New York and New Jersey Campaign - Background

Background

When American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, British troops were under siege in Boston. They defeated Patriot forces in the Battle of Bunker Hill, suffering very high casualties. When news of this expensive British victory reached London, General William Howe and Lord George Germain, the British official responsible, decided that a "decisive action" should be taken against New York City using forces recruited from throughout the British Empire as well as troops hired from small German states.

General George Washington, recently named by the Second Continental Congress as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, echoed the sentiments of others that New York was "a post of infinite importance", and began the task of organizing military companies in the New York area when he stopped there on his way to take command of the siege of Boston. In January 1776 Washington ordered Charles Lee to raise troops and take command of New York's defenses. Lee had made some progress on the city's defenses when word arrived in late March 1776 that the British army had left Boston after Washington threatened them from heights south of the city. Concerned that General Howe was sailing directly to New York, Washington hurried regiments from Boston, including General Israel Putnam, who commanded the troops until Washington himself arrived in mid-April. At the end of April Washington dispatched General John Sullivan with six regiments to the north to bolster the faltering Quebec campaign.

General Howe, rather than moving against New York, withdrew his army to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and regrouped while transports full of British troops, shipped from bases around Europe and intended for New York, began gathering at Halifax. In June he set sail for New York with the 9,000 men assembled there, before all of the transports arrived. German troops, primarily from Hesse-Kassel, as well as British troops from Henry Clinton's ultimately unsuccessful expedition to the Carolinas, were to meet with Howe's fleet when it reached New York. General Howe's brother, Admiral Lord Howe, arrived at Halifax with further transports after the general sailed, and immediately followed.

When General Howe arrived in the outer harbor of New York, the ships began sailing up the undefended Narrows between Staten Island and Long island on July 2, and started landing troops on the undefended shores of Staten Island that day. Washington learned from prisoners taken that Howe had landed 10,000 men, but was awaiting the arrival of another 15,000. General Washington, with a smaller army of about 19,000 effective troops, lacked significant intelligence on the British force and plans, and was uncertain exactly where in the New York area the Howes intended to strike. He consequently split the Continental Army between fortified positions on Long Island, Manhattan and other mainland locations, and also established a "Flying Camp" in northern New Jersey. This was intended as a reserve force that could support operations anywhere along the Jersey shore of the Hudson.