Washington [160]
CHAPTER TWENTY
All London Afloat
BY THE SUMMER OF 1776 the British were convinced that they would make quick work of the rebel forces and took comfort in a superior, complacent tone. Braggadocio—always a poor substitute for analysis—grew fashionable in official circles in London. At the start of the year, Lord Rawdon assured the Earl of Huntingdon that “we shall soon have done with these scoundrels, for one only dirties one’s fingers by meddling with them. I do not imagine they can possibly last out beyond this campaign.”1 Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, reacted contemptuously to the notion that the sheer number of colonists could overpower royal forces. “Suppose the colonies do abound in men, what does that signify? They are raw, undisciplined, cowardly men.”2 George Germain, secretary for the American colonies, cherished the hope that all that was needed was a “decisive blow.”3 What was required was a show of force so huge and terrifying that the deluded colonists would tremble at the assembled might of the British Empire.
While Great Britain did have a respectable army, it paled beside those of France, Austria, and Prussia. It was the Royal Navy that was peerless in Europe, and New York Harbor was a big enough basin to absorb this giant fleet. Awaiting these ships, Washington had his men strain every nerve to detect their arrival, even sleeping with their arms and “ready to turn out at a minute’s notice.”4 On June 29 patriotic sentries stationed on Staten Island signaled to Washington that forty British ships, the first installment of the fleet, had been spotted off Sandy Hook and would soon glide majestically through the Narrows. The news touched off hysterical activity in Manhattan. Writing in rapid, telegraphic style, Henry Knox informed his brother: “The city in an uproar, the alarm guns firing, the troops repairing to their posts, and everything in the height of bustle.”5
Washington had decided to make a costly (and in the end, mistaken) gamble of trying to hold New York. In fairness, it must be said that Congress had assigned a high priority to retaining the city. A day earlier Washington had issued an urgent summons to Massachusetts and Connecticut to dispatch militia posthaste to the city, and he now accelerated preparations for an imminent British attack, having his men pile up sandbags everywhere. Faced with incessant work, the tireless Washington noted that he was “employed from the hour of my rising till I retire to bed again.”6 Prompted by fear, a tremendous exodus of women and children left New York, crossing paths with an influx of militia. “On the one hand,” wrote the Reverend Ewald Shewkirk, “everyone that could was packing up and getting away; and on the other hand country soldiers from the neighboring places came in from all sides.”7 Reflecting the parlous state of things, Washington exiled Martha to the comparative safety of Philadelphia. To make their separation tolerable, she asked Charles Willson Peale to execute a miniature watercolor of her husband clad in his blue uniform and gold epaulettes.
Until reinforcements arrived, Washington was woefully shorthanded. He had fewer than 9,000 men, with 2,000 too sick to enter combat. Meanwhile, he steeled himself for the advent of 17,000 German mercenaries who would form part of a gigantic expeditionary force—the largest of the eighteenth