Washington [131]
As he rode north, Washington ventured into terra incognita. With little talent for impromptu speeches, he was ill equipped for his sudden celebrity. Nonetheless, upon encountering large throngs in New York City, he displayed a touch of pure showmanship, wearing a plume in his hat and a bright purple sash. In a city violently torn between Loyalists and patriots, Washington’s hosts worried that he might encounter the royal governor, William Tryon, who had returned from a trip to England that same day. To avoid this clash, Washington crossed the Hudson at Hoboken and arrived at four P.M. near present-day Canal Street, then well north of the town. Met by a military band, nine companies of militia, and a delegation from the New York Provincial Congress, Washington got a vivid glimpse of the cheering masses who counted on him for deliverance. The entire town, it seemed, had emptied out to receive him, and a local newspaper said that “a greater number of the principal inhabitants” had appeared than on any previous occasion.47 Washington was whisked to the country estate of Leonard Lispenard. In a sign of the fluid political situation, some people who had welcomed Washington then met Governor Tryon when he landed at eight o’clock that evening, causing Loyalist Thomas Jones to bellow, “What a farce! What cursed hypocrisy!”48 In another strange sign of this transitional period, Washington drank in the huzzahs of the multitudes while the Asia, a sixty-four-gun British warship, lay at anchor off the Battery, not far from where he was.
At the Lispenard mansion, Washington received an urgent dispatch from Boston. Although the sealed communiqúe was addressed to John Hancock, Washington thought it prudent to open it in case it contained timely news. His instinct was correct: the dispatch reported that on June 17 more than two thousand British troops, led by General William Howe, had stormed fortified patriot positions on Breed’s Hill, forcing an American retreat. (The battle was incorrectly labeled Bunker Hill.) Intent upon inflicting maximum terror on supposedly amateurish Americans, the British had incinerated the buildings of Charlestown, leaving the obliterated town a smoking ruin. Bunker Hill proved a Pyrrhic victory, for the British registered more than a thousand casualties. Americans had shown not only pluck and grit but excellent marksmanship as they picked off British officers; firing at officers was then considered a shocking breach of military etiquette. The Americans suffered 450 casualties, including the death of Major General Joseph Warren. Even while it dented British confidence, the Battle of Bunker Hill stirred patriotic spirits, exposing the first chinks in the British fighting machine and suggesting, wrongly, that green American militia troops could outfight British professionals. As the British reeled, a stunned General Howe admitted, “The success is too dearly bought.”49 Washington recognized that the British had been chastened—“a few more such victories woul[d] put an end to their army,” he wryly told his brother Sam—but he insisted that the battle was a missed opportunity.50 If the men had “been properly conducted,” he concluded, “the regulars would have met with a shameful defeat.”51 At the same time, he would spend the first year or two of the war referring back to Bunker Hill and hoping to recapitulate the terrific beating inflicted on the startled British.
Though Washington yearned to be off to Boston, members of the New York Provincial Congress wanted to address him, and political decorum dictated that he linger. It was the start of the interminable ceremonies that would be the bane of his public life. Already tired from formalities and sacrificing precious time, he instructed his assistants to be ready to leave the instant the meeting ended. Washington sounded a conciliatory theme to the provincial congress, promising to apply his efforts to the restoration “of peace and harmony between the mother [country and the] colonies.”52 He minted a beautiful phrase that must have