It took a month to figure it out, but the British ship movement up the Hudson River was a sign that they’d finally decided how they were going to implement their plans.

Rather than concentrating on New York City, which was going to be problematic because George Washington’s troops were pretty dug in over in Harlem Heights, Admiral Howe made the choice that ran closer to the original plan: start sending warships up the Hudson and establish a new foothold in the Pelham area of what we now call the Bronx. This could then become a base of operations for moving further up the Hudson Valley and make it very difficult, if not impossible, for materiel and information to pass between New England and the rest of the states. And since New York had a pretty sizeable chunk of Loyalists there, the downstate area should be fairly easy pickings.

So the British ship movement came as a surprise to nobody on the American side; what probably did come as a surprise was that it wasn’t as difficult to get through as they probably hoped they’d made it.

Washington and his War Council did plan for this possibility and there will be troops waiting when the British make their landing. We’ll talk about that in a few days.

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