Harlem Heights

The Battle of Harlem Heights...
and a  short ..very short... history of the Revolutionary War.


The image above is from  a plaque at Bernard College on the campus of the greater Columbia University, New York City,  located in what is known today as Morningside Heights between Morningside Park, Riverside Park, and West Harlem, but known then, in 1776,  as Harlem Heights.

This site offered George Washington defensible ground and a commanding view of Manhattan Island to the south. It enabled him to track the movement of the regrouping military force, under the command of British General William Howe, after it humiliated his Continental Army, in the first battles in the defense of the port of New York, first on Long Island, and again decisively at Kipps Bay (around today's 57th street) on the west bank of the East River across from Brooklyn Heights.

In the mid 1770s the British Parliament insisted on its right to tax American colonists to finance the American colonies' military defense, which had become increasingly expensive due to the French and Indian Wars. 

Benjamin Franklin characterized  this as 'taxation without representation' when he appeared before the House of Commons in London. In 1775 a new tax resulted in the Tea Party, during which chests of tea were thrown overboard, Boston occupied by the 'redcoats' which eventually led to the  initial battles of the revolutionary war  at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. Paul Revere's famous ride occurred during this time when alerted the Minutemen of Concord that the "British were coming" to seize the colonial armories.

The Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in July, 1776 and appointed George Washington as commander of an almost non existent Continental army, mostly militia troops from New England especially Massachusetts. The representatives of the 13 colonies at that Congress in Philadelphia supported going to war; but the colonial legislatures were more evenly divided between loyalists and revolutionaries and refused to fully support the new army, rather choosing to enlarge and equip its local militia...the idea of a standing colonial-wide Army being anathema.

British Minster for the Colonies Lord George Germain wanted a single smashing blow to break the back of the rebellion, but many others in the government were less enamored of brute force arguing that independence was not widely supported among the colonists and if British forces...the Navy and the Army... showed up in strength the war effort in the colonies would lose its momentum and order could be restored with much less loss of life and treasure and less residual animosity from the colonists.

While other better knowns declined the opportunity to lead the British military assault on the colonies, brothers William and Richard Howe foresaw an opportunity to reach a political settlement and a start on the steps to a more significant political future for themselves.

This view dictated the strategy that led the Howes to allow Washington to escape to White Plains, when a follow-up landing at Kings Bridge...which crossed the Harlem River...on the road to Westchester.... would have encircled the entire Continental Army on Manhattan Island and, many historian believe, brought the war to an immediate end in that first summer of 1776.

Instead none of the events forecast by the Howes occurred....the loyalist devotion and numbers were less, the determination of the insurrectionists was greater and Washington was luckier.

Washington, thereafter conserved his forces, avoided direct large scale confrontations with the British, survived the Winter at Valley Forge and the failures of the legislatures of the 13 colonies to provide mens and money. The British always used their navy as back-up to the land forces and so its strategy  forced its army into limited coastal incursions. 

The loyalist forces the British hoped would form and join the British did not materialize. Cornwallis landed on the coast in Savannah and fought skirmishes with Nathanael Greene commanding general of the Continental Armies in the South. (recall the movie ..the Patriot.)

In the meantime Britain confronted France in Europe and the colonies were gaining support of the French as Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams pleaded a case.

Finally Washington cornered Cornwallis against the Yorktown River and with field commanders Lafayette,  Alexander Hamilton, the Compte de Rochambeau and thousands of French troops, and especially De Grasse's French fleet from the West Indies which blocked the British fleet from New York,  forced a surrender and an end to the War.

And the 'tipping point' may have been the Battle of Harlem Heights.