This book is an excellent military history of the Revolution. The author's opening comments are that the British plan to sever the colonies by conquering the Hudson Valley, thus isolating New England, was flawed. Everyone fighting the war, and historians right up through Admiral Mahan a hundred years later, also agreed with British strategy. The flaw is the distance between New York and Canada and the length of the NE coastline. It was much more than the Royal Navy could have blockaded. I've always thought that the concept made no sense for the same reason. Montreal is 375 miles from NYC, and Quebec City, where the British were actually headquartered, was another 100 plus miles further east. It's brutally cold in the winter, and at the time, the whole distance was wilderness.
Fed up with the colonist's many and varied successful acts of insurrection in 1775, including Lexington and Concord, and Bunker Hill, George III and his first Minister, Lord North, declared war on the colonies. On June 30, 1776, a hundred and ten British vessels arrived in NY harbor. Hundreds more were to follow. The British expected meaningful support from loyalists throughout the NY region and in the deep south. The eventual lack of loyalist support doomed the Hudson River strategy. The navy would have needed collaborators to effectively hold the lengthy distance to Albany. They would never receive any help. However, the British did get off to a spectacular start by invading Brooklyn, defeating the Americans and trapping Washington in Brooklyn Heights in late August. With the East River patrolled behind the Americans, the British ground commander, General Howe, thought he had the war won. Howe's brother and overall commander, Lord Admiral Howe, also thought it was over and didn't patrol the river. Washington and 9500 men, their equipment and horses, escaped across the river in one night. Two months later, they abandoned Manhattan, fled to Westchester and eventually, New Jersey. Further north, the British couldn't even make it to Lake Champlain from Canada.There would be no severing of the colonies in 1776.
For the new year, London directed the Howe's to capture Philadelphia by land, force the Delaware River and then meet General Burgoyne, who would descend from Canada. When Howe learned that Burgoyne had already passed Ft. Ticonderoga and was less than 100 miles from Albany in early July, he headed to Philadelphia by sea. Washington confronted Howe at Brandywine Creek in Delaware. Howe won, but Washington again escaped. The British entered the capital on Sept. 26. Meanwhile, Burgoyne was stalled in New York as the American forces grew and grew. He was stopped at Bennington, crossed to the west side of the Hudson at Saratoga, and engaged an army under Horatio Gates, winning the first round but losing the second. In October, Burgoyne surrendered. Both of the Howe's resigned. Seventeen seventy-seven was another failure for the British.
At that point, the French entered the war on the side of the Americans, leading the King to order the army to withdraw from Philadelphia and return to New York. America was now secondary to saving the lucrative sugar colonies of the Indies from the French. "London was once again expecting the theatre commander to reclaim the colonies without providing the necessary troops or naval support." It was a year of moves, counter- moves, marches and almosts, but nothing strategic came to pass. By the end of 1778, both the British and French navies were in the Indies.
Desultory activity was the case again in 1779 as the British took Savannah and eyed Charleston, which was handed to them in early 1780 by equally incompetent army and navy officers. Charleston, however, was not the beginning of the King's new southern strategy. Cornwallis floundered, incited the south to guerrilla warfare, and marched his shrinking forces into Virginia in 1781. Although reinforced, Cornwallis had no real plan or strategy and allowed himself to be trapped at Yorktown. The French had fought a British relief force to a standstill off Cape Henry, Virginia, assuring that there was no saving Cornwallis. The Yorktown surrender came on Oct.19, 1881. The British would no longer take offensive actions in America. They hoped for peace without independence. The Americans would not stay in the empire. The Treaty of Paris granted America full independence and generous borders.
For NY, home to the British occupation and a Tory stronghold, it was a bitter blow. Tens of thousands dispossessed Tories left for Canada. Evacuation Day came on Nov. 25, 1783. It was celebrated in NY until 1916.
The outlines of this story are familiar to all of us; Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown. And therein lies an issue. Much went on in the beginning of the American Revolution and not much in the four years after 1777. The indifferent lack of support Congress and the states gave to Washington was appalling. It's a wonder he and the army didn't march on Philadelphia and toss them out. We 'Remember LaFayette', but seldom do American books state that without the French navy and vast amount of funds, it would have been much harder, if not impossible, to thwart the British. The whole British strategy appears ridiculous. How an army and navy stationed in NY were to be moving up and down thousands of miles of coast in the age of sail makes one wonder if they had maps in London. Add to the indifferent strategy, unenthusiastic and incompetent commanders, the worst being Gen. Henry Clinton, the man who succeeded Gen. Howe. I had known that the British were cruel to the prisoners, but not as depraved as they were. Of 30,000 men held in NY, fully 18,000 died of abuse and starvation. Only 7,000 continentals were killed in combat. The war was unnecessary and inflicted on both countries because of George III's stubbornness. The British were incompetent, dismissive, arrogant, cruel and deserved to lose the war and the colonies. Funny that we all appreciate the language, literature, culture and legal system as much as we do. Great book.
No comments:
Post a Comment