The Battle Of Brooklyn: Hidden History In Your Backyard
BY AILEEN CHUMARD
It has been a hot summer, but New Yorkers were really feeling the heat back in the summer of 1776 as more and more British ships dropped anchor in New York Harbor daily. While our young nation asserted its independence on July 4, British commander General William Howe was mobilizing his country’s greatest expeditionary force to-date, in order to capture New York City and gaining control of the Hudson River.
Arriving in Staten Island — the closest available strategic point to Brooklyn — Howe’s well-trained and well-equipped army spent the summer readying for battle. Meanwhile, General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, arrived in New York only a few months before and had to strategize how to utilize his ill-equipped and largely untrained militia in a battle where he would likely be outnumbered three-to-one.