During the winter the British troops in Boston pushed their way out into the interior, especially developing their strength towards the southwest, in the direction of the camp of the allies. Early in March they took possession of Providence,—still a fair and beautiful city, despite the havoc and ruin which the rule of the lawless hordes of the revolution had wrought in it. The revolutionists who were driven out of the city joined those at Worcester and Springfield, and by the middle of March regained the main force in New York by way of Albany and the eastern shore of the Hudson. This left the whole of lower New England practically in the undisputed possession of the allies. They speedily repaired the railway lines leading from Boston towards New York, and thus secured ready communication between the main army and several other important ports and depots of supplies besides New London, at which most of the army’s material had hitherto been landed.
XV.
THE ALLIES ATTACK NEW YORK.
Early in May the outposts of the opposing forces were face to face, and occasional skirmishes had already taken place. The two armies were nearly evenly matched in point of numbers. The allies counted up five hundred and twenty-two thousand men on shore, besides a naval force of about thirty thousand, in one hundred and twenty-two ships of war belonging to one grade or another. Only thirty-five of these vessels were iron-clad, but all carried effective armaments. In addition, the Sound was filled with an innumerable fleet of transports, tugs, and similar craft, acting as tenders on the larger ships.
With the force which had been withdrawn from New England, the revolutionists mustered in New York and Brooklyn about five hundred and fifty thousand men. Whatever reinforcements they received after the first of May were cantoned in Jersey City and Hoboken, to watch the movements of the loyalists up the river at Newburg. It was possible that they might move down the west shore and cut off communication with the South and West, as the allies had already cut off communication to the North and East; and this was to be prevented at all hazards.
On the third of May, the allies carried by assault and at the point of the bayonet a detached earthwork, known as Fort Schwab, which commanded the village of New Rochelle. It was an isolated work, and most of the garrison escaped behind the cover of their lines to the rear. But they did not have time to spike their guns; and during the entire night these pieces continued a harassing fire upon them. The morning of the fourth, attack was resumed along the whole line. All that day the contest raged with inconceivable fury. Again and again were the allies repulsed; again and again were they pushed forward. Their sledge-hammer blows were repeated first at one point, then at another, with persistent and terrible iteration. Twice, after actually capturing the outer line of defences, they were driven back into the open field. They returned to the charge the third time, and nightfall found them in possession of an entire division of this line. The revolutionists, though not trained soldiers, saw that they would be unable to hold the remaining portions, and under cover of the night withdrew to the next line of defence. Though they had suffered a technical defeat, they felt in no way disheartened over the result of the day. They had held the allies in check and had inflicted losses which they knew from the number of their own dead must have been terrible. They still retained possession of a double line of intrenchments stronger than the one which had been taken. They anticipated a delay of some days, if not weeks, before another attempt was made.
That very night, while the revolutionists were sleeping, General von Blücken despatched a force of fifty thousand men across the Sound to Long Island. They landed in silence, and without discovery approached the revolutionary lines so closely that at daybreak they were able to surprise a small earthwork and carry it by mere rush of numbers, without the firing of a single shot. But the surprise was short-lived. The revolutionists sprang to their arms and fought bravely as soon as the allied advance reached their next defence. The alarm was sounded, and assistance from other parts of the Brooklyn lines was despatched to the support of the overmastered socialists. Reinforcements were hurried across the river from New York. The fight surged back and forth, and the roar of conflict which reached New York was as loud and as menacing as that of the preceding day’s battle near New Rochelle had been.
The attack on that side was wholly suspended during this action. The scouts and outposts of the revolutionists reported that transports were to be seen moving in great numbers across the Sound to the Long Island shore, loaded with troops and returning empty. The revolutionary generals hastily decided that Von Blücken must have changed his original intention, owing to the resistance he had met with above the city, and that he was moving on what they felt to be their weakest point, Brooklyn. They must defend that city at all hazards. Over two hundred thousand men were withdrawn from the works to the northward of New York and hurried across to the aid of the Brooklyn garrison.