On This Day ... in 1776 & Others
Fort Washington was captured from American revolutionary forces. Meanwhile the United Provinces recognized the independence of the United States
In November 1776 the last position the Americans held on Manhattan Island was the area around Fort Washington on the northern tip, known as Harlem Heights. General Nathan Greene commanded the American positions with a discretion to withdraw if he considered it necessary.
General Howe planned three attacks. Brigadier Lord Percy was to attack from the South up the island. Brigadier Matthews with the light infantry and Guards to cross the Harlem River and attack Baxter on the east side, supported by Lord Cornwallis with the grenadiers and the 33rd Foot. The main attack was to be on Rawlings’ position by Hessian troops commanded by General Von Knyphausen. An additional assault was to be carried out on the same side by the 42nd under Colonel Sterling. (the grenadiers, light infantry, Guards, 33rd and 42nd were the corps regularly used for particularly demanding assignments. It is interesting that the 33rd had a consistently high reputation throughout the1740s and 1750s).
Early on the 18th November, Howe called on the fort to surrender. This was refused. A bombardment broke out from British batteries across the Harlem River and the frigate Pearl on the American positions.At 10am Percy advanced to the attack. At noon Matthews landed on Manhattan and began his assault. Baxter was killed and is militia fled into the fort.
Knyphausen crossed onto Manhattan at Kingsbridge and at 10am began his move south. The two Hessian columns assaulted American positions and after a hard fight with Rawlings’ riflemen the Americans fell back into the fort.
Percy attacked Cadwallader in the South and the 42nd landed on the east side and pushed inland behind Cadwallader’s position, forcing the Americans to fall back to the fort. With all his troops pinned in Fort Washington under heavy fire, Magaw was forced to surrender to the Hessian general Knyphausen.
The British side suffered 450 casualties of which 320 were Hessians. The Americans suffered 2,900 casualties of which the preponderance were prisoners. Following the battle Fort Lee on the west bank of the Hudson was abandoned and Washington and the Continental Arm retreated to the Delaware.
1805: Russian forces under Bagration delay the pursuit by French troops under Murat at the Battle of Schöngrabern
1857: At Lucknow, Lieutenant Hackett and Private Monger of the 23rd Foot won the Victoria Cross for rescuing a wounded soldier lying in the open under heavy fire.
1863: During the American Civil War at the Battle of Campbell's Station near Knoxville, Tennessee, Confederate troops unsuccessfully attacked Union forces
1871: In Canada, the Second Red River Expedition reaches Fort Garry at Winnipeg
1907: Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state
1939: A Dutch passenger liner today became the latest civilian ship to fall victim to German mines, in the North Sea. The Simon Bolivar sank with about 400 passengers and crew aboard. It is estimated that 86 people, many of them women and children, have lost their lives. The Dutch believed that the mines were a new magnetic type.This view was supported today by a Danish skipper, Captain Knudsen, giving evidence in Copenhagen about the sinking of his ship, Canada, off the Humber on 4 November.
The Germans, who claim that their U-boats sank 115 ships in the first two months of the war, were clearly putting a further massive effort into the war at sea. The total British tonnage lost so far is small, only around 300,000 out of nearly 18 million tons.
1940: Winston Churchill berated the First Lord of the Admiralty about the number of destroyers available for service in the NW Approaches. Out of 151 destroyers available only 84 are serviceable. Of these only 33 are marked for use in the area.
In occupied Poland, the Nazis closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world
1941: Operation Crusader was launched in North Africa by 8th Army in an effort to drive the Axis out of Egypt and relieve Tobruk.
In the Pacific, eleven Japanese submarines sailed from their homeports to take part in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nine submarines from Kwajalein will also sail for their stations
1942: Australian troops captured Popondetta in New Guinea, on the steamy kunai plains north of the Owen Stanley mountains. It became a major Allied base for the attack on the Japanese-held beachheads in Papua.
1945: As part of Operation Paperclip the United States Army secretly admitted 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology
Comments
"The British side suffered 450 casualties of which 320 were Hessians." Why didn't you add "So most of them were only bloody Krauts - serves them right!" Those poor Hessian devils seemed to have been forced into the army and were actually sold to the British (or German) king George the something or other by the greedy landgrave of Hessen-Kassel. Fortunately, it was a former German General (von Steuben) whose reforms of the American army enabled the Americans to beat the rudy hell out of the British. Remember Yorktown 1778...
Posted by: General von Klinkerhofen | November 22, 2009 6:32 PM