Chapter 9

Our expedition down into the Long Island area was not particularly dangerous because at that time, the entire region was still fairly pro-patriot and those that had Tory sentiments kept them hidden because they were fearful of reprisals. I knew from my travels in the last few months that the story was quite different in New Jersey and I suspected it was because a number of the farms were owned by former loyal followers of the King. Large numbers of them had come into the colony after the French and Indian War and they did not have a good grasp on the value of a survival attitude for colonial independence.

Our two officers were still back in the Washington headquarters which was fluctuating between Fort Washington and point’s south on Manhattan Island. He was behaving a bit paranoid lately because of threats from some of the Tory elements that saw him as an instigator of the rebellion and not merely a figurehead of military importance.

This same sort of denigrating atmosphere was continued by the Howe brothers, One a General and the other an Admiral under direct orders from Whitehall to insult Washington at every turn. It annoyed them that he was a prior British officer of some merit and they considered General Arnold in the same boat except he was more acceptable because of his extensive business dealing with the Crown. Some of the ill-feeling toward General Arnold was because of this close British connection with Arnold and it was expanded by his military successes on the battlefield in Ticonderoga and later at Saratoga. His Canadian expedition was not all that glorious but he showed that he had the right strategy even though the application was less than successful on the field of battle.

It was Arnold’s freeing up of the British cannon from the battlefield at Ticonderoga that were transported down to the closing circle around Boston that accelerated the British and Tory evacuation from the city and allowed the patriots to gain the upper hand in that important colony.

The fact that most of the Tory refugees were sent up to Halifax and to the Canadian provinces was not expected as the general feeling was they would go down to New York city to assist the invasion from Europe of troops, supplies and ships to defeat the upstart Americans in their own land.

Eventually, the ships sent to Halifax found their way back down to Staten Island as the British forces realize the concentration of force is the key to splitting the rebellion into two separate sections. That goal was never really quite accomplished because of the reversals at Saratoga and the eventual support from the French Empire to assist the American revolutionaries in their fight against the British Crown.

Our party that comprised the Long Island scouting expedition had only six of us but it was better to be as small as possible to avoid any chance of a confrontation with supporters of the King. After looking at the various ways that a large force of military invaders could move into the inner city from that direction, I could see why General Howe decided to use that flanking movement to drive General Washington from the city and the all-important harbor. The general feeling in Long Island was a mixture of patriot support and a larger group that was adopting a “wait and see” attitude to see which side got the upper hand the following year. I saw this larger group as sort of “fair weather friends” just covering their ass in case things went south in a hurry. There was not much sentiment for giving up their “lives, liberty or sacred honor” that summer and I doubted it was little more than words on paper if the truth be known by one and all.

After the Long Island journey, we moved down to the East River and boarded a small sloop for a quick sail out to Staten Island.

The place was still virtually undeveloped and it was considered a dismal counterpoint to the excitement of a civilized city like the one on Manhattan Island and even the more developed areas of modern day Queens and Brooklyn. The further one traveled out on Long Island proper, the less development was apparent. It was a fruitless journey to travel all the way out to the end because it would be a trip of several days on roads that made travel almost impossible.

Staten Island with its sandy shores made a good jumping off spot and it was relatively close to both New York and New Jersey with good mooring spots for a multitude of ships waiting for further orders.

We found a good public house on Staten Island that catered to the sailors and the rural travelers looking for a cheap alternative to the expensive tastes of the services found on lower Manhattan. The place was run by a pair of brothers that were outspoken about their support of the patriot cause and almost all of the patrons were of a like mind as well as us.

The two Indian scouts stayed down at the stable not because of any feeling of inferiority or segregation but because they wanted to stay on the outskirts of civilization and felt better being close to the horses that represented the ability to move quickly away from an unwelcome atmosphere. These Indians were mostly of the northern variety and had been in direct conflict with the tribes that had supported the French in the French and Indian Wars. They were a bit confused by the conflict between American settlers and the King in faraway London but they tended to give their loyalty more to the settlers than to the redcoat British regulars that generally treated them like second-class citizens in a land that originally belonged to them.