Kip's Bay (New York City)

On September 15, 1776, British forces staged an amphibious assault on Kip's Bay, a maneuver that unfolded during the broader New York and New Jersey campaign of the Revolutionary War. The site lay along Manhattan's East River shoreline, situated north of the city limits as they existed at that time.

Before troops even reached the shore, punishing bombardment from British warships on the East River sent the untested American militia defending the area scattering in retreat. This left the beachhead completely undefended, and British soldiers came ashore without facing any resistance. In the chaotic skirmishing that followed, several American militiamen fell into British hands as prisoners. Compounding the danger, British troop movements after the landing nearly severed the retreat path for Continental Army units positioned farther southeast on the island. American soldiers fled with such haste that Washington himself, trying desperately to rally his scattered men, found himself perilously close to enemy lines.

From a military standpoint, the landing achieved its British objectives. The Continental Army had no choice but to pull back to Harlem Heights, surrendering the lower portion of Manhattan and the city itself. Yet Washington used this retreat to his advantage, fortifying strong defensive positions atop Harlem Heights. These positions proved their worth the very next day, when a fierce clash erupted between the opposing armies. General Howe, wary of the costs a direct assault would bring, chose caution over aggression, and British forces made no further push up the island for the next two months.

Background

Fortunes turned poorly for British forces during the opening stretch of the Revolutionary War, spanning 1775 into the first months of 1776. Trapped under siege at Boston, General William Howe found himself compelled to pull out when the Continental Army camp received a shipment of heavy artillery, and by March 1776 he had retreated to Halifax, Nova Scotia. There he rebuilt his strength, gathering fresh supplies and reinforcements before setting out that June to seize New York City. Sensing this shift in British strategy, General George Washington relocated his forces to the city, joining General Israel Putnam in bolstering its defenses, an effort made difficult by the sheer number of places a British force might come ashore.

Early July saw Howe's men come ashore on Staten Island without resistance, and on August 22 they repeated the feat on Long Island, where the Continental Army had built up substantial fortifications under Washington's direction. Five days later, on August 27, Howe outmaneuvered those defenses at the Battle of Long Island, pinning Washington against the East River atop the narrow stretch of Brooklyn Heights with enemy troops closing in from the opposite direction. Yet on the night spanning August 29 and 30, Washington managed to ferry his entire force, some 9,000 men, across to York Island, the name then given to Manhattan.

Though the withdrawal itself unfolded with impressive order and cohesion, morale within the army soon collapsed into frustration and gloom. Many militiamen, whose enlistments had been set to expire that August, simply headed home in droves. Doubts about command surfaced among the remaining troops, some of whom made no secret of wishing General Charles Lee, with his flair and popularity, were leading them instead. Washington turned to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia for guidance, posing the question of whether New York City, at that time confined to Manhattan's southern edge, ought to be evacuated and set ablaze. As he put it himself, doing so would yield real advantages on one hand, while destroying a great deal of property on the other.

Planning

Unsure what Howe intended to do next, Washington divided his forces thinly across the shorelines of York Island and the Westchester side, all while pressing his efforts to gather intelligence that might reveal the general's true intentions. He also authorized a strike against HMS Eagle, the vessel serving as flagship for Admiral Richard Howe, who commanded the Royal Navy at New York and happened to be General Howe's brother. This effort produced what stands as the earliest recorded instance of submarine combat: on September 7, Sergeant Ezra Lee agreed to guide the underwater craft Turtle toward Eagle so he could fix explosives to its hull. The vessel's boring device met an iron band it proved unable to pierce, leaving Lee unable to secure the explosive charge in place. He managed to get away safely, though when he surfaced to check his bearings, British small boats came to investigate, forcing him to jettison his explosive load in order to drive them off. That payload later detonated without effect in the East River.

At the same time, General Howe's forces pushed northward along the eastern bank of the East River, heading for King's Bridge. Under cover of darkness on the night of September 3, the frigate Rose exploited a northward tide, hauling thirty flatboats up the East River before dropping anchor at the mouth of Newtown Creek. The following day brought additional transports and flatboats up the same waterway. Meanwhile three warships, Renown, Repulse, and Pearl, together with the schooner Tryal, made their way into the Hudson.

General Nathanael Greene, only just back to active duty following a severe illness, wrote to Washington on September 5 pressing for an immediate evacuation of New York. His reasoning centered on the fact that without control of Long Island, the city simply could not be defended. Given how thinly the army was spread across encampments on York Island, Greene warned that the Americans would have no way of repelling a British assault. Suffering yet another crushing loss, he cautioned, would prove disastrous both in terms of casualties and the toll on troop morale. Greene further urged that the city be put to the torch, reasoning that once British forces seized it, retaking it would require a fleet equal to or stronger than theirs. He concluded that holding onto New York City offered the Americans nothing of value, and he called on Washington to assemble a war council to weigh the matter. Yet by the time that council convened on September 7, word had arrived from John Hancock relaying Congress's position: the city was not to be destroyed, but Washington bore no obligation to hold it. Congress had additionally arranged for three representatives, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge, to meet with Lord Howe.

Aftermath

The city's remaining residents greeted the arriving British forces warmly, tearing down the Continental Army's flag and hoisting the Union Flag in its place. For Howe, who had hoped to seize New York swiftly while limiting casualties, the operation had gone exactly as planned. He chose not to press his advantage further that day, halting his forces before they reached Harlem.

Furious over how his men had behaved, Washington branded their conduct "shameful" and "scandalous." Blame fell heavily on the Connecticut militia, whose reputation had already suffered, and they were widely dismissed as cowards responsible for the collapse. Not everyone shared this harsh judgment, though. General William Heath offered a more measured view, noting that memories of Long Island's casualties remained fresh, and that even if the common soldiers did not grasp it, their officers understood the city could not be held. Had the Connecticut troops attempted to hold York Island against such fierce artillery and an enemy force so vastly superior in numbers, they likely would have been wiped out entirely.

Fighting flared again on September 16, when a minor skirmish between outposts grew into a sustained engagement beneath Washington's positions on Harlem Heights. Musket fire continued for hours before both sides withdrew to their original positions, and for roughly two months afterward, the armies' respective footholds on Manhattan saw little change. The clash proved a welcome morale booster for the Americans, who had managed to hold firm against elite British units after the disaster of the day before, and it left the British with newfound respect for their opponents' willingness to fight.