One day after the collapse at Kip’s Bay, fighting in upper Manhattan gave George Washington’s discouraged army an opportunity to prove it could still stand against British regulars.
The Battle of Harlem Heights was fought on September 16, 1776, in upper Manhattan, during the British campaign to capture New York. American troops under George Washington pushed British forces back after several hours of fighting, providing the Continental Army with a badly needed success after weeks of defeat and retreat.
The victory did not save New York. Its importance was measured less in territory gained than in what it did for an army whose confidence had been severely shaken.
The Morning After Kip’s Bay
By September 16, the campaign for New York had already dealt Washington’s army a succession of punishing blows.
Three weeks earlier, the Continental Army had been defeated in the Battle of Long Island and narrowly escaped across the East River to Manhattan. On September 15, British warships opened fire on American positions at Kip’s Bay while British and Hessian troops crossed from Long Island.
The defenses quickly gave way.
Washington rode toward the fighting and attempted to rally retreating soldiers, but the collapse could not be stopped. American forces moved north through Manhattan, and by nightfall the main army had taken up position around Harlem Heights.
British troops now occupied New York City to the south. Washington remained on Manhattan, but his position was considerably less secure than it had been only weeks earlier, but there was hope on the horizon.
How the Battle of Harlem Heights Began
Early on September 16, Washington was writing to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, from his headquarters at Harlem Heights.
“We are now encamped with the main body of the army on the Heights of Harlem,” he reported, adding that he hoped an enemy attack there could be defeated.
Before the letter was finished, reports arrived that British troops were moving toward the American position.
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton led a detachment of his Rangers south to investigate. Knowlton commanded a specially selected reconnaissance force composed largely of volunteers from New England regiments. Adjutant General Joseph Reed accompanied them.
Near dawn, the Rangers encountered British light infantry in the wooded country south of the American lines. The two sides exchanged fire at close range. Knowlton’s men held their ground for a time, then withdrew north as British troops followed them toward Harlem Heights.
The reconnaissance had revealed the enemy’s position but had also drawn an advanced British force within reach of Washington’s army.
“It Seemed to Crown Our Disgrace”
As the British pursued Knowlton’s Rangers north, Joseph Reed returned to Washington to request support. Then came a sound Reed would remember vividly.
British buglers sounded a call associated with the end of a fox hunt. Reed later wrote to his wife that hearing it after the Americans’ recent retreat was deeply humiliating: “I never felt such a sensation before, it seem’d to crown our Disgrace.”
Whether the bugle call was deliberately intended to mock the Americans cannot be established. British light infantry regularly used bugle calls in the field. To Reed and the officers around Washington, however, its meaning felt unmistakable.
Washington decided to respond. Rather than simply reinforce the retreating Rangers, he attempted to turn the British position.
He sent troops forward to hold the enemy’s attention while Knowlton’s Rangers and three companies of Virginia Continentals under Major Andrew Leitch moved south with orders to strike from behind.
For an army that had been routed only the day before, it was an ambitious maneuver.
Where Was the Battle of Harlem Heights?
The battle unfolded across the broken terrain of upper Manhattan, well north of the eighteenth-century city.
Washington’s principal position lay on the heights near the northern end of Manhattan. The fighting extended through wooded slopes, rocky ground, and open fields farther south. One of the best-known areas of the battlefield was a buckwheat field near what is now Broadway and the campuses of Columbia University and Barnard College.
The landscape made movement difficult, but it also gave Washington an opportunity to use the terrain against the pursuing British force.
This 1868 map was prepared to illustrate the Battle of Harlem Heights and the surrounding terrain of upper Manhattan.
Washington Attempts to Turn the British Flank
The maneuver did not unfold as planned. Knowlton and Leitch were supposed to move far enough south to reach the British rear. Instead, the American force turned too soon and struck the British flank.
The mistake cost Washington the chance to cut off the advanced British troops, but it did not stop the advancing attack.
Knowlton was mortally wounded during the fighting. Leitch was also seriously wounded and would die from his injuries in early October. However, their men continued forward.
Additional Continental troops entered the action, and the engagement expanded. Fighting moved across the heights as the British gave ground toward their advanced positions.
Joseph Reed later described the reversal succinctly: the British “ran in Turn.”
As British reinforcements began moving toward the fighting, Washington chose not to press farther. Rather than risk his troops against a larger force, he ordered them to break off the engagement and Americans withdrew in good order.
For once, they were not the ones being chased.
Why the Battle of Harlem Heights Mattered
The Battle of Harlem Heights did not alter the strategic reality in New York. British forces still held the city. Their army and navy remained far stronger than Washington’s in the region. Within weeks, British maneuvering would again force the Continental Army north, leading to the Battle of White Plains and the eventual loss of Fort Washington.
Measured by territory, Harlem Heights accomplished little. Measured against the condition of Washington’s army on September 15, its effect was considerably greater.
The Continental soldiers had been defeated on Long Island, forced to abandon Brooklyn, and routed at Kip’s Bay. Their ability to stand against experienced British regulars had been called sharply into question.
But at Harlem Heights, they did.
Washington emphasized the contrast in his orders the following day. He thanked the soldiers who had fought and wrote that their conduct demonstrated “what may be done, where Officers & soldiers will exert themselves.”
Two days after the battle, he reported to Congress that the engagement had “greatly inspirited the whole of our Troops.”
Joseph Reed noticed the same change. Writing after the action, he told his wife, “You can hardly conceive the change it has made in our Army.”
Harlem Heights was a relatively small engagement in a campaign that would continue to go badly for the Americans. But it gave Washington’s soldiers evidence that retreat was not the only possible outcome when they met British troops in the field.
Thomas Knowlton and Andrew Leitch
The success came at a cost.
Thomas Knowlton was already an experienced officer. He had served at the Battle of Bunker Hill before joining Washington’s forces in New York, and in August 1776 he was placed in command of a corps of Rangers used for reconnaissance and intelligence.
His death at Harlem Heights was significant enough that Washington singled him out in general orders the following day, describing him as “the gallant and brave Col. Knowlton, who would have been an Honor to any Country.”
Andrew Leitch, a Virginia officer, led three companies alongside Knowlton’s Rangers during the attempted flanking maneuver. Though severely wounded during the battle, he initially survived. He died from his wounds approximately two weeks later.
Washington’s September 17 parole and countersign carried their names:
Leitch. Virginia.
It was a small military formality, but also a deliberate acknowledgment of the men who had led the attack.
Harlem Heights Today
Much of the battlefield has disappeared beneath modern New York.
The fields, slopes, and wooded ground where the armies fought are now occupied by city streets, Columbia University, Barnard College, and the surrounding neighborhood of Morningside Heights.
Markers in the area preserve the memory of the battle, including memorials associated with Knowlton and Leitch.
The modern landscape bears little resemblance to Manhattan in 1776, but the geography remains essential to understanding what happened. Washington’s army occupied the higher ground to the north while British forces controlled the city below. Harlem Heights stood along the increasingly narrow island between them.
On September 16, that ground gave Washington’s troops an opportunity to test themselves again.
Although the result did not save New York, it did give a discouraged army reason to believe that defeat was not inevitable.
New York, 1776
Harlem Heights was one chapter in the larger struggle for New York that unfolded across the city in 1776.
Our Brooklyn Heights Tea commemorates an earlier moment in that campaign. Inside the 250th Anniversary tin is oolong, a partially oxidized tea that falls between green and black tea in degree of oxidation. It is an apt pairing for a city divided by loyalty and increasingly caught between two armies.
