Yet I don’t think it was just that the General used smart military tactics at Boston. It was how he knitted the forces from many states together. I told you how he broke up the brawl between the Massachusetts and Virginia regiments. I vividly remember another incident that showed the General’s political rather than military touch. When the British evacuated, and the General had sent a letter congratulating the Congress, the General let Massachusetts’ General Ward lead his regiments into Boston while the General and other troops trailed behind. Massachusetts’ troops exulted, but the citizens of Boston knew to whom they owed their rescue and newfound freedom, and influential citizens like Abigail Adams, whose house in nearby Braintree had shaken with the cannon blasts, marveled and spread exaggerated tales of the General’s modesty. I can assure you the General was not modest. I never saw a man more vain about his public appearance and public perception. He just appreciated that the citizens would view him more favorably if he appeared modest.
The General retained this humble demeanor—and his sense of humor—when Harvard, no longer a hotbed of loyalist professors, gave him an honorary degree. Since I believe it was the first degree Harvard ever gave to a military officer, it just further enhanced the General’s reputation for modesty. After the entry to Boston, we attended a church service where we heard a sermon on Exodus by the Reverend Abiel Leonard comparing us to the ancient Israelites and implying again that the General was Moses. The General sat quietly in his square pew, surrounded by the joy and admiration of men and minister.
II. DISASTER IN NEW YORK
The unfortunate aftermath of the victory at Boston was that it raised expectations—many congressmen and their constituents expected quick, bloodless victories that would end the war. They were soon to be disillusioned by the campaign in New York. By the end of that campaign, the British appeared to be on the verge of winning the war, and the General’s reputation appeared to be in tatters.
When the British sailed out of Boston for Halifax, most everyone expected that after refitting, the British navy would return to New York with troop reinforcements. It was understood that the Continental Army would move down to New York to meet them. The General was dubious about defending New York City. In a complete reversal of the situation in Boston, the British would not be bottled up; they would have the ability to strike whenever and wherever they wanted. Not only would the British have a large numerical advantage but they would have us surrounded rather than vice versa.
“Josiah,” the General muttered to me one afternoon after all the British troops had departed Boston, “certainly we don’t want the British to move from New York up the Hudson and cut off New England from the rest of our states, but the city itself means very little. Besides, it is probably the most Tory-infested city in America. I would prefer to draw the British army out of the city into the interior and fight them with Indian tactics to maximize our own advantages. Eventually, the Parliament will tire of the war, and we will prevail.”
Yet the Congress was still dictating military strategy and believed it was important to morale that every major city should be defended.
Later, the General confessed to me that he should have resisted Congress. “Goodness knows, Josiah, that in the last war I carried out foolish plans by Governor Dinwiddie and always paid a price.” I assumed he was referring to his decision to move ahead to Fort Necessity back in the 1750s without a full complement of troops, thus leading to that embarrassing surrender. “Josiah, we shall not let governors or Congress do this to us again.”
What the Congress and the General did not know was that the British soon would appear off New York City, reinforced from London with hundreds more ships than left Boston and almost twenty thousand additional troops, including thousands of hired Hessian soldiers, who were among the finest professional fighting men in Europe.
General Charles Lee had been dispatched by the General to New York to draw up a defensive plan. The problem was that when you defend everything, you defend nothing, something the General should have realized. The British ships soon appeared and dominated the waters around the city. Much time in endless councils was spent trying to decide where the British would strike. A large number of our outnumbered and little-trained troops were concentrated in Long Island, but many troops were stationed in Manhattan and New Jersey. The General remained in Manhattan. The British landed in Long Island, made short work of American defenses, and easily drove our troops back with huge casualties.
When the General and I crossed the East River to Long Island and moved inland, we were met by thousands of fleeing troops. It was a scene I was to see frequently during the war: American troops fleeing their better-armed, better-trained, and more numerous adversaries and the General riding full bore ahead on Old Nelson trying to rally his officers and men.
A semblance of order was restored, and night fell with thousands of American troops backed up against the East River awaiting annihilation in the morning. What then took place was that combination of providential intervention, American inventiveness, and generalship in the face of adversity that characterized the turning of routs into marginal defeats during the war.
The General quickly decided that to leave his battered troops until morning would invite obliteration. “Defense where there is no prospect of victory and no place to retreat to, Josiah, is doomed to failure,” the General said to me on many occasions, and while I do not recall, that might have been the first time. In the midst of a pelting rain, the General called on the mariners and fishermen from Massachusetts to commandeer all the barges and small boats possible and move five thousand of our troops across the East River in the middle of the night and early morning.