down from Canada under Carleton and Burgoyne, and thus effectually to isolate New England.
Upon this plan the new campaign opened in June 1776. Howe, heavily reinforced from home, sailed on the 10th from Halifax to New York and on the 5th of July encamped on Staten Island. Washington, anticipating this move, had already marched from Boston and fortified the city. His left flank was thrown across the East river beyond the village of Brooklyn, while his front and right on the harbour and North or Hudson river were open to a combined naval and military attack. The position proved untenable. Howe drove Washington out of it, and forced the abandonment of the whole of Manhattan Island by three well-directed movements upon the American left. On the 22nd of August he crossed the Narrows Long Island.to the Long Island shore with 15,000 troops, increasing the number to 20,000 on the 25th, and on the 27th surprised the Americans, driving them into their Brooklyn works and inflicting a loss of about 1400 men. Among the prisoners were Generals J. Sullivan and W. Alexander, soi-disant earl of Stirling. (See Long Island.) Howe has been criticized, rightly or wrongly, for failing to make full use of his victory. Washington skilfully evacuated his Brooklyn lines on the night of the 29th, and in a measure relieved the depression which the defeat had produced in his army. On the 15th of September Howe crossed the East river above the city, captured 300 of the militia defending the lines and occupied the city. Washington had withdrawn his main army to the upper part of the island. A skirmish, fought the next day, opposite the west front of the present Columbia University, and known as the affair of Harlem Heights, cost the British a loss of seventy of their light infantry. Delaying until the 12th of October, Howe again moved forward by water into Westchester county, and marching toward White Plains forced another retreat on Washington. In the fight on Chatterton Hill at the Plains, on the 28th of October, an American brigade was defeated. Instead of pressing Washington further, Howe then returned to Fort Washington.Manhattan Island, and on the 16th of November captured Fort Washington with nearly 3000 prisoners. This was the heaviest blow to the Americans throughout the war in the north. The British then pushed down through New Jersey with designs on Philadelphia. Washington, still retreating with a constantly diminishing force, suddenly turned upon Lieutenant-Colonel Rall’s advanced corps of Hessians at Trenton on the 26th of December and captured nearly 1000 prisoners. This brilliant exploit was followed by another on the 3rd of January, when Washington, again crossing the Delaware, outmarched Cornwallis at Trenton, and marching to his rear defeated three British regiments and three companies of light cavalry at Princeton, New Jersey. Marching on to Morristown, Washington encamped there on the flank of the British advance in New Jersey, thus ending the first campaign fought on the new issue of American Independence, which had been declared on the 4th of July 1776.
While these closing successes inspirited the Americans, it was undeniable that the campaign had gone heavily against them. Having raised a permanent force for the war called the Continental Line, they awaited further operations of the enemy. Following up the occupation of New York, Howe proceeded in 1777 to capture Philadelphia. Complete success again crowned his movements. Taking his army by sea from New York to the head of the Chesapeake, he marched up into Pennsylvania, whither Washington had repaired to watch him, and on the 26th of September entered the city. The Americans attempted to check the advance Brandywine.of the British at the river Brandywine, where an action occurred on the 11th, resulting in their defeat (see Brandywine); and on the 4th of October Washington directed a well-planned attack upon the enemy’s camp at Germantown on the outskirts of the city, but failed of success. (See Germantown.)
Howe’s victorious progress in Pennsylvania was neutralized by disasters farther north. Burgoyne marched from Canada in June 1777, with a strong expeditionary force, to occupy Albany and put himself in touch with Howe at the other end of the Hudson. Driving the Americans under General Arthur St Clair out of Ticonderoga, and making his way through the deep woods with difficulty, he reached the Hudson at Fort Edward on the 30th of July. General Philip Schuyler, commanding the Americans in that quarter, retreated to Stillwater, 30 m. above Albany, barricading the roads and impeding Burgoyne’s progress. Dissatisfaction with his conduct led Congress to replace him in command by General Gates. On the 13th of August Burgoyne despatched a force to Bennington, Vermont, under the German colonel Friedrich Baum, to capture stores and overawe the country. On the 16th Baum was attacked by General John Stark with the militia from the surrounding country, and was overwhelmed. Colonel Breyman, marching to his relief, was also routed. The misfortune cost the British 1000 men. Equally unfortunate was the fate of an expedition sent under Saratoga.Colonel Barry St Leger to co-operate with Burgoyne by way of the Mohawk Valley. On the 6th of August he was met at Oriskany by General Nicholas Herkimer and forced to retreat. Despite these disasters Burgoyne pushed south to Stillwater, where he was defeated by Gates’s improvised army of continentals and militia in two battles on the 19th of September (Freeman’s Farm) and the 7th of October (Bemis’s Height). On the 17th he was forced to surrender. (See Saratoga, Battle of.) This disaster was followed by the alliance between America and France in 1778, and later by the addition of Spain to England’s enemies—events of far-reaching importance.
A movement of importance, in 1778–79, was the expedition of George Rogers Clark, under the authority of the state of Virginia, against the British posts in the north-west. With a company of volunteers Clark captured Kaskaskia, the chief post in the Illinois country, on the 4th of July 1778, and later secured the submission of Vincennes, which, however, was recaptured by General Henry Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit. In the spring of 1779 Clark raised another force, and recaptured Vincennes from Hamilton. This expedition did much to free the frontier from Indian raids, gave the Americans a hold upon the north-west, of which their diplomats duly took advantage in the peace negotiations, and later, by giving the states a community of interest in the western lands, greatly promoted the idea of union.
In 1778 Sir Henry Clinton succeeded Howe in the chief command in America. With fewer resources than his predecessor had disposed of, he could accomplish practically nothing in the north. In June 1778 he evacuated Philadelphia, with the intention of concentrating his force at New York. Washington, who had passed the winter at Valley Forge, overtook him at Monmouth, N.J., and in an action on the 28th of June both armies suffered about equal loss. Thereafter (except in the winter of 1779, at Morristown) Washington made West Point on the Hudson the headquarters of his army, but Clinton avowed himself too weak to attack him there. In 1779 he attempted to draw Washington out of the Highlands, with the result that in the manoeuvres he lost the garrison at Stony Point, 700 strong, the position being stormed by Wayne with the American light infantry on the 16th of July. During the summer General John Sullivan marched with a large force against the Indians (all the Iroquois tribes except the Oneidas and part of the Tuscaroras siding with the British during the war) and against the Loyalists of western New York, who had been committing great depredations along the frontier; and on the 29th of August he inflicted a crushing defeat upon them at Newtown, on the site of the present Elmira. In addition several Indian villages and the crops of the Indians were destroyed in the lake region of western New York.
Meanwhile the co-operation of the French became active. In July Count Rochambeau arrived at Newport, Rhode Island. That place had been occupied by the British from 1776 to the close of 1779. An unsuccessful attempt was made to drive them out in 1778 by the Americans assisted by the French admiral d’Estaing and a French corps. The year 1780 is also marked by the treason of General Benedict Arnold (q.v.), and the consequent
