about twenty thousand men. With the sick, the
reserves on Staten Island, all officers and supernumeraries included,
his entire force exhibited a paper strength of thirty-one thousand, six
hundred and twenty-five men. It is true that General Howe claimed, after
the battle of Long Island, that his entire force (Hessians included) was
only twenty four thousand men, and that Washington opposed the advance
of his division with twenty thousand men. The British muster rolls, as
exhibited before the British Parliament, accord with the statement
already made. The actual force of the American army at Brooklyn was not
far from nine thousand men, instead of twenty thousand, and the
effective force (New York included) was only about twenty thousand men.
As the British regiments brought but six, instead of eight, companies to
a battalion, there is evidence that Washington himself occasionally
over-estimated the British force proper; but the foreign battalions
realized their full force, and they were paid accordingly, upon their
muster rolls. Nearly three fifths of General Howe's army was made up
from continental mercenaries. These troops arrived in detachments, to
supplement the army which otherwise would have been entirely unequal to
the conquest of New York, if the city were fairly defended.
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