Preparations
On September 10, British troops moved from Long Island to occupy Montresor's Island, a small island at the mouth of the Harlem River. Two days later, on September 11, the Congressional delegation arrived on Staten Island and met with Admiral Lord Howe for several hours. The meeting came to nothing, as Lord Howe was not authorized to grant terms the Congressional delegation insisted on. It did, however, postpone the impending British attack, allowing Washington more time to decide if and where to confront the enemy.
In a September 12 war council, Washington and his generals made the decision to abandon New York City. Four thousand Continentals under General Israel Putnam remained to defend the city and lower Manhattan while the main army moved north to Harlem and King's Bridge. On the afternoon of September 13, major British movement started as the warships Roebuck and Phoenix, along with the frigates Orpheus and Carysfort, moved up the East River and anchored in Bushwick Creek, carrying 148 total cannons and accompanied by six troop transport ships. By September 14 the Americans were urgently moving stores of ammunition and other materiel, along with American sick, to Orangetown, New York. Every available horse and wagon was employed in what Joseph Reed described as a "grand military exertion". Scouts reported movement in the British army camps but Washington was still uncertain where the British would strike. Late that afternoon, most of the American army had moved north to King's Bridge and Harlem Heights, and Washington followed that night.
General Howe had originally planned a landing for September 13, recalling the date of James Wolfe's key landing before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. He and General Clinton disagreed on the point of attack, with Clinton arguing that a landing at King's Bridge would have cut Washington off once and for all. Howe originally wanted to make two landings, one at Kip's Bay and another at Horn's Hook, further north on the eastern shore, but struck the latter option when ship's pilots warned of the dangerous waters of the Hell Gate, where the Harlem River and waters of Long Island Sound meet the East River. After delays due to unfavorable winds, the landing, targeted for Kip's Bay, began on the morning of September 15.
Read more about this topic: Landing At Kip's Bay
Famous quotes containing the word preparations:
“The most evident difference between man and animals is this: the beast, in as much as it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future, lives only for the present. But man, because he is endowed with reason by which he is able to perceive relationships, sees the causes of things, understands the reciprocal nature of cause and effect, makes analogies, easily surveys the whole course of his life, and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete; being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and the spring, when her own taste could have fairer play.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)