George Washington is today remembered first for heroically leading a ragtag rebel army to world-changing triumph over the most powerful military force of his time. So it’s one of those wonderful ironies of history that this victory owed in no small part to his uncanny ability to rebound from frequent defeat.
On April 13, 1776, when he arrived in New York after successfully ousting the British from Boston, that talent was about to be put to its most severe test.
Even when the British were still in Boston, Washington was concerned for the safety of New York. He stayed in Massachusetts for a short time after the siege played out, as enemy ships remained in the harbor for at least a week to redirect supplies from Britain. Once they were gone, he assumed that New York would be the first target of Gen. William Howe, the top British commander. So he was relieved when Howe instead moved his army to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
But Washington was right: Howe’s ultimate object indeed was the conquest of New York. The location offered such enormous strategic advantages that both sides could see what was to come next. Because it was a major port and potential naval base, taking and holding New York required sea power, which played to an area of British dominance. The Hudson River offered a highway north toward Lake Champlain and Canada, creating the potential to cut off New England from the rest of the colonies. Furthermore, the city and the areas of the Lower Hudson were thought to be centers of loyalist support. Lord George Germain, the British secretary of state for America, said “as long as you maintained New York the continent was divided.” John Adams described New York as “a kind of key to the whole continent.”
The British arrived less than three months after Washington. By late June, his Continental Army was confronted by an invasion force larger than the population of Philadelphia, then the biggest city in America. Washington’s 19,000 troops were dwarfed by Howe’s force of 32,000.
Beginning with his army’s defeat and near capture on Long Island in late August, Washington was to lose most of his battles against Howe, though he finally managed to stem the relentless advance of the British with victories at Trenton on the day after Christmas and a few days later at Princeton.
Other than the 1777 campaign to defend Philadelphia, Washington would spend much of the war in and around New York. He expected the outcome to be decided there. While in Boston, he predicted that enthusiasm and support for the revolutionary cause would wane after a year, which proved true. The Revolution was never a linear war but one of ebbs and flows.