12:09 PM EDT on Monday, June 5, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

On March 31, 1776, one of those springtime fogs rolled in off Rhode Island Sound and blanketed Newport. Three American sentinels stationed near Brenton Point peered into the sifting fabric of fog, and convinced each other that they saw the sails of 27 ships standing straight for Newport.

Rhode Island Gov. Nicholas Cooke sent an express rider up the Post Road to Cambridge to spread the alarm to George Washington: the British fleet that had recently evacuated Boston was poised to invade Rhode Island.

Washington urged Gen. Nathanael Greene, camped with his army outside Boston, to "hasten his march" for Rhode Island. Greene put his troops on the road, only to learn from a chagrined Governor Cooke that the alarm had been false: the sentinels had mistaken the shifting coils of fog as moving sails.

Journal graphic / Tom Murphy

Greene in Brooklyn: Before General Greene fell ill, he commanded a string of forts protecting Brooklyn Heights that would prove crucial in the coming battle of Long Island.

Still, with the British gone from Boston, Greene kept his troops on the march toward Rhode Island.

Forcing the British to quit Boston felt great; but strategically it didn't mean much. Whoever held the city of New York would control the country; leaders on both sides believed that.

John Adams called New York "a kind of key to the whole continent," with the Hudson River serving as the key slot. Whoever controlled that river would have water access up to Lake Champlain and beyond, all the way to the St. Lawrence River.

Control of the water was pivotal; none of life's staples, from fish to flour, could be moved in requisite bulk by ox teams over rutted roads. Anything that moved in large quantities had to move by ship.

If the British controlled New York, at the head of the Hudson, they could shut it off to shipping, neatly severing the rebellious provinces of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts from the quieter regions to the south.

Tories -- people loyal to the crown -- were powerful in New York; they owned two-thirds of the city's property and commanded influence over public opinion.

If the tide of sentiment gets against us in that province, Greene wrote, it will give a fatal stab to the strength and union of the colonies.

The British commander in chief, Gen. Thomas Gage, shared Greene's assessment. And the race was on to claim New York.

The American Army had a head start: Gage, hampered by thousands of Loyalist refugees from Boston, first sailed for Halifax to drop them there and await reinforcements promised by the king.

On the march toward New York, Washington's Army passed through Greene's home state of Rhode Island. Greene wanted to make a good impression as he marched his brigades through Providence.

In his orders of April 4, 1776, which Greene dictated from camp in Providence, he ordered two regiments to turn out to morrow Morning to Escort His Excellency [George Washington] into town to parade at Eight O Clock. And None to turn out Except those who are drest [in] uniform; And those of the Non Commissioned Officers and Soldiers that turn out, to be Washd both face and hands Clean, their Beards shavd of[f], their hair combd and powdered, and their arms Cleand.

Two of Greene's regiments cleaned themselves up to parade in Providence's welcome to Washington; one regiment wore brown frock coats trimmed with fringe, the other sported uniforms of blue faced with buff. People sailed and rode into Providence from miles around to catch a glimpse of Washington and his Army racing off to New York.

Greene marched his brigades over rutted, thaw-softened roads to New London, where they boarded sailing transports for a cruise through Long Island Sound. On the night he sailed, a late winter storm whipped through, driving snow and sleet. Leaping waves swept baggage from the deck of one ship. Many turned back; the rest were scattered up and down the sound, some in danger of wrecking.

After a week of rough sailing Greene arrived in New York on April 17, 1776. The British weren't far behind.

Rhode Island's declaration

Nathanael Greene was in camp on Long Island when word reached him that on May 4, 1776, Rhode Island had declared itself independent, the first American colony to break from the crown.

[Y]ou have declared yourselves independent. Tis nobly done, Greene wrote the folks back home. God prosper you, and crown your endeavors with success.

Rhode Island's General Assembly had actually stopped short of a full declaration of independence. The members voted to stop swearing allegiance to the king in their public oaths and papers, a slight distinction meant to mollify some members of the upper house who feared a full-fledged declaration of independence. The question of independence came up because the Third Continental Congress was then debating it at Philadelphia, and Rhode Island's representatives to the congress were wondering how they should vote.

While the politicians debated the question of independence, Greene commanded three veteran brigades and two regiments on Long Island. Washington recognized that as New York was the key to the country, Long Island was the key to New York.

Washington wanted a good general to command Long Island, and he felt that Greene was up to the task.

Greene pitched his camp in "Brook Land," now known as Brooklyn. It was then a village of eight houses on the back side of a cliff rising from the East River. An advance party had built five forts linked by trenches to form an arc around Brooklyn, blocking it from an attack by land. A six-mile ridge stretched eastward away from the forts toward Long Island Sound, presenting a formidable climb to an army attacking from the beaches. All in all, Brooklyn was a relatively easy post to defend.

