Upon his arrival, the general sent his engineer, Captain William Smith, "an excellent, intelligent, active officer," to survey and report upon the salient points of the position, especially around Hell Gate and on Long Island. Lee and Stirling also went over the ground several times. As a result of these inspections, the general became convinced that to attempt a complete defence of the city would be impracticable, because the ample sea-room afforded by the harbor and rivers gave the enemy every advantage, enabling them, with their powerful fleet, to threaten an attack in front and flank. Lee saw this at once, and reported his views to Washington, February 19th. "What to do with the city," he wrote, "I own, puzzles me. It is so encircled with deep navigable waters, that whoever commands the sea must command the town;" and to the New York Committee he said that it would be impossible to make the place absolutely secure. In view of this, he proposed to construct a system of defences that should have an alternative object, namely, that in case they should prove inadequate for the city's protection, they should at least be sufficient to prevent the enemy from securing a permanent foothold in it.
Under this plan, the line of the East River required the principal attention, as here it seemed possible to offer the best resistance to British attempts upon the city. First, to cut off the enemy's communication between the Sound and the river, it was proposed to blockade the passage at Hell Gate by a fort on Horn's Hook, at the foot of East Eighty-eighth Street, as well as by works opposite, on the present Hallet's Point. A further object of these forts was to secure safe transit between Long Island and New York. In the next place, batteries were planned for both sides of the river at its entrance into the harbor, where the city was chiefly exposed. On the New York side, a battery was located at the foot of Catherine Street at the intersection of Cherry, and where the river was narrowest. This was called Waterbury's Battery. To cover its fire a stronger work was ordered to be built on Rutgers' "first hill," just above, which was named Badlam's Redoubt, after Captain Badlam, then acting as Lee's chief artillery officer. Lower down a battery was sunk in a cellar on Ten Eyck's wharf, Coenties Slip, a short distance below Wall Street, and called Coenties Battery. These three, with part of the Grand Battery and Fort George, included all the works planned by Lee to guard the East River from the New York side.
In connection with these, works were laid out on the bank opposite on Long Island, the importance of which was apparent. Not only was the site well adapted for guns to sweep the channel and prevent the enemy's ships from remaining in the river long enough to do the city serious damage, but it also commanded the city, so as to make it untenable by the British should they succeed in occupying it. This bluff, "Columbia Heights," was in fact the key to the entire situation. Lee considered its possession and security of "greater importance" than New York; and to hold it he proposed establishing there an intrenched camp[22] for three or four thousand men, fortified by "a chain of redoubts mutually supporting each other." Of these redoubts, one was located on the edge of the bluff opposite the Coenties Battery, and stood on the line of Columbia Street, at about the foot of the present Clark Street. This came to be known as Fort Stirling. In its rear, near the corner of Henry and Pierrepont streets, it was proposed to erect a large citadel; but this, although begun, was never completed.[23] Lee's scheme of defence did not include the fortifying of either Red Hook or Governor's Island.
The East River thus provided for, attention was paid to the city and the North River side. Lee examined Fort George and the Grand Battery, but gave it as his opinion that neither of them could be held under the concentrated fire of large ships. He advised, accordingly, that the northern face of the fort be torn down, and a traverse built across Broadway above it at the Bowling Green, from which the interior of the work could be raked, should the enemy attempt to land and hold it. As the North River was "so extremely wide and deep," the general regarded the obstruction of its passage to the ships as out of the question. Batteries, however, could be erected at various points along the west side where it rose to a ridge, and the power of the ships to injure the town very considerably diminished. All the streets leading up from the water were ordered to be barricaded to prevent the enemy from coming up on the flanks; forts were to be erected on Jones', Bayard's, and Lispenard's hills, north of the town, covering the approach by land from that direction; the roads obstructed to artillery; and redoubts, redans, and flêches thrown up at defensible points throughout the entire island, as far as King's Bridge.[24] "I must observe," said Lee to the Committee of Safety, "that New York, from its circumstances, can with difficulty be made a regular tenable fortification; but it may be made a most advantageous field of battle—so advantageous, indeed, that, if our people behave with common spirit, and the commanders are men of discretion, it must cost the enemy many thousands of men to get possession of it."
