(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) wrote in message ...

Strange how after they evacuated Boston in March 1776 (less than a
year after Lexington & Concord) they never came back,
and how Howe and
Burgoyne's operations thereafter concentrated on New York, then
Philadelphia. For one who likes to cast aspersions on the knowledge
of others, you don't seem too clued-up yourself.

Another poor ignorant soul in the need for elucidation I see. g
Apologies in advance for what is going to be a rather long post.

The origins of British strategy date back to the summer of 1775
(prior to that they did not have one), when Bill Legge, a.k.a. 2nd
Earl of Dartmouth and Secretary of American Affairs in the Colonial
Office had some discussions with some folks knowledgable (or more
correctly with folks who thought themselves knowledgeable) of affairs
in America. After which, he came up with his grand plan of campaign.
Writing to Thomas Gage about it in August, he suggested that two
armies ought to be assembled. One in Boston, which was to be
reinforced, and the other, and Main, to occupy New York City, which
was to be a piece of cake since it was loyal. The idea then would be
for an advance out of NYC into New England while the other advanced
out of Boston. However, Gage, quite to the reliefe of the North
ministry, then resigned allowing North's hand picked man, William
Howe, to take command. Unfortunately, this precipated a crisis in
command, because Howe was junior to then governor of Canada, General
Guy Carleton who the Cabinet felt (wrongly IMHO) was indespensible in
keeping Canada loyal to the Crown. Carleton would surely resign if
forced to serve under a junior. So the Solomaic decision was reached
to divide the command in North America with Carleton retaining
independent command in Canada, and Howe commanding everything else.
At the time, September of 1775, no trouble was foreseen, because
Canada was never meant to be an active theater.
Upon his confirmation as Commander in Chief in North America (less
Canada-for which read Quebec), Howe requested an alteration to the
strategy laid out by Dartmouth. Howe wanted nothing to do with any
advance out of Boston and the neccessary frontal assaults against what
by then would be a years worth of American fortifications. Note it
was he was on scene commander at Breed's Hill which was the bloodiest
battle of the war for the British in both real terms and in ratio (50
percent casualties). He also did not like the idea of two widely
seperated armies attempting to act in unison with such long external
lines of communication as to be virtually independent. Instead he
suggested removing the army from Boston and landing it in Rhode
Island. That would still serve as a diversion for the main landing at
New York (and thus dividing the American defense) while still being
near enough for each army to cover the other.
Alas, a serious wrinkle had begun even before the ink was ever put to
paper. Back in June, Congress had taken up the issue of "invading"
Canada. The primary purpose was to divert British troops from Boston
to its protection in order for the siege of the latter to be
accomplished more readily. Secondary to this was the "need" to
liberate Canada from British rule, and essentially drive the British
clear off the continent. However, there were qualms about making an
unwanted incursion into a fellow colony, and Congress mandated that
Canadian opinion first be ascertained. The results of these inquiries
were mixed, but generally considered favorable. Generally the reports
were accurate enough in that the bulk of the population of Canada did
wish to boot the British out (they were after all French who mostly
had no love of the Anglos), but the clergy was another matter, and
this made the commander of the New York Department (later Northern
Department), Philip Schuyler whose task it was to carry out the
invasion, a bit wary, but Congress was convinced the clergy would be
less an issue, and while it is (highly) debatable, in the end they may
have been more or less right. At any rate, after an inauspicious
beginning, Schuyler was relieved of the responsibility of commanding
the forces in Canada which was handed over to BG Richard Montgomery,
who with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm (and competance)
undertook the invasion and with one Col. Benedict Arnold commanding an
expedition through Maine, rather easily drove the British out of most
of the populated sections of Canada and besieged Quebec City proper,
and there it all began to go wrong for the British.
