General Sir William Howe

British Heritage  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

General Gage disagreed with Clinton’s strategy, which was bold but risky, and instead adopted a more conservative plan proposed by Howe. British troops would land near the tip of Charlestown Peninsula and make a frontal assault on Breed’s Hill and its supporting positions. Howe expected that the untrained colonial militia would run from the attack or that they could offer only a feeble resistance that would easily be overcome. Instead, the man who had advocated peaceful reconciliation was leading his troops into one of the bloodiest battles of the American War.

By nightfall more than 1,100 British troops and 400 provincial militiamen had been killed or wounded on the slopes of Breed’s Hill. In the attack, the town of Charlestown had been destroyed by British naval gunfire and Joseph Warren, the popular President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, had been killed. General Howe was stunned. The battle had made the possibility of a negotiated settlement much more remote by increasing the fury of the colonists while at the same time giving them confidence in their ability to fight the King’s regiments on even terms.

In the aftermath of the battle, Generals Gage and Howe agreed that it would not be possible to conduct the war from Boston, and they put renewed emphasis on an often-discussed strategy of transferring the British army to New York. The decision was delayed, however, until March of 1776, when the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, George Washington, forced the British to evacuate Boston by fortifying the heights south of the city and threatening to bombard the garrison with his artillery.

By then General Gage had been recalled to England, and Howe had assumed the overall command of all British forces in America. After regrouping in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he sailed with his army to Staten Island, New York, arriving on 5th July. George Washington, anticipating action in New York, had already marched the Continental Army south from Boston and occupied Manhattan and Long Island.

Before the inevitable showdown began, General Howe was joined in New York by the third of the Howe brothers, Admiral Lord Richard Howe, who carried a number of official appointments. The Admiral’s primary assignment was ostensibly the command of the North American squadron of the Royal Navy, but he had also been given the authority to act as a peace commissioner and to negotiate, within very narrowly defined limits, with the rebels. From the Admiral, William Howe learned that he had been named as the other member of this two-man commission.

The General had become disillusioned at the prospects for a negotiated peace, but the Admiral was still determined to exercise his military duties only after the peace commission had been given every chance. His role as diplomat, though, was bound to be a frustrating one. Parliament had not authorized the Howes to negotiate, but only to extend a pardon to any rebels who submitted completely. In effect, the British Ministry had empowered them to do nothing more than accept the Americans’ unconditional surrender.

The colonists did not fail to discern this, and the hard line the Howes had been instructed to take only united the rebels in their opposition to Parliament. Also, while the Howes’ dual roles as both warriors and diplomats enabled them to exercise restraint in enforcing a military solution to the problem, it also made them suspect in the eyes of their American counterparts. General Washington reasoned that when the diplomats were also generals, there was sure to be ‘little Negotiation of the Civil Kind.’ As a result, the peace commission accomplished nothing.

When it became obvious that only military force would break the stalemate, General Howe turned his full attention to the occupation of New York. With the arrival of yet more reinforcements, he believed his army was strong enough to successfully assault the rebel defences. But while he was fairly certain of his ability to achieve a military victory, a policy of moderation still directed his actions. Howe opposed the advocates of force who could not see past the short-term goal of suppressing the rebellion. Devastating the colonies, he believed, might compel their submission, but it would render them useless to the Empire. Only by demonstrating Britain’s overwhelming military strength without permanently embittering the colonists could he restore America to its function as a cooperative and profitable British dominion.

Tags: 17th - 18th Century, American Revolutionary War, British Heritage, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.