To construct these extensive works Lee could muster, two weeks after his arrival, but seventeen hundred men. Waterbury's Connecticut regiment was first on the ground; the First New Jersey Continentals, as yet incomplete, under Colonel the Earl of Stirling, soon followed; and from Westchester County, New York, came two hundred minute-men under Colonel Samuel Drake. Dutchess County sent down Colonels Swartwout and Van Ness with about three hundred more; and on the 24th Colonel Ward arrived with his Connecticut regiment, six hundred strong, which had rendezvoused at Fairfield. Stirling's regiment was quartered principally in the lower barracks at the Battery; Waterbury's at the upper, on the site of the new Court House; Ward's was sent to Long Island; and Drake's minute-men were posted at Horn's Hook, opposite Hell Gate, where they began work on the first battery marked out for the defence of New York City during the Revolution.
John Lasher
COLONEL FIRST NEW YORK CITY BATTALION 1775-1776.
Steel Engr. F. von Egloffstein N.Y.
But Lee's stay at this point was to be brief. The Continental Congress appointed him to the command of the newly created Department of the South, and on the 7th of March he left New York in charge of Lord Stirling, who, a month before, had been promoted by Congress to the rank of brigadier-general. This officer's energy was conspicuous. His predecessor had already found him "a great acquisition," and he pushed on the defences of the city as rapidly as his resources would permit. The force under his immediate command, according to the returns of the 13th, amounted to a total of two thousand four hundred and twenty-two officers and men,[25] besides the city independent companies under Colonels John Lasher and William Heyer, and local militia,[26] who swelled the number to about four thousand. On the 14th, Washington wrote to Stirling that the enemy appeared to be on the point of evacuating Boston, and that it was more than probable they would sail southward. "I am of opinion," he wrote, "that New York is their place of destination. It is an object worthy of their attention, and it is the place that we must use every endeavor to keep from them. For, should they get that town, and the command of the North River, they can stop the intercourse between the Northern and Southern colonies, upon which depends the safety of America. My feelings upon this subject are so strong, that I would not wish to give the enemy a chance of succeeding at your place.... The plan of defence formed by General Lee is, from what little I know of the place, a very judicious one. I hope, nay, I dare say, it is carrying into execution with spirit and industry. You may judge of the enemy's keeping so long possession of the town of Boston against an army superior in numbers, and animated with the noble spirit of liberty; I say, you may judge by that how much easier it is to keep an enemy from forming a lodgment in a place, than it will be to dispossess them when they get themselves fortified." Stirling immediately sent urgent appeals for troops in every direction. He ordered over the Third New Jersey Continental Regiment under Colonel Dayton, and wrote for three hundred picked men from each of the six nearest counties of that State. Ward's and Waterbury's regiments, which were impatient to return home to attend to their spring farming, were many of them induced to remain two weeks beyond their term of enlistment until Governor Trumbull could supply their places with troops under Colonels Silliman and Talcott. Congress also ordered forward five or six Pennsylvania regiments. Meanwhile the New York Committee of Safety co-operated zealously with the military authorities.[27] At Stirling's request they voted to call out all the male inhabitants of the city, black and white, capable of doing "fatigue duty," to work on the fortifications—the blacks to work every day, the whites every other day;[28] and the same orders were conveyed to the committee of King's County, where the inhabitants were directed to report to Colonel Ward, with spades, hoes and pickaxes. To troops needing quarters the committee turned over the empty houses in the city, or those that were "least liable to be injured;" coarse sheets were ordered for the straw beds in the barracks; the upper story of the "Bridewell" was converted into a laboratory or armory for repairing guns and making cartridges; and all necessary details provided for as far as possible. In case of an alarm, the troops were to parade immediately at the Battery, in the Common, and in front of Trinity Church. To annoy expected British men-of-war, the committee despatched Major William Malcolm, of the Second city battalion, to dismantle the Sandy Hook Light, which the major effected in a thorough manner, breaking what glasses he could not move, and carrying off the oil. On Long Island, a guard of King's County troopers was posted at the Narrows, and another at Rockaway, to report the approach of ships; and in the city, cannon were mounted in the batteries as fast as they were completed. On the 20th, Stirling could report that everybody turned to "with great spirit and industry," and that the work went on "amazingly well."