When most Americans think of George Washington, they don’t think of New York City. But as the nation observes its semi-quincentennial this year, it’s worth recalling a crucial moment in the American struggle for independence when the nation’s greatest city offered a dramatic proving ground for its greatest citizen.
Washington was headquartered in New York on July 4, 1776, preparing to defend it against the British, when the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence. Soon afterward, the British responded with a massive expeditionary force that sailed into New York Harbor. On August 27, it routed the Continental Army in the Battle of Long Island (in what is now Brooklyn). The Americans suffered 300 casualties and 1,000 men captured. The rest of Washington’s army, about 9,000 men, were holed up in Brooklyn Heights. Only the desire of the victorious commander, William Howe, to avoid losses to his troops kept the British from storming American defenses. American independence hung by a thread.
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Washington had made many mistakes in the New York campaign, but he redeemed himself with his next move: he decided to try to evacuate his army to Manhattan. On August 29, a flotilla of small boats ferried the army across the river in a nightlong operation that Washington personally supervised. The effort lasted until the early hours of the next morning. The Americans got help from the weather: a strong wind kept the British fleet from entering the East River from the south, where it had anchored, and a sudden fog kept the evacuation hidden from enemy eyes.
The results astonished the British. “The Rebels have disappeared,” one officer wrote to a friend in London. “They have vanished in the night like a dream.” On August 31, Washington wrote to Congress: “Our Retreat was made without any Loss of Men or Ammunition and in better order than I expected from Troops in the situation ours were.”
Pulling a defeated army together is one of a general’s hardest tasks. Washington joined a select group of commanders in history who refused to take part in a retreat until every combatant was evacuated. Only after a long, anxious night in which the rowboats plied back and forth across the East River did Washington step in to the last boat.
In New York, Washington had told his men that “the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend[ed]” on them. He meant it, as did his peers. When General Thomas Mifflin proposed the retreat at a council of war, he insisted that his regiment serve as its rear guard—the most dangerous position—because anything else would have stained his honor.
After getting out of Brooklyn, Washington soon withdrew from Manhattan, too, retreating south into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By keeping the Continental Army intact, he foiled the British plan to quarantine the rebellion in New England, where it started. On September 20–21, a fire burned most of New York City (then concentrated in the southern tip of Manhattan), reducing the usefulness of the port city as a British stronghold. Some speculate that Washington was behind the blaze, though he denied it, and no evidence has ever tied him to it. On Christmas Night 1776, Washington made his famous crossing of the Delaware and led his men in defeating the Hessians at Trenton, followed by another victory at Princeton early in the new year. The Revolution, and Washington’s honor, were alive and well. The war would drag on for years more, but the Americans had survived a close brush with defeat.
“Wars are not won by evacuations,” Winston Churchill would later say of Dunkirk—but American independence could certainly have been lost without the escape from Brooklyn in August 1776. In 1951, the U.S. Post Office issued a stamp showing Washington on horseback pointing the way across the East River to his troops, lining up to cross on boats. The legend on the stamp reads “Washington Saves His Army at Brooklyn.” Today, the feat is often forgotten or overshadowed by more traditionally triumphant moments from the Revolutionary War. But as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence, we should remember that before George Washington could lead America to victory at Yorktown, he had first to save it from defeat in New York.
