Revolutionary War Strategy Archives - 250 and Counting

It took a month to figure it out, but the British ship movement up the Hudson River was a sign that they’d finally decided how they were going to implement their plans.

Rather than concentrating on New York City, which was going to be problematic because George Washington’s troops were pretty dug in over in Harlem Heights, Admiral Howe made the choice that ran closer to the original plan: start sending warships up the Hudson and establish a new foothold in the Pelham area of what we now call the Bronx. This could then become a base of operations for moving further up the Hudson Valley and make it very difficult, if not impossible, for materiel and information to pass between New England and the rest of the states. And since New York had a pretty sizeable chunk of Loyalists there, the downstate area should be fairly easy pickings.

So the British ship movement came as a surprise to nobody on the American side; what probably did come as a surprise was that it wasn’t as difficult to get through as they probably hoped they’d made it.

Washington and his War Council did plan for this possibility and there will be troops waiting when the British make their landing. We’ll talk about that in a few days.

The post The British Finally Make Their Move–October 9, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

In retrospect, we feel like we may be picking on this historic site a little bit. In fact, the park surrounding the ruins of Fort Pownall are quite nice for hiking, biking, picnics and, as we mentioned, there are historical markers all over the place so you do get a sense of how important this particular site was.

At any rate, on April 5 we told you about a detachment sent to the fort to disarm the place; today was the day that they arrived and succeeded, because even if spies knew about it (and they almost certainly did), word was not going to get to the fort in time to prevent what was going to happen.

N.B. for those of you who download the episodes as they come out, apparently the audio didn’t attach to this post correctly. Our apologies. It should be in your feed now.

The post April 15, 1775: The Short Life of Fort Pownall appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The impression that most people have of John Adams, it seems, comes from one of two places. It’s either William Daniels’ portrayal of him in the play and film 1776 (and we’re big fans of that particular bit of cinema), or it’s Paul Giamatti’s portrayal in the seven-part miniseries on cable TV. Both stories had their charms, and both took some liberties with the facts. (Oddly, both of them showed Benjamin Franklin being carried in to the Second Continental Congress, but that didn’t happen until the Constitutional Conventions eleven years later.) The bottom line is that Adams was a complex man and a very smart one who had the ability to see the bigger picture, as they say.

George Washington was also a well-rounded person, as you no doubt discovered in the January 1 episode. Early in 1775 Washington wore multiple hats. He was a delegate to the First Continental Congress, he was responsible for training militiamen in Virginia, and he was unofficially the Commander-in-Chief of the army, except there wasn’t one quite yet.

Today we’re looking at some correspondence from Adams to Washington, and we’ll learn in a future episode just how seriously Washington took his warnings.

The post 250 and Counting: January 6, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.