On 16 September 1776, the day after British troops landed at Kip's Bay and Washington's army gave up New York City, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton's Rangers, volunteers from New England regiments, ran into British light infantry on upper Manhattan. The skirmish grew into the Battle of Harlem Heights. A flanking attack meant to trap the British opened too soon and Knowlton was mortally wounded, but American reinforcements drove the British back across a buckwheat field until Washington called them off. Both commanders reported a success, and Washington's adjutant general, Joseph Reed, wrote the next day that the men had recovered their spirits and the confidence they had lost.
Battle of Harlem Heights
16 September 1776 · 250 years ago
After Kip's Bay
On 15 September British troops landed on Manhattan at a place Sir William Howe called Kepp's Bay; Howe puts the landing about noon and writes that under the ships' fire the Americans could not remain in their works. Washington, who rode toward the landing, reported to Congress the next day that he found the troops in the lines "retreating with the utmost precipitation" and Parsons's and Fellows's brigades "flying in every direction, and in the greatest confusion". The army gave up New York City and encamped, in Washington's words, "on the Heights of Haerlem".1
Washington headed his letters from Colonel Morris's house, which a 1975 National Register of Historic Places nomination identifies as today's Morris-Jumel Mansion, his headquarters from 14 September to 18 October 1776; Johnston gives the evening of 15 September to 20 October. Henry P. Johnston, writing in 1897, describes the camp running south to the Hollow Way, a valley from 125th Street and Eighth Avenue to the Hudson at 130th Street, and notes that the name Harlem Heights then covered all the high ground around the Harlem flats, Morningside Heights included. Johnston and William R. Shepherd (1898) both place the fighting south of that valley, on Morningside Heights, between Nicholas Jones's farmhouse and the Hollow Way.2
A fox-chase call
Early on 16 September Knowlton's Rangers, "volunteers from different New England regiments" in Washington's description, went out toward the British advanced guard. One of their officers, probably Captain Stephen Brown according to Johnston, wrote that they set out "just before Day" and at daybreak were discovered by the enemy, "who were 400 strong, and we were 120". The Rangers' report to Washington put the British at "about three hundred, as near as they could guess", and his aide Tilghman also wrote of about 300. The first shots came near Jones's farmhouse, which Shepherd places at 106th Street. After eight rounds apiece, the Ranger officer wrote, Knowlton ordered a retreat.3
Joseph Reed, Washington's adjutant general, had gone forward to the advanced guard and went back to the general to ask for support. Writing to his wife the next day, he described what he saw: "the Enemy appeared in open view & in the most insulting manner sounded their Bugle Horns as is usual after a Fox Chase. I never felt such a sensation before, it seem'd to crown our Disgrace".4
A trap sprung too soon
Washington and Tilghman describe the same plan: three companies of Colonel Weedon's Virginia regiment under Major Leitch, with Knowlton's Rangers, were to get into the British rear while another party made as if to attack in front. The British ran down the hill to some fences and bushes, but the flanking parties, in Washington's words, "unluckily began their attack too soon, as it was rather in flank than in rear". Leitch was carried off with three balls through his side, and Knowlton soon after received a wound that proved mortal.5
The Ranger officer, who was beside Knowlton, asked him if he was badly wounded; Knowlton said he was, "but, says he, I do not value my Life if we do but get the Day". Reed, who helped him off the field, wrote that "when gasping in the Agonies of Death all his Inquiry was if we had drove the Enemy". Johnston writes that Knowlton lived only an hour and that Leitch died on 1 October. Washington's orders of 17 September spoke of "The gallant and brave Col. Knowlton, who would have been an Honor to any Country".6
The buckwheat field
Finding that the flankers needed support, Washington sent in part of Colonel Griffith's and Colonel Richardson's Maryland regiments. Johnston puts "nearly eighteen hundred men" soon engaged on the American side at the buckwheat field, Shepherd has Washington sending "about fifteen hundred men" to their aid, and Howe wrote that the Americans attacked "with near 3000 men".7
