Chapter 8

Late in the year of our Lord in 1776, the situation in Boston grew dramatically better for the rebel cause. The British high command saw the handwriting on the wall. In fact, that literally was true because of the many signs and posters declaring Boston a Patriot city and that all redcoats should be on the next boat out.

The balance of power in the rural areas was shifting in favor of the Patriots and the Tory land owners were packing up their possessions and heading to the harbor to take a slow boat to Halifax or the Canadian Provinces.

The further south one went, the story was slightly different because the start of the British build-up for the invasion of New York City and taking control of New York harbor was in the infant stages and the smell of British military might was in the air and made all the Americans favoring the Patriot cause extremely nervous.

New Jersey was a hotbed of political intrigue and neighbor was murdering neighbor just because of their political affiliation. There was even friction within families with some relatives supporting the Patriot cause and other parts of the same family supporting the King. Newspapers and news reports took one side or the other depending on the political convictions of the owners or the editors and they cared naught about the truth or fairness of the issue as long as they could make their side look to be in the right.

We managed to get a couple of actual officers to head up our band of Patriots and our group headed south on foot to the New York area to give support to the troops of General George Washington in his defense of the primary deep water harbor on the eastern seaboard. Our two officers were on horse, but none of us were envious because they had to walk slowly to keep to our pace of progress as none of us were mounted.

I was somewhat depressed knowing that the next year to eighteen months would be a stressful period for the American cause and that General Washington would make more strategic mistakes allowing the British to gain the upper hand in the New York area right up until the end of the war. Of course, I was fortified by the knowledge that losing some of the battles didn’t mean that Washington would not be the winner of the war for independence.

We scooped up some volunteer patriots along the way and by the time we reached the area just north of the city we had almost a hundred men and our Captain was given a letter of commission from Washington himself to have us patrol the eastern shore from the area of Dobb’s Ferry to Tarrytown for British incursions or patrols that were probing his lines for signs of weak points. I knew from my studies that at that time, the General was in high hopes of keeping the British below Fort Washington on the east shore and Fort Lee on the west shore with their cannon mounted to cover right out into the middle of the river. The shameful retreat of the Fort Lee personnel to avoid confronting the British invasion coupled with Washington’s own retreat away from supporting the men in Fort Washington led to a surrender of over three thousand and their ultimate decimation in prison from sickness and lack of food.

The New Jersey side of the river was a hodge-podge of conflicting views on the war and many of the residents changed their views from day to day depending on the news from the battles taking place all around them.

The bright spot was the confrontation in Ticonderoga and Arnold’s fine display of military superiority that was the cause of his downfall because of the jealousy from other officers and the Congress that conspired to belittle his success. It was a side story of the Revolution that ultimately found General Arnold changing sides and accepting a commission as a General in the ranks of the British Army giving sage advice to the King’s forces to keep them from making major mistakes in fighting to contain General Washington’s strategy to push them from the colonies and all the way back to London with never a backward glance.

The Dobb’s Ferry area was sparsely populated and the road system was poor at best. I was informed that the roads further north were better laid out and that the settlers up there were better organized to put up a stiff resistance to the invasion of redcoats that was expected at any time. I suspected that the troops under Howe were more concerned with getting Washington out of the city as quickly as possible so they could consolidate their forces and set up a viable perimeter of defense. Both of the Howe brothers knew instinctively that the control of the harbor was vital to the mission of driving a wedge between the colonies and rolling up Washington’s flank as quickly as possible.

Apparently, the high ranking officers had promised Whitehall that they would bring the troops home before Christmas and those with military experience in the new world knew that was extremely unlikely because the Patriots were fired up to resist the use of force by the British regular Army. They were particularly incensed over the use of Hessian mercenaries against former citizens of England like they were criminal barbarians of the worse sort and deserving of brutal treatment certain to be delivered by the German troops.

There was a large boarding house near the fast flowing waters of the Hudson River that had a total of 23 rooms with a large dining room that also doubled as a restaurant of sorts for daily evening meals. We set up our two officers in residence there and I took charge of a security detail that protected the place against a sudden raid with round the clock security and set up a communication link of sorts with the Headquarters still down in New York City as the British were still filtering into Staten Island and had not as yet taken any part of the central city or the docks that made unloading ships much easier to manage.