Washington: A Life

Four miles north, in the Dutch village of Harlem, George Washington heard “a most severe and heavy ca

Colonel George Weedon says that Washington grew so distraught that “he struck several officers in their flight.”47 It is extraordinary to think of Washington flogging officers amid a battle—a measure of his impotent frustration and shattered nerves. Finally he was stranded alone on the battlefield with his aides, his troops having fled in fright. Most astonishingly, Washington on horseback stared frozen as fifty British soldiers started to dash toward him from eighty yards away. Seeing his strangely catatonic state, his aides rode up beside him, grabbed the reins of his horse, and hustled him out of danger. In this bizarre conduct, Nathanael Greene saw a suicidal impulse, contending that Washington was “so vexed at the infamous conduct of his troops that he sought death rather than life.”48 Weedon added the compelling detail that only with difficulty did Washington’s colleagues “get him to quit the field, so great was his emotions.”49 It was a moment unlike any other in Washington’s career, a fleeting emotional breakdown amid battle.

Once again General Howe tardily pursued the Americans, enabling Washington to evacuate almost all of his men safely to Harlem Heights. Nonetheless Howe had bagged a great prize, a city that would serve as a perfect British headquarters for the duration of the war. For all his valor, Washington had again been caught off guard and he smarted from the bitter defeat. He would spend the rest of the war trying to avenge the loss of New York and dreaming of its recapture. Moreover, the day had provided fresh proof of how skittish his men were, officers and infantry alike.

The next day Washington’s spirits were lifted by a skirmish in the Harlem woods as a corps of rangers under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton probed British positions. At one point, as these rangers retreated, the British soldiers taunted them, blowing a bugle with a sound used in foxhunting to signify the end of the chase. “I never felt such a sensation before,” wrote Joseph Reed. “It seemed to crown our disgrace.”50 It was a clever, if cruel, way to jangle the nerves of the squire of Mount Vernon. Reed, who could be unfairly critical of Washington, claimed that the commander was still sunk in a terrible funk from the day before, his will paralyzed, and had to be “prevailed upon” to capitalize upon the situation.51 In fact, Washington reacted to the British provocation with fighting spirit. His honor insulted, he sent into the fray Virginia riflemen and Knowlton’s rangers, 1,800 men in all, who chased the British troops from the field in what became known as the Battle of Harlem Heights. Although both sides counted about 150 casualties, Washington scored a small but timely victory that buoyed his downtrodden men, and his aide Tench Tilghman said that the American troops “gave a hurra[h] and left the field in good order.”52

While congratulating his revived troops, Washington couldn’t resist taking a swipe at their less glorious conduct at Kip’s Bay: “The behavior of yesterday was such a contrast to that of some troops the day before as must show what may be done where officers and soldiers will exert themselves.”53 It was his way of stressing courage in warfare. Washington oscillated between severity and mercy toward his men. When a Co

On the windy night of September 20, a mysterious fire started around midnight at the southern tip of Manhattan and burned until dawn, consuming most of the town between Broadway and the Hudson River. Trinity Church caught fire and collapsed in a thunderous crash. St. Paul’s Chapel was spared only by the timely action of brave citizens on the roof, who smothered glowing embers blown there. Even at Harlem Heights, more than ten miles away, Washington saw the billowing smoke and huge showers of sparks, which surrounded the city with a luminous glow. “Providence, or some good honest fellow, has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves,” he responded.56 The raging conflagration created pandemonium in the city. “The shrieks and cries of the women and children . . . made this one of the most tremendous and affecting scenes I ever beheld,” said an eyewitness.57 By the next morning the fire had destroyed five hundred houses, a good quarter of the town. In relating this incident to Lord Germain, William Tryon noted that no fire bells rang that night and that “many circumstances lead to conjecture that Mr. Washington was privy to this villainous act as he sent all the bells of the churches out of town under pretense of casting them into ca

On a sleepless night after the Battle of Harlem Heights, Washington renewed his pleas to John Hancock for long-term enlistments, saying that the unceasing turnover of men, reliance on unseasoned militia, and lack of discipline kept his mind “constantly upon the stretch.”59 Without decent pay for officers and men alike, nothing could be accomplished. Everything remained in scandalously short supply—tents, kettles, blankets, clothing. When visited by a congressional delegation, Washington snapped that he “never had officers, except in a few instances, worth the bread they eat.”60 No less than Washington, Henry Knox believed that only a standing army could defeat the British and that the current army had become “a receptacle for ragamuffins.”61 Prodded by Washington, Congress agreed to give twenty dollars and one hundred acres of land to anyone who signed up for the duration of the war. For Washington, the benefit was partly nullified by a decision to continue to allow state politicians to appoint officers for their own regiments, wresting power from his hands and making officers of men “not fit to be shoeblacks.”62