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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