When news reached London of Canada's apparent imminent demise, there
was a lot of hand wringing and cursing of Carleton's name and his
incompetance for allowing the Americans so much success. To be fair
to GC, he did only have two very understrength regiments for the
defense of all of Canada, which were much inferior in numbers to the
American forces. It is noteworthy to mention also that few Canadians
rallied to the British cause complicating Carleton's defense. In
fact, a number were enlisting in the Colonial (it was not yet
American) army. Back in London, panic struck, the new Secretary of
American Affairs, Lord George Germain (nee Sackville of
busted-for-cowardice-and-disobedience-of-orders-at-Minden-infame and
who replaced the all-too-friendly-to-Americans Dartmouth in November)
began redirecting a considerable force from Howe to Canada. At the
same time, he diverted another, albight smaller, force from Howe for
the intended occupation of Charleston because of Southern governors'
screams for actions for protection. British officialdom missed the
boat twice. The first clue that the rebellion was not centered in New
England was the invasion of Canada. It being obvious that the army
which did so was not composed of New Englanders (other than a few from
New Hampshire). The second was the need for the diversion (roughly a
reinforced brigade) of troops to the South. The waning forturnes of
Lord Dunmore, now ex(iled) governor of Virginia, ought to have been a
third. However *in spite of* these very obvious and omminous signs,
Germain (a rather clueless lout-British condemnations tending to be
stronger) and even Howe (at that time) behaved as if they were
inconsequential bumps in the road and still believed, as did it near
everyone else (save Carleton who damned the Canadians up and down his
letters official or no). Oh, Howe was miffed to lose five or six
thousand men, and it vastly altered his campaign as now there were too
few troops to form a second army for Rhode Island, though the latter
still remained an objective.
As mentioned, Howe pulled out (precipitacely) in March of '76 after
Henry Knox had drug some former British heavy artillery from
Ticonderoga to the heights overlooking the RN's anchorages in Boston
Harbor. Howe was to have pulled out before the onset of winter, but
had decided, for reasons that are really not clear, to remain, and
I've a sneaking suspicion that he had intended on keeping a garrison
in Boston despite the plan not too. We'll never know, though. At any
rate, Howe went to Halifax for a while to await his reinforcements and
an improvement in his logistics. Meanwhile o'er in Canada, things
began to look up for British fortunes. An attempt to the take the
city by storm on New Years Eve was easily squashed, and most
importantly Montgomery was killed and Arnold wounded. The Canadian
Army, as the United Colonies army was stiled, began to disintegrate.
Namely because the 9 month enlistment period was up. Like Washington
before Boston, the "American" armies had to disband and be rerecruited
at the same time. Luckily, for Washington et all, the British were
too weak everywhere to do much about it. But the situation in Canada
went to the pot real quickly. Washington had a fine head for
organization, and more importantly literally sat on his logistical
base. Canada was now under the ineffectual command of David Wooster
who was little animated, not overly clever, was in a secondary theater
with secondary priorities in a poor province (not a single head of
beef existed anywhere in Canada), and far from his logistical base. A
two man committee sent to Canada to check on things by Congress
convinced Wooster to step aside, and MG John Thomas arrived at the
beginning of May to take his place. Thomas decided, in a council of
war, to abandon the siege and retreat further up Canada, but then the
first ships carrying a regiment detached from Howe at Halifax began
arriving, and Carleton sortied with a couple of companies of his
remaining regulars, and drove in the American pickets. So ended the
"Battle" of Quebec. It did serve, however, to panick Thomas who then
ordered a wholesale withdrawal to Trois Riviers (such a maneuver
would receive a new name during the Korean War). Once arrived,
Thomas said this place sucks too, and fell back on Sorrel. There he
met 3,000 new reinforcements from New England under BG John Thompson.
These fine fellows brought Smallpox with them, and so some of the
regimental commanders began innoculating their regiments thus
rendering them hors-de-combat for the next month or so. Thomas
promptly put a stop to that little bit of non-sense, and then just as
promptly caught smallpox himself and died. Meanwhile the
really-big-British-reinforcement under Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne began
to arrive about Quebec and moved further upstream to the Sorrel (or
Richelieu). Also arriving was John Sullivan with 5,000 fresh
"Continentals" which were cheered by the locals upon their arrival.
Sullivan and Thompson decided to retake Trois Riviers in order to turn
it around, but it went for nought, and the local militia that had been
on "our side" turned coat, now that they were certain the U.C. were
leaving Canada, and turned Thompson over to the British. Sullivan did
not panic though, and took his sweet time in withdrawing making
certain that all his stores, heavy equipment, and sick were safely
away before retiring. That took about a month. Carleton did not
interfere, and let Sullivan go unmolested though the latter was
severly out numbered. Though the "American" army nominally was the
same strength as the British (about 8~9,000 men) smallpox had crippled
it, and in the week after TR it numbered less than 1,500 fit for duty.