General George Clinton, who fought there, wrote that the Americans pursued the British "to a Buckwheat Field on the Top of a high Hill", where they "received a considerable Reinforcement, with several Field Pieces", and that "a very brisk Action ensued at this Place, which continued about Two Hours". Howe lists the 2nd and 3rd light infantry battalions and the 42nd Regiment, then "the reserve with two field pieces, a battalion of Hessian grenadiers and a company of chasseurs". Johnston places the field near today's 120th Street, on and northwest of the grounds of Columbia University and Barnard College.8
Clinton writes that the British were at last driven into an orchard, "from thence across a Hollow, and up another Hill not far distant from their own Lines". Washington explained to Congress that his men were pushing the British on "when I judged it prudent to order a retreat, fearing the enemy, as I have since found was really the case, were sending a large body to support their party". Tilghman, sent to bring the men off, wrote: "They gave a Hurra and left the Field in good Order". Clinton says the action lasted about four hours in all; Shepherd has it ending about three in the afternoon.9
Counting the cost
Washington reported "about forty wounded; the number of slain is not yet ascertained; but it is very inconsiderable". Clinton counted Knowlton and sixteen privates killed, and Leitch with about eight or ten subaltern officers and privates wounded. Johnston, working from fragmentary returns and officers' letters, estimated about thirty Americans killed and "the wounded and missing not over one hundred". Howe, from the accounts of deserters, claimed that the Americans had "not less than 300 killed and wounded".10
For his own side Howe reported "eight officers wounded most of them very slightly; fourteen men killed and about 70 wounded". The journal of Stephen Kemble, deputy adjutant general of the British forces, lists 1 sergeant and 13 privates killed, and 2 majors, 2 captains, 7 subalterns, 5 sergeants, 3 drummers and 138 privates wounded; Johnston gives this as a total British loss of 171.11
Two claims of success
Howe told Lord George Germain that the light infantry and the 42nd "repulsed the enemy with considerable loss, and obliged them to retire within their works". His orders the next day praised "the few troops that yesterday beat back a verry superior Body of the Rebels", but disapproved of the light companies "pursuing the Rebels without that proper Discretion to be observed when there is not troops to support".12
American officers saw it differently. Reed told his wife that "it has given another Face of Things in our Army" and that "the Men have recovered their Spirits & feel a Confidence which before they had quite lost". Clinton wrote: "I consider our Success in this small affair, at this Time, almost equal to a Victory". The 1975 nomination says that here, "for the first time in the campaign, the patriots succeeded in forcing the British to give ground".13
Johnston writes that the armies then faced each other until 12 October, when Howe began a movement into Westchester County that led to the Battle of White Plains on 28 October. Johnston adds that on 16 November the British attacked Fort Washington and its garrison surrendered, and that Knowlton's Rangers were among the units captured.14
Siege of Savannah, 1779: the allied assault that killed Pulaski
16 September 1779 · 247 years ago
French and American forces besieged British-held Savannah, Georgia, in the American Revolutionary War. Their main assault failed and Casimir Pulaski, leading the cavalry, was mortally wounded; the siege was then lifted and the British kept the city until 1782.
Read the full story of Siege of Savannah, 1779: the allied assault that killed Pulaski ›Also on this day
1940: The Italian advance into Egypt reached Sidi Barrani. General Sir Archibald Wavell's despatch dates the arrival to 16 September and calls Sidi Barrani "merely a collection of a few houses and a landing ground"; the British official history has it in the hands of the 1st Blackshirt Division by nightfall on the 16th, while Gavin Long's Australian official history gives the 17th. Wavell writes that the 16th brought the only attempt to use Italian tanks to outflank the British covering force; the official history describes some fifty tanks with lorried infantry moving round the left flank of the British rearguard position at Alam el Dab shortly after noon. According to Wavell, British losses in the withdrawal were under 50 men. Wavell and Long both have the Italians halting there.15
