The Battle of Harlem Heights is an underappreciated milestone in American military history. The engagement on upper Manhattan Island on September 16, 1776, was the first successful battle for George Washington's troops in the quest for independence from Great Britain and presaged the emergence of an effective fighting force among the citizen-soldiers who made up the Continental Army. The cooperative effort of regiments from New England, Maryland, and Virginia--whose men lacked any sense of national identity before the Revolution--indicated the potential for this fledgling army to cohere around a common national purpose and affiliation and become the primary instrument for securing America's right to self-rule. The action began when a contingent of rangers led by Col. Thomas Knowlton of Connecticut encountered British light infantry while conducting a reconnaissance mission on Washington's orders. What began as a skirmish transformed into a full-fledged battle as both sides reinforced, and a heavy engagement continued for several hours until, with ammunition running low, the British withdrew. Washington decided not to pursue and risk confrontation with a larger force, thereby keeping his army intact. In The Battle of Harlem Heights, 1776, David Price conveys the significance of the Continental Army's first victory and highlights the role of one of its key participants, the largely forgotten Knowlton--the "father of American military intelligence"--who gave his life during the action while urging his rangers forward. No matter how many times U.S. Army troops have recorded a battlefield success over the past two and a half centuries--whether on American soil, in a European wood, across a Middle Eastern desert, or on a Pacific island--one thing about that history remains indisputable. They did it first at Harlem Heights. Small Battles: Military History as Local History Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin, Series Editors Small Battles offers a fresh and important new perspective on the story of America's early conflicts. It was the small battles, not the clash of major armies, that truly defined the fighting during the colonial wars, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the hostilities on the frontiers. This is dramatic military history as seen through the prism of local history--history with a depth of detail, a feeling for place, people, and the impact of battle and its consequences that the story of major battles often cannot convey. The Small Battles series focuses on America's military conflicts at their most intimate and revealing level.

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Describes the people and action of Revolutionary War battles that took place in New York, particularly the Battle of Harlem Heights, which underscored General Washington's battle philosophy and boosted the morale of his troops.

Under In connection with the memorial celebration of the battle of Harlem Heights last fall, on the site of the battle, the present grounds of Columbia University, Professor Johnston has published the above careful and scholarly account of the campaign which led up to that skirmish, and of the results of the latter upon the succeeding movements of the British and American armies. This task could not have fallen to a more competent writer. The author had already contributed largely to our knowledge of the campaign of 1776 about New York and Brooklyn,1 and had at his disposal the co-operation of the officials of the New York Historical Society as well as that society's valuable collection of Revolutionary documents. By a comparison of all the available original material, which is printed in full, and occupies just half the volume, Professor Johnston establishes once for all the exact site of the three successive skirmishes which constituted the battle of Harlem Heights, namely, on the present line of the Boulevard and of about 128th, 120th and 108th Streets. Earlier authorities had placed the battle some distance to the east, while Mr. E. C. Benedict had, in 1878, placed it a mile or more to the north of its true location. Mrs. Martha J. Lamb accepted his interpretation, and, in consequence, the error was perpetuated by a tablet commemorative of the battle placed by a patriotic society on the wall of Trinity Cemetery near 153d Street, and which is still there. Beside establishing the site of the battle-field beyond all possibility of doubt, the author shows clearly how the battle of Harlem, though of slight importance considered as a successful engagement of the American with the British outposts, was in reality of great importance in "stimulating the drooping spirits of the American soldier" and "in effectually disturbing the plans of the enemy." After evacuating Boston in March and recuperating some months at Halifax, General Howe appeared with his fleet in New York harbor toward the end of June, 1776. Debarking his army on Staten Island, he crossed the Narrows in August, and brought on the battle of Long Island. Unable to follow up his success at once, because of the skillful withdrawal of the Americans to Manhattan Island, Howe crossed the East River and took possession of the city of New York on September 15, Washington repeating his tactics and withdrawing to the northern end of the island. On the following day the battle of Harlem Heights was fought, the American outposts on the slope to the north of the "Hollow Way," now Manhattan Street, boldly advancing and driving back the British outposts on the heights south of that depression till their further advance was checked by the British reinforcements which hurried to the scene of action. The Americans then retired to the main body of their army. The real importance of this successful skirmish lies in the fact that it evidently raised General Howe's estimate of the fighting powers of the American army, and led him to avoid attacking it in a pitched battle on the northern end of Manhattan Island. He preferred to outflank Washington by moving the larger part of his army up the Sound and landing it near New Rochelle, thereby compelling Washington to withdraw most of his army from Manhattan Island, and to move inland toward White Plains, where the two armies met in battle on October 28. -HRFN, Vol. 3