This led to new round of condemnations about Carleton in London. The
reason for his inactivity has never been made clear, but I suspect it
was to keep his men well away from Sullivan's pocky troops. Anyways,
I digress.
Coming back somewhat on topic, back at the end of March when that
Committee of Congress (i.e. Maryland delegate Samuel Chase and fellow
Marylander, but not yet delegate, Charles Carrol of Carrolton-who was
Catholic and why he was a member of the committee) recommended
Wooster's replacement, they also recommended that a flotilla of
warships be constructed on Lake Champlain (which is not, as Sen. Leahy
attempted to us convince, one of the Great Lakes). That mission fell
to B. Arnold of sulking-in-Montreal-
and-generally-hating-Wooster's-guts fame. Ooh, good move on Chase's
part, because now Carleton could not move south to crush to the now
renamed Northern Army (and now under the command of one Horatio
"Not-at-the-bridge-but-Granny" Gates-whose command was also
recommended by Chase) until he built himself some boats with guns, and
so away at it through the summer he went. [Meanwhile Chase returned
to Congress, voted for Independence, and damn near got into a fist
fight with one John Adams on said floor of said Congress over some
on-the-record comments Chase made about the sorry-excuse-for-soldiers
that were New Englanders. Sullivan went home, well to Philadelphia,
also screaming his head off at being replaced by a junior, for which
he was awarded a major generalship and command of a division in the
Main Army at New York, where he was promptly captured at the Battle of
Long Island. What happened to Wooster you ask? He went home to
Connecticut, and was killed at the Battle of Compo Hill where he and
Arnold (and a few recruits and some militia) badly molested a British
raiding force under former Gov of NY, George Tryon, who had just
torched Danbury CT.]
Ok, where were we in our story? Oh yes. Well, Howe finally had
gotten underway and landed on Staten Island in July of '76 just in
time to be greated with news of the Declaration of Independence. This
does not seem to have dampened his spirits much, after all, according
to him (and every other British journalist I have ever read) most of
the colonists, especially in New York, were still loyal! So, as peace
commissioner (his big bro Admiral Lord Richard "Black Dick" Howe was
boss commissioner] settled down snug as a bug in Lizzy Loring's. . .
er, on Staten Island, and attempted to negotiate a settlement, and to
await more reinforcements (another division of Hessians was due any
day now). Well, the Hessians finally arrived in August, and Howe was
pretty miffed that he did not get much of a response to his
negotiatin' so he landed his troops on Long Island, routed the
American (note no more quotes) covering forces on the Guanus Heights,
captured, according to him, 1,000 men and John Sullivan, and settled
in for another round of negotiatin'. This time sending Sullivan back
to Congress which august body then sent a mismatched Delegation of
John "we New Englanders is superior" Adams and Ben "Where be the
ladies" Franklin who both essentially told Howe to bugger off with his
schemes of reconcilliation. Howe then decided it was time for another
crack-o-the-whip, and landed on Manhattan at Kip's Bay (a "battle"
left unmentioned in American military annals especially by those who
thought the militia were so great), occupied NYC (then southern tip of
Manhattan) and decided to go over Congress' head, and appeal directly
to the people. What of Carleton? He was still playing at Samuel
Pepys at Isle aux Nois.
After a month of no response, Howe landed his forces on the mainland
of New York and after two week at "oops, we landed at the wrong
place" Throg's Neck, relanded at Pell's point, and allowed, mainly
through inaction, Washington to slip away at White Plains. But n'er
feer the colonists were still mostly loyal! By now, only Fort
Washington had to be dealt with in order to secure New York City,
which it was in short order. Howe then sent a now throughly
disgruntled second in command, i.e. Henry
"But-if-you-only-followed-MY-plan" Clinton to occupy Rhode Island as
required by "The Plan." Clinton did so easily and quite literrally.
He occupied Rhode *Island*, but he was supposed to capture the
mainland capitol of Providence, but. . .well, after Howe hinted at his
displeasure, Clinton went AWOL and returned to "Blighty" muttering
nasty utterances about Howe all the way across the 'Lantic.
