250 and Counting

Category: George Washington

Battle of Throgs Neck–October 12, 1776

The Battle of Throgs Neck, or Throg’s Point, or a number of other names, was part of a move intended to trap Washington’s forces through flanking them from the north while Washington concentrated on the troops already in front of him on Manhattan Island.

Washington did anticipate that this might happen, and sent American troops that way, but part of the problem that he had was that there were so many possibilities, and he just couldn’t cover them all. So he took a little gamble in sending his numbers to different places and hoping it would be enough.

In the case of Throgs Neck, it was 4000 British troops against 750 Americans, but they handled it in a clever way. They managed to contain the British advance by taking advantage of the local geography, forcing the British to retreat. But this only meant that they’d regroup and try again somewhere else. This led to the Battle of Pell’s Point, of which this battle is usually considered a part, or just a prelude.

As Mike will explain to you in a few days, the Battle of Pell’s Point is technically a British victory, but it also had a separate function that breaks well for the American side.

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October 12, 2026
The British Finally Make Their Move–October 9, 1776

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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October 9, 2026
Re-Mastering the Army–October 1, 1776

Thomas Mifflin was the Continental Army’s first Quartermaster General, and he was replaced by someone who just couldn’t get the job done, so he was asked to return to the position. He was good at the Quartermaster duties, but he really preferred to be on the front lines.

Oddly enough, though, when the soldiers at Valley Forge went through all their hardships, it was Mifflin who got the blame for it, and Congress had to appropriate a lot of money to settle the complaints. He still managed to keep the position, but the writing was on the wall and he resigned his commission a few months later.

Mifflin wasn’t done with public service, though. He became a delegate to the Congress and even spent some time as its President. And once Pennsylvania revamped its Constitution to include a genuine Governor position, as the last President of Pennsylvania he became the state’s first Governor, from 1790 to December 1799. He returned to the State Legislature but died a few weeks later.

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October 1, 2026
Washington’s Thoughts of Home–September 30, 1776

Mount Vernon, the mansion along the Potomac River in which George Washington lived, was originally built by his father when George was two years old. At that time, however, it was a rather modest house.

Washington’s half-brother Lance lived in the house until his death in 1752. After a year or two, George leased out the property, but he did not own it outright until 1761. He did, however, expand the house during the 1750s. In 1774 he made more additions, until it looked like the building we can see and visit today.

Washington’s original intent was that the exterior of the building be symmetrical along its center line, which was a classical look for buildings.

(Fun Fact: the college I attended for my undergrad coursework, Adelphi University, was also initially designed to have symmetrical buildings. In fact, the builders added a nonfunctioning chimney to the gymnasium building to ensure symmetry. They’ve since added to the building so the symmetry is gone, but the twin stacks remain.)

At any rate, the building is not symmetrical because of design choices on the inside, so a couple of windows are “out of place” and the main entry door isn’t aligned with the cupola. Clearly Washington was a pragmatic guy when it came to these things. Symmetry is nice, but not strictly necessary.

Nowadays the property is run by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, who bought the house from John Augustine Washington III for the sum of $200,000 in 1858, along with about 200 acres of the surrounding land. Over the years they’ve done lots of restoration work but other than the addition of electricity in 1917, they’ve made no significant changes to the house.

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September 30, 2026
Washington’s Desperate Letter–September 24, 1776

George Washington was a practical man, and he realized that without a standing army, he wouldn’t stand a chance against the British.

Sure, it’s good to have motivated people who are passionate about the cause, but when they have setbacks, they’re more likely to bail out, and that’s exactly what he was facing once the dust began to settle from his losses in New York. Many of the recruits that he had weren’t finishing out the enlistment period they’d agreed on when they first joined up, and the fact that their supplies and their pay were sporadic didn’t help matters.

It was with this in mind that Washington wrote to Congress, strongly recommending that they make some changes to the way that the Continental Army was being administered. Improving pay would be great, but simply ensuring that pay happened on a regular basis would be even better. And, of course, if a standing army could be established, then the men would be locked in for longer periods of time, and his officers wouldn’t spend so much time training new recruits.

Whether Congress agrees to this change…stay tuned.

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September 24, 2026
Washington’s Report–September 18, 1776

Washington’s report to Congress regarding the events at Harlem Heights a couple of days earlier didn’t pull any punches with regard to how badly his army was beaten, or what mistakes he and his men might have made.

It didn’t always make for cheerful reading in Congress, but at least they knew what they were up against. They knew they weren’t getting whitewashed “Everything Is Just Peachy” reports from someone afraid of dealing with Congressional fallout.

