Evacuation of Long Island
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY
30-31 AUGUST 1776
EVACUATION OF LONG ISLAND
Boston, the hotbed of colonial rebellion, became the British Army’s North American headquarters in the mid-1770s. But after GEN George Washington emplaced cannon in the Dorchester Heights overlooking that city in March 1776, British MGEN William Howe quit Boston in favor of New York. Washington followed overland, crossing to the woodlands and farms of Long Island. Here he set up defenses across the East River from New York city proper, then occupying only the southern end of Manhattan Island. Howe set up his base of operations on New York Harbor’s sparsely populated Staten Island, from whence he launched his 32,000-strong army against Washington on 22 August. Quietly, the bulk of the British forces out-flanked Washington’s positions, while the Royal Navy attempted to enter and hold the East River. This maneuver would trap Washington in a pincers action. But contrary winds held British warships out of the East River, while Washington’s 10,000-man army regrouped and dug in at the Brooklyn Heights, at the site of the East River ferry landing. Howe was wary of the carnage suffered in assaulting fortified positions at Bunker Hill and chose this time to besiege the Americans. And while sappers dug trenches around the Brooklyn Heights on August 28th, Washington recognized escape across the East River and north up Manhattan Island was his only option.
But evacuating under Howe’s nose, in front of the British Navy, would be difficult. Washington turned to COL John Glover’s 14th and COL Israel Hutchinson’s 27th Continental Infantry Regiments. Both units were comprised of fishermen and sailors from Massachusetts. Under utmost secrecy these seasoned mariners commandeered every available boat in the area. Even Washington’s soldiers were kept in the dark, being told only to be ready to march on the 30th as they would be relieved by reserve troops.
At 2200 this night, the evacuation began. Campfires were left burning in the Brooklyn Heights as Glover’s men loaded soldiers, horses, cannon, and supplies into Durham flat-bottomed ore boats. Working throughout the short summer night, the Massachusetts mariners made crossing after crossing of the one-mile-wide river. To complicate matters, headwinds prevented employment of several sailing sloops. Nervous eyes scanned the horizon for the first hint of dawn while Glover’s tars struggled on. Thousands of men and tons of equipment had been moved by daybreak. But the rising sun caught the operation unfinished! Miraculously, a heavy morning fog shielded Glover’s boats from British eyes for several more hours, and the last of Washington’s army was whisked to safety. Not a boat or a man was lost, and Washington’s army lived to fight another day.
Watch for a related story 18 October…
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
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Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 110.
Griffith, Samuel B., III. The War for American Independence. Urbanna, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2002, pp. 301-07.
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Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2005, pp. 345-53.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, pp. 2-3.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: British pickets were shocked to find the American lines abandoned on the morning of the 31st. Washington had escaped with his army intact, preventing a reverse that would likely have ended the rebellion on the spot. Later this same year Glover would reprise this remarkable night amphibious feat, ferrying Washington’s army across the Delaware River on Christmas night before the victory at Trenton. BGEN John Glover is remembered today with the Cold War research destroyer GLOVER (AGDE-1). Israel Hutchinson has not yet been remembered with a warship, the WWII patrol frigate Hutchinson (PF-45) recognizes a city in central Kansas.
William Howe was the youngest of three brothers and was well acquainted with British military activities in North America. His father, Emmanuel Howe, had been governor of Barbados, and his oldest brother, George, was killed during our French and Indian War while serving as a General Officer in the British Army. William’s second brother, Admiral Richard “Black Dick” Howe, commanded British naval forces in the colonies during our Revolution.