Washington [168]
As storm clouds dispersed the next morning, British light infantry and grenadiers began trickling ashore at Gravesend Bay, at the southwestern corner of Long Island. By day’s end, 15,000 redcoats had established a solid beachhead in the kind of well-drilled maneuver at which European armies excelled. This main invading force would soon number 22,000 soldiers, but Washington, deceived by faulty intelligence, estimated it in the neighborhood of 8,000 or 9,000 men. The miscalculation led him to misconstrue the landing as a diversion from the main event in Manhattan—“a feint upon Long island to draw our forces into that quarter.”6 He was further led astray when British forces came to a dead halt at Flatbush, three miles from American lines. Retaining the majority of his men in Manhattan, Washington transferred ten battalions to Brooklyn, bringing total troop strength there to a paltry 6,000 men. In retrospect, it is hard to see how Washington’s strategic vision could have been so clouded as ninety British ships conducted a grand-scale movement in the Narrows.
On August 23, after touring his Long Island defenses with General Sullivan, Washington decided to deploy 3,000 men farther south in a wooded, hilly area called the Heights of Guana (or Gowanus Heights), which ran roughly east-west and could cut off any northward thrusts by the enemy. With his men about to clash with superior forces, Washington suggested that courage could outweigh sheer numbers and implored them to show “what a few brave men, contending in their own land and in the best of causes, can do against base hirelings and mercenaries.”7 Just in case noble principles didn’t work, Washington reiterated that any cowards who fled would be shot. His own jitters became palpable when he promoted Israel Putnam over Sullivan, a panicky rotation of generals that exposed the flimsy command structure of the Continental Army. So murky was the situation that nobody quite knew how many American soldiers were based on Long Island. George Washington, age forty-four, was betraying his inexperience in guiding such a large army.
When a favorable wind arose, Washington imagined that the British would squeeze the Americans with a pincerlike movement, with British soldiers on Long Island swarming up toward Brooklyn Heights while British ships moved en masse toward southern Manhattan. On August 25 he again scrutinized the Long Island troops and was enraged by what he saw—something more like a crazy carnival atmosphere than a tidy military camp. Men roamed around higgledy-piggledy and fired muskets at random. Frustrated, he gave a tongue-lashing to Israel Putnam: “The distinction between a well regulated army and a mob is the good order and discipline of the first, and the licentious and disorderly behavior of the latter.”8 In his writings, Old Put seemed scarcely literate, once telling “his Excelancy ginrol Washenton” that he had asked “each ginrol ofesor [each general officer]” to transmit to him his “opinon in riteng [opinion in writing].” 9 Putnam’s shaky command of English highlighted the difficulties Washington encountered in forming a competent officer corps.
On August 26, after visiting the Heights of Guana, Washington still didn’t grasp the full scope of the threat. Though he surveyed the British troops through his spyglass and observed a sea of white tents stretching nearly five miles down to Gravesend Bay, he still kept more than half his men in Manhattan. Only when British ships retreated back down the Narrows did the uncomfortable truth dawn on him. As he informed Hancock, the enemy “mean to land the main body of their army on Long Island and to make their grand push there.”10 Incredibly, with the vast British expeditionary force set to pounce, Washington took time out to write to Lund Washington about selling a flour shipment in Hispaniola. He rambled on about chimney repairs and additions to the northern wing of the Mount Vernon mansion. Such incongruous thoughts confirm that Washington found a release