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Long Island: June-August 1776

The British Land on Long Island

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Sir Henry Clinton.” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Sir Henry Clinton.” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Passage of the troops to Long Island” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Passage of the troops to Long Island” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Denyse’s Ferry, the first place at which the Hessians and British landed on Long Island Aug. 22nd 1776” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Denyse’s Ferry, the first place at which the Hessians and British landed on Long Island Aug. 22nd 1776” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

On the morning of 22 August 1776, British ships transported some 4,000 redcoats from Staten Island to Gravesend Beach on southwestern Long Island. Over the next week, the British landed an additional 16,000 men and 40 pieces of artillery commanded by Howe’s principal deputy, Lt. Gen. Henry Clinton. It remained to be seen whether the screen of Continental troops that General Lee had placed between Clinton’s redcoats and New York City could hold their line.

"The disembarkation of (thousands of) troops, upon a fine beach, their forming upon the adjacent plain, a fleet of above 300 ships and vessels within their sails spread open to dry, the sun shining clear upon them, the green hills and meadows after the rain, and the calm surface of the contiguous sea and up the sound, exhibited one of the finest picturesque scenes that the imagination can fancy or the eye behold."

Ambrose Serle, the private secretary to Admiral Lord Richard Howe. 22 August 1776
Sources

  • O. M. Dickerson, The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe, 1776–1778. Edited by Edward H. Tatum Jr. (San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 1940.)

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