Harlem Heights

The clash at Harlem Heights unfolded as part of the wider struggle for New York and New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. On September 16, 1776, fighting broke out in the area now known as Morningside Heights, extending eastward into what would later become the Harlem section of northwestern Manhattan, in present day New York City. Roughly 9,000 Continental soldiers occupied elevated ground across upper Manhattan, led jointly by Commander-in-chief General Washington, Major General Nathanael Greene, and Major General Israel Putnam. Facing them stood the leading edge of British forces, some 5,000 strong, commanded by Major General Henry Clinton.

The engagement began at dawn when scouts from Knowlton's Rangers ran into British light infantry pickets, and this small clash escalated into a chase through the woods, with British troops pushing the retreating Americans toward Washington's stronghold atop Harlem Heights. Confident to a fault, the British light forces had pressed ahead of their main body without backup, leaving themselves vulnerable to a reverse assault. Recognizing the opening, Washington sent troops around to encircle the exposed British unit. Though this flanking effort did not succeed in trapping them, the combined weight of that attack and fresh American troops streaming down from the heights forced the outnumbered British to fall back.

The British light infantry, upon linking up with reinforcements arriving from the south and gaining the backing of two cannon, wheeled around and dug in across open ground on Morningside Heights. American numbers grew as well, and a protracted firefight followed. Roughly two hours in, running low on ammunition, the British began withdrawing toward their own lines. Rather than press his advantage into a full-scale confrontation with the main British army, Washington called off the chase and pulled his men back to their positions. This victory proved important in rebuilding morale within the Continental Army, which had endured a string of setbacks, and it marked the first time Washington had won on the battlefield during the war.

A month passed without further major combat between the two sides. Eventually Washington found himself compelled to march his army north to White Plains, a town in southeastern New York, after British forces advanced into Westchester County and threatened to outflank his position further down Manhattan. Following two subsequent losses, Washington pulled his forces back across the Hudson River to the west.

Background

General William Howe's forces outmaneuvered and crushed the American army on August 27, 1776, in what became known as the Battle of Brooklyn. Through this flanking maneuver, Howe trapped the American defenders against Brooklyn Heights, leaving the East River directly behind them with no route of escape. Recognizing the peril, Commander-in-Chief George Washington organized a nighttime evacuation on August 29, ferrying his full force of 9,000 soldiers along with their gear across the water toward Manhattan.

Roughly two weeks later, on September 15, Howe launched a seaborne assault at Kip's Bay along Manhattan's eastern edge facing the East River. Naval guns first pounded the shoreline defenses before 4,000 British and Hessian soldiers came ashore. Panic swept through the American ranks at the mere approach of the enemy, and matters did not improve once Washington himself reached the chaos. Despite taking personal charge and ordering his men to hold their ground and fight, the soldiers ignored him entirely and kept running.

With the Americans routed from Kip's Bay, Howe brought ashore another 9,000 men, yet he failed to seal off the escape route leading from New York Town at the island's southern tip. This delay allowed Washington to march his entire garrison northward along Manhattan's western shore, heading for the safety of Harlem Heights. By four in the afternoon the whole column was underway, and by the time darkness fell, every soldier had reached the protective works atop the Heights.

Battle

In the first light of September 16, word reached Washington, later proven mistaken, that British forces were on the move toward his position. He had anticipated such a threat and had already sent Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton with 150 men to scout the enemy's lines. As dawn broke, British pickets belonging to Brigadier Alexander Leslie's Light Infantry brigade caught sight of Knowlton's men. In response, two or three companies from the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion pushed forward to engage them. What followed was a skirmish lasting beyond thirty minutes, fought

Aftermath

Figures on casualties differ depending on who counted them. Howe's own tally put British losses at 14 dead and 78 wounded, though a staff officer of his recorded in a private diary that 154 men had been wounded alongside the same 14 fatalities. David McCullough offers a starker estimate still, guessing at "probably...90 killed and about 300 wounded," though he names no source backing this claim. Henry Johnston, whose 1897 work stands as the sole thorough examination of the fight, concluded that the British had suffered 14 dead and 157 wounded, while American losses came to roughly 30 killed and 100 wounded, a count that included Colonel Knowlton among the fallen.

Major Andrew Leitch, who led the Virginia riflemen, succumbed to his wounds a few days afterward. Each side insisted it had won. Washington himself noted that driving back the British in this "pretty sharp skirmish" lifted spirits within American ranks "prodigiously," an effect felt even by soldiers who never joined the fighting. The clash also stood as the first victory of the war achieved by troops under Washington's own direct command.

Not long after the engagement, word reached Washington that British forces were advancing by water toward the north and coming ashore at Throg's Neck. Fearing he might be encircled and cut off within New York, Washington set his army on a retreat northward. To slow the British push, troops from Massachusetts were dispatched to Eastchester to keep watch on enemy movements. Finding no way across by land at Throg's Neck, the British instead disembarked at Pell's Point, where fighting broke out on October 18. This engagement bought Washington the time needed to shift his forces to White Plains. Following defeats there and afterward at Fort Washington, Washington's army fell back across New Jersey with the British in pursuit, eventually crossing into Pennsylvania.

Knowlton's death dealt a severe setback to the young American intelligence effort, since he had been the one, acting on Washington's orders, to organize and command the Continental Army's very first unit devoted to that purpose.