Summering on Long Island in 1776 was no vacation for Gen. George Washington. As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he was attempting to build defenses and ready his raw soldiers to directly confront the best warriors of the British Empire.
It was July 1776, and on paper Washington was dividing his fifteen thousand troops into defensive positions on both Long Island and Manhattan, even though at least a quarter of them were sick with smallpox. He was also aware, aside from Congress expecting New York to be held at all costs, that Maj. Gen. Charles Lee’s defensive assessment of New York was grim. Lee correctly saw that New York, essentially an island, could not be defended in any way given the mastery of the waterways (the New York harbor, and the Hudson and East rivers) by the British navy.[1] And the bad news was that the enemy navy was on its way.
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