Washington [178]
Of the two Hudson River stockades, Fort Washington was the more impressive, a huge pentagonal earthwork straddling the highest spot on Manhattan Island. Its defenses meandered across a rocky bluff stretching from present-day 181st to 186th streets. The fort had several significant defects. Without an internal water source, it had to rely on the Hudson River hundreds of feet below. Built on solid rock, it scarcely possessed any topsoil from which to dig trenches, and it lacked such rudimentary amenities as a powder magazine, palisades, or barracks. Its guns, permanently trained on the Hudson River, couldn’t pivot to deal with land-based threats. Worst of all, it held only twelve hundred men and could not shelter the three thousand patriot soldiers who might need to seek asylum there. Most soldiers had to be posted outside the defensive perimeter, defeating the very idea of a fortress.
On November 5 three British ships again mocked the defenses of the two Hudson forts, passing by unharmed. Three days later Washington wrote to Nathanael Greene, who was in charge of the forts, and questioned the wisdom of retaining Fort Washington: “If we cannot prevent vessels passing up . . . what valuable purpose can it answer to attempt to hold a post from which the expected benefit cannot be had? I am therefore inclined to think it will not be prudent to hazard the men and stores at Mount Washington, but, as you are on the spot, leave it to you to give such orders as to evacuating Mount Washington as you judge best.”8 The letter bespoke tremendous confidence in Greene, at a time when a skeptical Washington should have been more autocratic; he should never have delegated such a crucial decision to an inexperienced general. One suspects that, in losing New York City, his self-confidence had suffered serious damage and that he had temporarily lost the internal fortitude to obey his instincts.
Oblivious to imminent danger, Greene regarded Fort Washington as an impregnable stronghold and thought it would be bloody folly for the British to attempt to take it. Should the worst happen, he reasoned, he could easily transfer troops to Fort Lee. Misled by these baseless assumptions, he ignored Washington’s advice to empty Fort Washington of its rich store of supplies. Unknown to American commanders, a deserter named William Demont had defected to the British on November 2 and not only delivered a blueprint of Fort Washington but reported “great dissensions” and low morale in the rebel army.9
Washington worried that his army might simply melt into nothingness. The men were shivering with cold, ravenous for food, and prey to one malady after another. With many enlistments set to expire in late November, Washington forbade officers from “discharging any officer or soldier or giving any permission to leave the camp on any pretense whatsoever,” as if he wanted to bolt his troops in place.10 So many soldiers were giving up that one Washington aide described the roads as thick with ragged men “returning to their homes in the most scandalous and infamous manner.”11 While wishful thinkers in the Continental Army thought Howe might retreat into winter quarters in New York, Washington knew he might besiege Fort Washington. More likely, he believed Howe would race across New Jersey and try to pounce on Philadelphia. From his letters, it is clear that Washington was preoccupied with this imagined British threat, reflected in the fact that he himself took command of two thousand men in New Jersey. He left Greene in charge of Forts Washington and Lee; had General William Heath guard the Hudson Highlands with several thousand men; and assigned Charles Lee to protect the approach to New England with seven thousand men.
On the evening of November 13 Washington held a rendezvous with General Greene at his Fort Lee headquarters. Far from taking Washington’s hint to downgrade Fort Washington, Greene had pursued the opposite tack, pouring in more troops and supplies. A chorus of staff officers, led by Joseph Reed, pleaded with Washington to