Uncompromising commander

Camp life on Long Island was similar to what it had been in Boston, requiring constant harangues of the troops to keep themselves and their latrines clean and orderly. New York City's "holy land" -- an infamous red-light district -- was just a ferry ride across the mile-wide East River, and the troops kept straying.

In one tongue-and-cheek order Greene told his men:

Complaints Having Been made by the Inhabitants Near the Mill Pond that Some of the Soldiers come there to swim in Open View of the Women and that they Come out of the Water and Run up Naked to the Houses with a Design to Insult and Wound the Modesty of female Decency. Tis with Concern that the General finds Himself under the Disagreeable Necessity of Expressing His disapprobation of such a Beastly Conduct. Have the troops Come Abroad for No Other Purpose than to Render themselves both Obnoxious and Ridiculous?

The taking of the Peoples Oysters out of the Beds where they have planted them is also complain'd of. The Troops are forbid to touch any for the future under such circumstances. Is not the Crime of Indecency a sufficient Vice but Robbery must be added to it?

Greene was an uncompromising commander, always badgering his troops; but letters written from Long Island to John Adams, then a man of influence in Congress, show that Greene cared about the well-being of his men. Greene asked Adams to establish a support for those that gets disabled in the army or militia. Is it not inhuman to suffer those that have fought nobly in the cause to be reduced to the necessity of geting a support by common Charity?

Congress did, months later, agree to provide pensions to veterans who could prove that their wounds happened in war, but despite Greene's efforts it did not provide any money for the widows and families of soldiers killed.

Huge British fleet

An attack was inevitable, but no one was sure where the British would strike first: New York or Long Island? Washington stayed at headquarters in Manhattan while Greene held down the forts on Long Island. He developed an alarm system to signal when the sails of British ships stood on the horizon: if six or fewer ships appeared, one large flag of red and white stripes would snap in the breeze on the Staten Island highlands; if 6 to 20 ships showed, two flags on two poles; for an armada of more than 20 ships, three striped flags on three poles.

On Saturday, June 29, all three flags flew red and white from the highlands. Ship after ship after ship coasted into a sheltered bay south of Long Island, dropping anchor. A Pennsylvania rifleman in one of Greene's brigades noted: "It looked like all London was afloat."

In a speech the previous fall, King George had pledged to send 20,000 troops to join the 10,000 already in North America. Now he was making good on that promise. The 100 ships that sailed in from Halifax on the 29th were just the first of a large fleet heading to New York, bent on annihilating the American Army.

On July 5, 1776, the day after the Congress in Philadelphia formally adopted its declaration of independence, Greene got the best intelligence on the number of ships, guns and troops that were in harbor, and what was yet to come. Through interrogation of four prisoners taken at the Narrows, Greene learned:

The fleet consists of 120 sail of Topsail vessels and that they have on board 10,000 Troops recievd at Hallifax besides some of the Scotch Brigade that have joined the fleet on the passage.

Four days before the fleet sailed from Hallifax a packet arrivd from England that brought an account of Admiral How[e']s sailing with a fleet of one hundred and fifty Sail on board of which was 20,000 Troops. The fleet sail'd a few days before the Packet. They are expected here every day.

From his prisoners Greene even learned the name of the generals sent to take New York: William Howe, Robert Pigot, Lord Hugh Percy, Daniel Jones and James Grant, the general who had boasted to Parliament that with just 5,000 men he could march across America. Two more generals, Cornwallis and Gage, also sailed for New York after their ships were driven back from an attempted landing at Charleston, S.C.

As historian Richard M. Ketchum noted in The Winter Soldiers, England was sending the largest expeditionary force ever sent from its shores: seven generals, more than 270 ships and 30,000 trained, professional soldiers to take New York. And Nathanael Greene was encamped in the bull's-eye of their target.

gcarbone@projo.com / (401) 277-7434

A continuing series.

EXTRA: Keep up with all installments in the series, Rise, and Fight Again, at:

http://projo.com/extra/2006/greene/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources for today's installment

"An Act repealing an Act entitled 'An Act for the effectual securing to His Majesty the Allegiance of His Subjects in this His Colony and Dominion of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations' and altering the Form of Commissions of all Writs and Processes in the Courts, and of the Oaths prescribed by law." Rhode Island General Assembly: May 4, 1776. R.I. Secretary of State Archives Division.

Greene, George Washington. The Life of Nathanael Greene, Vol. I. Hurd and Houghton. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1871.

Ketchum, Richard M. The Winter Soldiers. Copyright 1973. Henry Holt and Company: New York. Owl Books Edition, 1999.

McCullough, David. 1776. Simon & Schuster: New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: 2005.

Showman, Richard K., ed. The Papers of Nathanael Greene, Vol. I. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1976.