02:35 PM EDT on Tuesday, June 6, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

All day on the 28th of August 1776, it rained. A chill northeasterly wind continued to blow, and the Americans hemmed in behind the forts of Brooklyn spent a miserable day of it -- 9,000 men crowded together, ankle deep in rain.

At headquarters across the river in New York, Washington decided that Brooklyn was now indefensible. He had to get those 9,000 miserable men back across the East River before the wind shifted, allowing English warships to move up and cut off their retreat.

Moving 9,000 men across a mile-wide river with 20,000 enemy soldiers poised to attack from the front was risky. If the British knew that the Americans were turning their backs and fleeing, they could attack their exposed flank. Washington hoped to use the cover of darkness to sneak his men off Long Island without the British knowing. He put John Glover in charge of the boats.

Glover, a stocky redhead from Marblehead, Mass., led a brigade of fellow fishermen, men who had grown up catching cod from dories in the fog of Stellwagen Banks. These men knew how to handle a boat. Throughout the night they passed back and forth across the river's current, ferrying men and cattle and cannon. Dawn's light almost blew their cover, but a change in the weather cloaked their retreat. The wind died, and the river valley filled with a fog so thick that they could not see 20 feet. Glover's men silently rowed boats full of men, horses and cannon to the Manhattan shore.

Later as the fog lifted, British Gen. William Howe discovered that his prey had flown from Brooklyn.

Charles Stedman, a British Army officer and historian, marveled: "Driven to the corner of an island, hemmed in within a narrow space of two square miles, in their front near 20,000 men, in their rear, an arm of the sea a mile wide they secured a retreat without the loss of man."

Greene's sickness

The Americans had lived to fight another day, but their narrow escape from Long Island brought no joy. A pastor called to New York on Aug. 30, 1776, noted that the troops walking up from the ferry looked "sickly, emaciated, cast down etc.; the wet clothes, tents and other things were lying about before the houses and in the streets to dry."

The "merry tones on drums and fifes had ceased."

Nathanael Greene, who had nearly died of fever, was still bedridden and deeply distressed.

Gracious God! to be confined at such a time, he wrote his brother, Jacob, on the 30th. And the misfortune is doubly great as there was no general officer who had made himself as acquainted with the ground as perfectly as I had. I have not the vanity to think the event would have been otherwise had I been there, yet I think I could have given the commanding general a good deal of necessary information.

Greene was too modest to say it, but others said it for him: If he had been in command on Long Island, there's no way the British would have taken it so easily. With 20,000 men versus Greene's 9,000, they probably would have succeeded in taking Long Island. But Greene made it a habit to study topography, and he did know the ground "perfectly." He would not have left a pass through the highlands undefended. He might have made the British pay dearly for Long Island, the way they had paid a steep price for Boston's Bunker Hill.

"Greene's sickness, I conjecture, has been the cause [of the enemy's] stealing a march on us," John Adams wrote.

And Brig. Gen. Henry Knox felt "had General Greene been fit for duty I I flatter myself things would have worn a very different appearance at present."

'Heaven born genius'

The appearance things wore at present was ugly indeed. New York, surrounded by water, was impossible to defend without a navy, and America had virtually none. Greene wanted to withdraw from Manhattan and from all of New York Island; yet Washington resolved to defend the city. Greene tried to change his mind.

I give it as my oppinion that a General and speedy Retreat is absolutely necessary and that the honnor and Interest of America requires it Greene wrote Washington on Sept. 5. I would burn the City and Subburbs . . . .

Washington agreed that if forced to retreat, the Americans should torch the city to keep it from providing a winter haven to the British troops. Congress disagreed and ordered "that no damage be done to the said city" by retreating troops.

No one was listening to Greene, still sick and mostly bedridden. At a Sept. 7 meeting of the general officers, a majority agreed to try to hold New York City with a force of 5,000 men. Greene was so upset by this decision that he circulated a petition to reconsider what he felt was the folly of trying to hold off 30,000 British with an army of 5,000.

The Situation of the Army under your Excellency's Command is, in our Opinion, so critical and dangerous that we apprehend a Board of General Officers should be immediately calld for the purpose of considering it, Greene wrote. He was the only major general who signed the petition; still, Washington agreed to hold another council of officers to reconsider, and Greene forcefully stated his case: outnumbered 6 to 1, without control of the surroundings waters, it would be a foolish risk to defend the city.

Greene carried the argument by a vote of 10 to 3.

A member of New York's Committee of Correspondence wrote to Washington's aide-de-camp: "I am much mistaken if [Greene] is not possessed of that heaven born genius which is necessary to constitute a great general."

After the vote, Washington told Congress he was now "fully convinced" that the city could not be defended; it was time to retreat from Manhattan.

This retreat did not go well. After dallying for weeks after his victory on Long Island, General Howe finally decided to press an offensive on New York at the same time the Americans had begun withdrawing from Manhattan.

To cover his troops landing at Kip's Bay, Howe ordered a fierce bombardment from ships in the East River. American militia manning the breastworks [a defensive work, usually breast high] fled in fear. Their panic spread to the troops streaming north from the city, and soldiers just dropped their arms and ran. They left 67 cannon, half of Washington's artillery.

We made a miserable and disorderly Retreat from New York, Greene reported back to Rhode Island. Panicked militia even ran from Washington, leaving "his Excellency" within Eighty Yards of the Enimy, so vext at the infamous conduct of the Troops that he sought Death rather than life.

Col. George Weedon, of Virginia, wrote that Washington "was so exasperated that he struck several officers in their flight, three times dashed his hat on the ground, and at last exclaimed, 'Good God! Have I got such troops as those?' "

The Americans lost 350 men in their flight to the north, but they regrouped on Harlem Heights, a rocky headland near the northern tip of New York Island.

Here on Harlem Heights, Nathanael Greene saw his first combat. On a scorching hot day in mid-September, an advance party of 300 British marched on the heights. Volunteers from Rhode Island and Massachusetts met the enemy head on, while a group of Virginians sent to surround the British attacked from the side.

What began as a minor skirmish grew to 4,000 troops firing on each other; according to Joseph Reed, Washington's trusted aide, he and Generals Greene and Putnam rode among their troops while bullets zinged past.

Reed conceded it was "rash and imprudent for Officers of our Rank to go into such an action," but they couldn't help themselves. Finally, after being routed on Long Island and chased across New York, the American commanders felt exhilarated at standing strong against the British forces.

The fire continued about an hour and the Enimy Retreated, Greene reported to Rhode Island's governor, Nicholas Cooke. Our people pursued them, and . . . advanced upon the plain ground without cover and Attackt them and drove them back.

By the strict accounting of body counts the skirmish at Harlem Heights was at best a draw: American casualties were around 30 dead and 100 wounded; the British and German forces lost 14 dead, 154 wounded.

But for America, Harlem Heights was a much-needed victory. The sight of redcoats turning and running from their fire lifted American morale at a time when it desperately needed a lift.

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

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

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

A continuing series.