And fortunately, Washington’s report in this case was a mixed bag of bad luck, extraordinarily good luck, unfortunate timing and the plain difficulty of defending an island that had so much coastline within sight of adjacent coastline (because Manhattan is surrounded by rivers, not oceans). New York ended badly for the Continental Army, but there were multiple times that it could have ended so much worse.

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September 18, 2026
Battle of Harlem Heights–September 16, 1776

While it didn’t change the result in New York, the Battle of Harlem Heights was a tactical win for the Continental Army, and a boost to morale as well.

It was the Continental Army’s first true victory since Lexington and Concord, and after the demoralizing loss at Kip’s Bay only a day earlier, demonstrating that these soldiers (who were still little more than ordinary citizens) could, in fact, stand up successfully to the mightiest fighting force in the world.

Harlem Heights is a neighborhood to the west of Harlem, and nowadays is called Morningside Heights. A cynic would suggest that the neighborhood changed names in the 1890s so that Columbia University wouldn’t have to be associated with a predominantly black neighborhood, but to be fair the neighborhood was also known as Cathedral Heights because of the presence of St. John the Divine Cathedral.

At any rate, the neighborhood is definitely worth a visit. There are a few historical plaques around Columbia University, and if you like visiting cathedrals, St. John is definitely worth your while. Grant’s Tomb can also be found in that area, and if you’re a fan of the TV show Seinfeld, you will be thrilled by what you find at 112th St and Broadway. That’s all I’m sayin’.

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September 16, 2026
Battle of Kip’s Bay–September 15, 1776

Calling it “The Battle of Kip’s Bay” may actually be overstating it a little bit; there were 500 militamen from Connecticut in the area when the British landed, and their defenses were blown away almost immediately, after which they panicked and ran.

But I tell you all about that in the episode. This is my chance to tell you a related story, and nobody knows whether it’s true.

If you look at today’s artwork, you’ll see a piece of a map and an estate called Inclenberg, about where modern-day Murray Hill can be found. Kip’s Bay is just out of frame to the right. Inclenburg was owned by the Murray family (hence the neighborhood name), who were a family of Quaker merchants who owned a wharf and a fleet of ships at the base of Wall Street.

Now, the story goes that the original plan was for the British to march across Manhattan, west to east, in order to cut off Washington’s army. As I note in the episode, about a third of them were still to the south in the city and would therefore be trapped and stranded. Then, once they were divided, the British would pursue the rest of them to the north, in Harlem Heights.

What’s known as a fact is that the British did not complete their traversing of the island; they stopped somewhere around Inclenberg. The legend part of this story is that when they got to Inclenberg, Mary Murray, the socialite who ran the estate, and two of her lovely daughters came out to greet General Howe and his commanders and offered them some afternoon tea.

Howe and his officers had a wonderful afternoon of hospitality, with tea and entertainment by the girls (singing, ya pervert), and the finest Madeira wine in New York City. In the meantime, Major Aaron Burr led the separated group of troops up through the western side of the city to Harlem Heights, and relative safety.

It’s really more likely that Howe simply stopped while waiting for more forces to arrive, and that’s the story I tell during the episode. But it’s a fun story, and it is known for sure that General Putnam’s men did escape what would have been certain capture by the British, who had to be absolutely apopleptic to learn that so many soldiers had escaped yet again without their knowing about it.

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September 15, 2026
Word From Congress–September 14, 1776

Washington was on the brink of retreating from New York City, but he was getting pushback from some of his generals regarding how it should be done.

Fortunately for him, this Gordian Knot was cut by a letter arriving from John Hancock on behalf of the Continental Congress.

Nathanael Green and William Heath weren’t necessarily in agreement with Hancock’s recommendations, but orders are orders and everyone prepared to move out based on those.

But about a week later, something happened to render part of those orders moot.

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September 14, 2026
To Stay, Or Not To Stay?–September 12, 1776

George Washington’s Council of War finally got to meet on this day in 1776, to figure out what happens next.

The Battle of Long Island was a rout for several reasons. In addition to the Continental Army being outnumbered by roughly two-to-one, there was poor communication and a couple of tactical errors. And the only reason more soldiers weren’t captured or killed was because poor weather prevented the British from figuring out that they were escaping across the East River until it was far too late.

So, as any good soldier would, Washington took a moment out to seek advice from his Council of War. Nathanael Greene recommended just getting out of town and regrouping elsewhere, but he also suggested burning the city down to keep it out of British hands. Washington already knew that Congress didn’t like the burning thing.

Most of Washington’s council recommended leaving the city, but Washington still wanted to ensure that some portions of the city were fortified and made appropriate plans. Unfortunately those plans fell apart rather quickly, as we’ll soon learn.

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September 12, 2026