British Major General William Howe had pulled his soldiers out of New Jersey in the spring of 1777, having failed to lure George Washington into a open-field encounter. The reassignment of the British troops to Staten Island was only temporary, however. These forces were to serve as one prong in a larger three-pronged attack — the major component of the British war plan for the year. Howe's army was to move northward from Manhattan and converge on Albany with the armies of St. Leger on the Mohawk and Burgoyne from Lake Champlain, effectively splitting New England from the other colonies.
British Campaign Map, 1777Prior to participating in that joint-venture, however, Howe did some tinkering with the war plan. He chose to interpret his orders from London as authorizing him to strike first against the American capital city, Philadelphia. He believed that the large Loyalist population in the area needed only a little encouragement to rally to the cause and that a strike against the seat of the American government would do the trick.