Carleton, though, had finally put his ship together, and had stole
down into Lake Champlain, beat the snot out of Arnold and his
land-lubbing army sailors at Valcour Bay, then withdrew back into
Canada because it was too late in the season to capture Ticonderoga
and secure Canada from invasion. That sent the folks in London, led
by Germain, into a frenzy of Carleton damnations, and Lord George, who
you will remember refused a direct order to attack a realling and
routed French army at the Battle of Minden and thus insuring its
escape, made no secret of his displeasure in a nasty [for that era]
letter or two to Carleton, who good King George who did not desire to
lose Carleton, or suffer the embarrassment of his resignation, forced
to retract and apologize with a big fat kiss. Oh Clinton in
Charleston? Why further embarass our British friends with a
discussion of *that* debacle. [Though it would be very on topic for
SMN].
At this point, Washington f**ed the British Plan over again. He did
the unthinkable. Withdrew into New Jersey. Howe dispatched
Cornwallis after him, but halted the latter at Brunswick. Afterall,
it was not in the plan, and so there was no reason to go further.
Washington used the respite to scadaddle across the Delaware, which
despite Clinton's belief to the contrary, was not fordable. At the
same time, a bit of good luck, for the American cause, occurred. An
enterprising cavalry officer by name of Harcourt captured MG Charles
Lee in a inn where he had been a-fornicating away from his command
[Lee was exchanged for MG Richard Prescott who was captured on Rhode
Island in 1777 while a-fornicatin' away from his command].
Several things now more or less occur at once. Howe sends his first
plan of operations for 1777 with a request for 15,000 additional
troops. Shortly thereafter, an aide arrived back from England with
news that he was unlikely to be reinforced for the upcoming campaign.
About that time Howe, at the advice of Cornwallis, and under pressure
from all those loyal citizens, occupied all of New Jersey. At the
same time, Burgoyne was arriving in London having been sent home by
his boss, Carleton, with their own plan for 1777. Howe's original
plan called for the forming of *three* armies. The two "old" armies
of the previous strategy. That is one up the Hudson and east into New
England, the other at Rhode Island, and the third to be formed in New
Jersey to "Faint" against Philadelphia to keep Washington busy. In
addition, troops were needed to garrison New York. Apparently, Howe
had some notion of using the Canadian Army, and his aid apparently
floated this idea as as a trial balloon when he was in London in
October, but that idea was quickly popped. Burgoyne also suggested
(though he did not really mean it) to Germain to bring the army to
New York by sea, but was told that was not possible. Ostensibly
because the required shipping did not exist. That was not all the bad
news that Cuyler brought back with him from London. The reason for no
new reinforcements were simple. Britain was in the grip of a war
scare with regards to France (and to a lesser extant Spain as Portugal
was making noises to Spain about reperations over some late war in
South America), and everything was being concentrated on the Navy.
Early in 1776, several incidents had occurred in the Caribbean with
British warships halting and boarding French merchies in search of
"contraband." Needless to say, that irked the French, and it was
decided to ready a squadron of ships (about six ships of the line and
four frigates) to make a "show of force'" cruise in the Caribbean.
Well, British intelligence, which generally was quite good where
matters French were concerned, soon got wind of the French
preparations, but initially overestimated it (eighteen S-O-L vice
actually five preparing at Brest e.g.), and the First Lord of the
Admiralty, John Montagu Fourth Earl of Sandwich, p***ed his pants, and
began to dog and stalk Freddie North whereever he went badgering him
for an increase in naval funds and an increase in ships. Finally,
after a month and a half, North caved, and an expansion of the RN was
begun. Of course, the French intelligence services, which was every
bit as good as that of the British, soon found out, and after a bit of
head scratching to figure out what John Bull was up to concluded that
they were possibly preparing for war, so began to put their Navy into
shape. Which of course was picked up by British intel and Sandwich of
course s**t his pants, panicked, and seeing he could not budge North
any more stomped all over his head on the way to good King George, and
while at the same time denying in Parliament there was anything to
worry about, and began a general press of seamen all across Britain
(which led to cracked sculls, one RN LT visiting Davy Jones (seems the
sailors of ye olde East India Company did not like the idea of serving
in his majesty's navy), and the threat of imprisonment of Naval
personal by the Lord Mayor of London. North, now fully "converted"
to Sandwich's cause pushed through the next year's estimates granting
a 1 million pound increase in the RN's budget (from 3 to 4 million),
but which left less than a three hundred thousand increase (from 3.1
to 3.4 million) for the Army and the war in America. Howe's request
for 15,000 men alone would have run nearly half a million pounds.
