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By Root 1240 0

“R.” It was the custom now for the loyalist civilians to brand their traitorous neighbors. Once the British had completed their occupation of New York, the loyalists had been positively gleeful about identifying those citizens whose sympathies might lie with the rebels. Scattered through those sections of the city unaffected by the fire, many houses and storefronts were marked by the insignia. To the army, especially the Hessians, the carved letter was an open invitation to plunder. Most rebel sympathizers were long gone from the island, and the army occupied nearly every home that still supported a roof. But to the north of the city, in the open farm country, Cornwallis knew it was simply good fortune that some of these abandoned houses now provided the British lookouts with a view toward Harlem Heights.

What the British command did not anticipate was that the visible outposts would attract rebel deserters, and they came down from the Heights nearly every night. That morning Cornwallis had interviewed yet another group, dirty men with filthy clothing. Though he had occasionally seen some semblance of uniforms on distant rebel units, most of these men wore nothing to show they ever had been soldiers. The interviews were usually performed by a company commander, a job appropriate for an officer of lower rank. But Cornwallis enjoyed it, had come to appreciate the differences between the mind of the British soldier, and the rebels who opposed them. Besides the entertainment it gave him, he understood that his presence might actually result in an even greater willingness for the deserter to talk, most of them now desperately eager to please. He knew better than to believe all their expressions of newfound loyalty to the king, especially those who professed an immediate need to join the British army. Washington certainly would try to infiltrate the British lines, and Cornwallis considered it a challenging game to identify those deserters who were more likely just spies. It was not difficult for him to distinguish those rebels who brought a genuine desperation, hunger, sickness, and Cornwallis knew they would have no inhibitions about talking to their new benefactors. He knew it was the best chance for some piece of good intelligence, something significant that the deserters might not even recognize in their own rambling tales. The soldiers had been instructed to welcome the deserters as friends, to see to their needs, which usually meant only a simple meal, or a warm blanket. This morning’s lot had been typical: talk of despair, how vast numbers of Washington’s forces were simply giving up and going home, some militia units in open defiance, officers marching their men right out of camp, across the King’s Bridge northward, insisting the war was over, that any opposition to the British army had been proven futile.

The group this morning had been typical in another way as well, something he had seen with growing frequency. There was no guilt in the men, no sense that they were betraying anything. The stories had become less sensational and more matter-of-fact. These men were through being soldiers, had endured just enough of the horror and the deprivations of war to believe that whatever the cause, the politics, the dispute with the king, the cause was not as important as their own discomfort. Cornwallis had not been surprised. He did not know what Washington’s camp was like, of course, and the deserters would bring their own very biased version, but surely the message was clear. We are still the empire. We are Britain, we are centuries of history, and we are the mightiest army in the world. And you are part of a band of rebels who would presume to drive the empire away. With what? They cannot even feed you properly, arm you properly, put you into proper clothing. No, before too much longer, Mr. Washington may find he has no one left in his camp at all.

He moved the horse down a narrow gorge, saw scraps of clothing, a shattered musket, signs of the brief fight in McGown’s Pass that had once held Howe’s men back. On that day,