The "Road to Narrows" is the Gowanus Road. The main defensive works were a series of forts and entrenchments located in the northwest of the county, in and around the town of Brooklyn. Strategy Īmerican strategy called for the first line of defense to be based on the Heights of Guan, a collection of hills which stretched northeast across King's County. Lee had also seen to it that the immediate area was cleared of Loyalists. Barricades and redoubts were established in and around the city, and the bastion of Fort Stirling was built across the East River in Brooklyn Heights, facing the city. ![]() He reasoned that the defenses should be located with the ability to inflict heavy casualties upon the British if any move was made to take and hold ground. Troops were in limited supply, so Washington found the defenses incomplete, but Lee had concluded that in any case it would be impossible to hold the city with the British commanding the sea. Lee remained in New York City until March, when the Continental Congress sent him to South Carolina construction of the city's defenses was left to General William Alexander (Lord Stirling). Washington left Boston on April 4, arrived at New York on April 13, and established headquarters at the former home of Archibald Kennedy on Broadway facing Bowling Green. He had sent his second-in-command, Charles Lee, ahead to New York the previous February to establish the city's defenses. Washington then began to transfer regiments to New York City, which he believed the British would attack next because of the port's strategic importance. In the first stage of the war, the British Army was trapped in the peninsular city of Boston and were forced to abandon it on March 17, sailing to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to await reinforcements. The Continental Army was driven out of Manhattan entirely after several more defeats and was forced to retreat through New Jersey to Pennsylvania. The British dug in for a siege, but on the night of August 29–30, Washington evacuated the entire army to Manhattan without the loss of supplies or a single life. The remainder of the army retreated to the main defenses on Brooklyn Heights. The Americans panicked, resulting in twenty percent losses through casualties and capture, although a stand by 400 Maryland and Delaware troops prevented greater losses. Unknown to the Americans, however, Howe had brought his main army around their rear and attacked their flank soon after. After five days of waiting, the British attacked the American defenses on the Guan Heights. On August 21, the British landed on the shores of Gravesend Bay in southwest Kings County, across the Narrows from Staten Island and more than a dozen miles south of the established East River crossings to Manhattan. Washington knew the difficulty in holding the city with the British fleet in control of the entrance to the harbor at the Narrows, and accordingly moved the bulk of his forces to Manhattan, believing that it would be the first target. In July, the British, under the command of General William Howe, landed a few miles across the harbor on the sparsely populated Staten Island, where they were reinforced by a fleet of ships in Lower New York Bay over the next month and a half, bringing their total force to 32,000 troops. ![]() Washington understood that the city's harbor would provide an excellent base for the Royal Navy, so he established defenses there and waited for the British to attack. It was the first major battle to take place after the United States declared its independence on July 4, and in troop deployment and combat, it was the largest battle of the war.Īfter defeating the British in the siege of Boston on March 17, commander-in-chief George Washington relocated the Continental Army to defend the port city of New York, located at the southern end of Manhattan Island. ![]() The British defeated the Americans and gained access to the strategically important Port of New York, which they held for the rest of the war. The Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn and the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, was an action of the American Revolutionary War fought on Tuesday, August 27, 1776, at the western edge of Long Island in the present-day Brooklyn, New York.
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