FWIW, nobody in London, neither Germain nor Sandwich ever bothered to
inform the Howe's of the worsening (as they perceived it) relations
with France.
While Howe was dismayed over the least prospects of getting a
reinforcement he was not overly so. The occupation of New Jersey (or
more correctly northern and central) went without a hitch save for the
fact that Washington had all the boats on the delaware removed to the
Pennsylvania shore. As there was no way across until he built some,
and it was deep into December, Howe called off ops for the season.
But made plans, sans reinforcements, of taking Philly in the spring.
After all, look at all those loyalists which his loyalist pals
(primarily Joseph "I-could-never-not-tell-a-lie") told him that
existed. New Jersey was full of loyalists too. Just look at all
those good folk taking the oath of allegiance (and were awarded with
large scale looting and rapine by British forces who, of course,
blamed it all on the Germans). At any rate, Howe's new plan called
for the early crossing and taking of Philadelphia and then moving
North to meet the Canadian (British) Army no doubt that will be coming
south down the (mainly loyal) Hudson. Another campaign (i.e.1778)
would be required for the reduction of New England and the end of the
rebellion. Five days after he wrote that dispatch to Germain,
Washington crossed the Delaware, inflicted nearly 1,500 casualties and
prisoners on the British and maneuvered Howe/Cornwallis out off all of
New Jersey save for the Brunswick-Perth Amboy region. It was at that
point that Howe realized that any victory first required the defeat of
the Continental Main Army, and where Howe finally abandoned the
original New England First strategy once and for all. So he decided
upon Philadelphia as a ruse to lure Washington out in the open to be
crushed by Howe.
Burgoyne arrived with Carleton's modifications of the original
strategy (the modifications being the army based in Canada).
Basically, it called for one or two objectives. One, to pass the
lakes and head for Albany and from there co-operate with Howe against
New England, and the other, to pass the lakes but turn into New
England by way of the Connecticut River. Certainly the latter would
keep the army independent under Carleton. However, this was the end
of '76 and early '77, and feeligs were quite against Carleton and
there was no way Germain (or George III) were about to allow him to
command in the field again, so that was vetoed. Burgoyne picking up
on the anti-Carleton sentiments quickly angled himself the job, to the
point of convincing the "jury" that it was his plan when in reality it
was Carleton's. It also provided Germain with the ideal way of
getting the army from under Carleton's foot and to Howe's. So the
orders were drawn up, for all intents and purposes written by
Burgoyne, for Burgoyne to take the army in Canada (less detachements
left for Canada's defense) to Albany and there "place himself under
General Howe's command." St Leger was to act as a diversion on the
Mohawk, but otherwise go to Albany and put himself under Burgoyne.
Contrary to popular belief, Burgoyne's entire purpose was to transfer
the army from Carleton to Howe, and not as some preconceived notion of
capturing the line of the Hudson and cutting New England off from the
rest of the colonies. Nor was it about the conquering of New York,
because it was believed that the majority of New Yorkers were loyal
and thus would flock to the crown!
The orders were sealed on February 28th, 1777. Three days later,
Germain authorized Howe's offensive against Philadelphia. He did not
bother to inform Howe of anything with regards to Burgoyne, and never
would do so, though in June Howe did receive a copy of Burgoyne's
orders, though he did not understand what they meant.
To sum up. Burgoyne was sent to Albany in order to become part of
Howe's command for an eventual invasion of New England. Little risk
was seen in this move as it was universally believed that New York was
dominated by those loyal to the Crown. Howe went to Philadelphia in
order to defeat Washington and return the the loyalists, who were over
whelming there, to power and to recruit new provincial regiments for
garrisoning, and then to return to the northward for a final invasion
of New England. My point stands. British misconceptions as to the
mood of the populus of its North American colonies mislead its
preceptions of the war, and subsequently to its strategy upon which
British success turned.

Now, what was this about Paine? Never really studied him.

--
Your most obedient and humble servant,

Michael P. Reed