On the night of the 29th of August there was clear moonlight, with fog towards daybreak.A British army of twenty-five thousand men was only some six hundred yards from the American lines.Afew miles from the shore lay at anchor a great British fleet with, it is to be presumed, its patrols on the alert.Yet, during that night, ten thousand American troops were marched down to boats on the strand at Brooklyn and, with all their stores, were carried across a mile of water to New York.There must have been the splash of oars and the grating of keels, orders given in tones above a whisper, the complex sounds of moving bodies of men.It was all done under the eye of Washington.We can picture that tall figure moving about on the strand at Brooklyn, which he was the last to leave.Not a sound disturbed the slumbers of the British.An army in retreat does not easily defend itself.Boats from the British fleet might have brought panic to the Americans in the darkness and the British army should at least have known that they were gone.By seven in the morning the ten thousand American soldiers were for the time safe in New York, and we may suppose that the two Howes were asking eager questions and wondering how it had all happened.
Washington had shown that he knew when and how to retire.Long Island was his first battle and he had lost.Now retreat was his first great tactical achievement.He could not stay in New York and so sent at once the chief part of the army, withdrawn from Brooklyn, to the line of the Harlem River at the north end of the island.He realized that his shore batteries could not keep the British fleet from sailing up both the East and the Hudson Rivers and from landing a force on Manhattan Island almost where it liked.Then the city of New York would be surrounded by a hostile fleet and a hostile army.The Howes could have performed this maneuver as soon as they had a favorable wind.There was, we know, great confusion in New York, and Washington tells us how his heart was torn by the distress of the inhabitants.The British gave him plenty of time to make plans, and for a reason.
We have seen that Lord Howe was not only an admiral to make war but also an envoy to make peace.The British victory on Long Island might, he thought, make Congress more willing to negotiate.So now he sent to Philadelphia the captured American General Sullivan, with the request that some members of Congress might confer privately on the prospects for peace.
Howe probably did not realize that the Americans had the British quality of becoming more resolute by temporary reverses.By this time, too, suspicion of every movement on the part of Great Britain had become a mania.Every one in Congress seems to have thought that Howe was planning treachery.John Adams, excepted by name from British offers of pardon, called Sullivan a "decoy duck" and, as he confessed, laughed, scolded, and grieved at any negotiation.The wish to talk privately with members of Congress was called an insulting way of avoiding recognition of that body.
In spite of this, even the stalwart Adams and the suave Franklin were willing to be members of a committee which went to meet Lord Howe.With great sorrow Howe now realized that he had no power to grant what Congress insisted upon, the recognition of independence, as a preliminary to negotiation.There was nothing for it but war.
On the 15th of September the British struck the blow too long delayed had war been their only interest.New York had to sit nearly helpless while great men-of-war passed up both the Hudson and the East River with guns sweeping the shores of Manhattan Island.At the same time General Howe sent over in boats from Long Island to the landing at Kip's Bay, near the line of the present Thirty-fourth Street, an army to cut off the city from the northern part of the island.Washington marched in person with two New England regiments to dispute the landing and give him time for evacuation.To his rage panic seized his men and they turned and fled, leaving him almost alone not a hundred yards from the enemy.A stray shot at that moment might have influenced greatly modern history, for, as events were soon to show, Washington was the mainstay of the American cause.He too had to get away and Howe's force landed easily enough.Meanwhile, on the west shore of the island, there was an animated scene.The roads were crowded with refugees fleeing northward from New York.
These civilians Howe had no reason to stop, but there marched, too, out of New York four thousand men, under Israel Putnam, who got safely away northward.Only leisurely did Howe extend his line across the island so as to cut off the city.The story, not more trustworthy than many other legends of war, is that Mrs.
Murray, living in a country house near what now is Murray Hill, invited the General to luncheon, and that to enjoy this pleasure he ordered a halt for his whole force.Generals sometimes do foolish things but it is not easy to call up a picture of Howe, in the midst of a busy movement of troops, receiving the lady's invitation, accepting it, and ordering the whole army to halt while he lingered over the luncheon table.There is no doubt that his mind was still divided between making war and making peace.
Probably Putnam had already got away his men, and there was no purpose in stopping the refugees in that flight from New York which so aroused the pity of Washington.As it was Howe took sixty-seven guns.By accident, or, it is said, by design of the Americans themselves, New York soon took fire and one-third of the little city was burned.
