Battle+of+Long+Island

Long Island By Rachel Williamson The Battle of Long Island

On August 27, 1776 The Continental army launched themselves into battle having only declared America as its own nation a month before! The Battle of Long Island is the first battle of what will become the revolutionary war, which will hopefully win us our independence. Now I will tell you how it happened. After our win against the British in the Siege of Boston on March 17, 1776, General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief, brought the Continental Army to defend New York City, but was limited to the southern end of Manhattan Island. There they got ready for the British to attack. Only a month earlier the British, commanded my General William Howe, landed on Staten Island a few miles across the harbor. Washington knew the difficulty in holding the city. Believing Manhattan would be the first target, he moved most of his forces there. On August, 22 at 5:20 a.m. a group of 4,000 British troops left Staten Island for Long island commanded by Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis. By noon, 15,000 troops had landed on shore along with 40 pieces of artillery. Luckily, George Washington was giving news of this the day it happened but the information was wrong. He thought that only 8,000 to 9,000 troops had arrived. This made Washington think it was the group of troops he had predicted would attack so he sent only 1,500 more troops to Brookland bringing the number of American troops to 6,000. When the British left their camp for attack they left their fires going so the Americans would think nothing was happening. When they attacked Washington realized that he had been wrong about the number of British troops. He sent to have troops brought from Manhattan. 400 Maryland troops also arrived and fought the British with a surprise attack. Even with the arrival of new troops, the Americans still had a huge disadvantage. With their surprising amount of troops the British won.