The British Are Coming (Young Readers Edition) by Rick Atkinson

Author:Rick Atkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

On the late afternoon of August 12, yet another 107 ships slipped through the Narrows to be greeted with British cannon salutes. Aboard were a thousand guardsmen drawn from elite foot regiments often used to protect the king. Also aboard were more than 8,600 German troops—known collectively as Hessians, since most came from the landlocked, impoverished Hesse-Kassel region of Germany. They stood at the rails overjoyed to see land after fourteen weeks at sea.

Despite the spectacle that swam into view through the telescope eyepiece, Washington had no idea what the Howe brothers intended. His only meaningful intelligence came from deserters and escaped American prisoners, whose accounts often conflicted. In a newspaper distributed in New York, Washington cautioned that an enemy assault “may be hourly expected,” and he urged “women, children, and infirm persons … to remove with all expedition.” A depleted, skittish town grew emptier and more skittish.

Washington received an alarming note on August 15 from Nathanael Greene, newly promoted to major general and the commander of American defenses on Long Island. “I am confined to my bed with a raging fever,” Greene wrote. Evacuated to a private home on Broadway in Manhattan, he would lie dangerously ill for two weeks while the commander in chief scrambled to find a replacement who knew something about how the army’s left wing planned to fight.

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