As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week Jonathan looks at the risky bet Washington made to defend New York City. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors
For expelling the British from Boston in March 1776, George Washington received many plaudits: the thanks of the Massachusetts legislature; the promise of a medal from the Continental Congress; and his very first college degree—an honorary doctor of laws from Harvard College. Unfortunately for all involved, when a representative from Harvard called to present the degree on April 4, he discovered he was too late: Washington had already left town hours earlier for New York City. Credit the Ivy League of old with at least trying to honor the military.
Although there were credible reports of the British sailing for Nova Scotia, Washington could only guess where they would strike after refitting there. Trying to think as the enemy would, he bet on New York City for the exact reasons the British had longed eyed the place: its reputation as a bastion of loyalism and its strategic location at the mouth of the Hudson River. As a glance at a map will show, the British could use that waterway to help link up with their forces in Canada while using its eastern bank to quarantine the particularly rebellious New England colonies from the rest. New York City, Washington wrote, “is the object worthy [of] their attention, and it is the place that we must use every endeavor to keep from them.”
