“This Week in 1776” is an ongoing almanac of events from that year in the American Revolution. Be sure to check out my novel HEARTLANDERS.
The Patriots are on the run, and the Brits and Hessians aren’t letting them forget it. Washington faces the monumental task of covering his rear while making sure the army escapes Manhattan and flees north through the Hudson Valley en route to White Plains. You know that saying about tactics versus logistics? That what George was up against, coupled with the humanities aspect of motivating an army as the end of its enlistment neared.
These men spent all summer fortifying New York only to get skunked by the superior British navy in a very short period of time. Now it’s cold, they’re hungry and demoralized, and their obligations to the military are up in about ten weeks. News has probably reached them by now that the budding American navy is now sitting on the bottom of Lake Champlain, so Benedict Arnold is more or less in the same position as George Washington. Giving up is a social contagion, and carrying on is a matter of spiritual will. For that, you need an objective.
Obviously in the larger sense the objective was independence, but in the short term Washington’s focus was another staging ground for the next fight. They couldn’t run forever, and while it was getting colder outside there was still a stretch of time where the weather would permit for combat. The goal was to get to White Plains, dig in, and fortify the place for the pending arrival of General William Howe. Their forces were close in number, with the Patriots having roughly a 500-man advantage, but there was a quality gap beneath the quantity. The Brits had better training and supplies, while the Americans were low on just about every staple, and had to transport their injured besides.
When he arrived at White Plains and set up at the Jacob Purdy house, Washington primarily concerned himself with correspondence and reports, as well as the technical needs of the army, like sanitation. He new Howe was positioned at New Rochelle to the south, that he was approaching soon, and that another fight was coming. We’ll see that fight in a couple of days.
And in other news…
Without too much to report from Philly or the South, I wanted to highlight one particular figure who hasn’t come up before: Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish noble who got himself in trouble with a general’s daughter, fled to France, and eventually found his way to the budding United States where he became an engineer colonel in the Army. He would spend the next few years of the Revolution in New York building fortifications and helping with the larger war effort, before returning to France for other shenanigans in the 1780s. He’s quite the character, go read his encyclopedia entry up above.
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