Unlike the successful Siege of Boston, the efforts to defend the city of
New York ended in near disaster for the Continental Army and the cause
of independence.
In what proved to be the largest battle of the
Revolutionary War in terms of total combatants, Washington’s forces on
August 22, 1776, were flanked out of their positions atop the Gowanus
Heights (part of today’s modern Brooklyn) and soundly defeated by
William Howe's roughly 20,000 man force on Long Island.
It was during these dark days at the close of 1776 that Thomas Paine’s words from the recently published American Crisis rang most true:
“These are the times that try men’s souls…the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Washington’s smallpox inoculation program was one of his best decisions of the war.
Up until modern times, disease, not bullets, bayonets, or cannon fire, had been the great killer of soldiers in all armies. In 1775, smallpox had so devastated the American army in Canada that John Adams bemoaned that “…smallpox is ten times more terrible than the British, Canadians and Indians together.”
In late May 1781 Washington’s situation and the fate of the American
cause began to rapidly improve. Comte de Rochambeau, the commander of
the French troops in America, informed Washington that France had made a
6,000,000 livre gift to the Continental Army.
It was the news that
Rochambeau did not initially share with Washington that made an even
bigger impact. The French fleet, now operating in strength in North
American waters, had been secretly directed to the Chesapeake and a real
opportunity to defeat Cornwallis’ force now existed.
Washington, who
had been stubbornly fixated on attacking the British base at New York
City, rallied to Rochambeau’s plan and moved his army south to Virginia.
On September 5, 1781, the French fleet under the command of Admiral de
Grasse drove off the British fleet sent to relieve Cornwallis. The trap
was now set. The siege of Yorktown began on September 28, 1781, and
ended with a Franco-American victory on October 19, 1781 – the decisive
battle of the Revolutionary War.
Great quotes from George Washington
“Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your own
reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company.” — George
Washington
“Let us therefore animate and encourage each
other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty
on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.” —
George Washington
“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” — George Washington