To defend these works, scattered over more than twenty miles, Washington had an army of only 17,225 men, of whom 6,711 were sick, on furlough, or detached, leaving but 10,514 present for duty. Most of these were militia, badly clothed, imperfectly armed, without discipline or military experience, and their artillery was old and of various patterns and calibres.
There had been dispatched from England a powerful fleet under Lord Howe, convoying a large body of troops to reinforce those already in America. The army of General William Howe (brother of the Admiral) on Staten Island in August (including some 8,600 German hirelings) numbered, as stated by General Clinton, 31,625 rank and file, of whom 24,464 were well-appointed, disciplined soldiers, fit for duty and equal to any in Europe.
The struggle for the Hudson, by the coöperation of the army of Canada with Howe, was now about to begin; but Washington was at his wits' end to foresee the particular point upon which the blow would fall. Hence he was obliged to retain the greater part of his troops in New York to defend the city, holding them ready, however, to support any point in the vicinity whether assailed by the enemy's large fleet or by their powerful army.
THE MORTIER HOUSE, RICHMOND HILL.
(Washington's Headquarters.)
From a plate in the New York Magazine, June, 1790, when the house, then owned by Mrs. Jephson, was occupied by John Adams, as Vice-President of the United States. It was at one time the home of Aaron Burr. See Parton's Burr, i. 81.
Washington's first headquarters in New York were probably at a house, 180 Pearl St., opposite Cedar St., sometimes called the house of Gov. Geo. Clinton, of which a view is given in Valentine's Manual, 1854, p. 446, and in Lossing's Mary and Martha Washington (N. Y., 1886), p. 153. He is also supposed by some to have occupied for a short interval the Kennedy mansion, No. 1 Broadway, known to have been used certainly by Col. Knox as artillery headquarters, of which a view is given in Irving's Washington, illus. ed. ii. 211, and in Gay's Pop. Hist. U. S., iii. 495. (Cf. Drake's Knox; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 594; Johnston's Campaign of 1776, p. 86.) In June, if not earlier, he removed to the Mortier House on Richmond Hill, and remained there till September, when he transferred his headquarters first to the Apthorp House (view in Mag. of Amer. Hist., 1885, p. 227), still standing at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Ninety-first Street, and next to the Morris House at Harlem.—Ed.
On the morning of August 22, 1776, General Howe, under cover of the guns of the British ships, without mishap, delay, or opposition, debarked, as stated by Admiral Howe, about 15,000 men, with artillery, baggage, and stores, on Long Island, in the vicinity of the Narrows; and on the 25th, General de Heister's German division was landed at Gravesend Cove. This invading force of "upwards of 20,000 rank and file", well armed and with forty cannon, promptly occupied a line extending from the Narrows, through Gravesend, to Flatlands, and made ready for an immediate advance through the passes of the long range of densely wooded hills running eastwardly from the Narrows to Jamaica, about two and a half miles in front of Brooklyn. To oppose this large force of regular troops, the Americans had not quite 8,000 men, most of whom were raw militia, and of these about one half were outside of the defences of Brooklyn, ready to participate in the impending battle.
LORD HOWE.