Six on History: American Revolution in NYC - November 25, 1783 Evacuation Day
panaritisp
Welcome back to Six on History
PS: If you like what you find on the "Six on History" blog, please share w/your contacts.
Click here for Detailed Search Help Thanks John Elfrank
Once Carleton received the official word the Treaty of Paris was signed, he arranged a full-scale British evacuation of more than 30,000 British and Hessian troops and relocated an estimated 27,000 refugees to other parts of the empire. Carleton loosened the restrictions for traveling in and out of the city as well. By September, the newspapers advertised ships bound for other parts of the British Empire. It seemed as if the whole city was once again moving, and "the streets were filled with men, women, and children heading for the wharves.”[5] The majority of the population could not afford the passage to Great Britain for their families and belongings; more loyalists chose to settle in Nova Scotia than any other part of the empire during the evacuation."
A once-annual holiday local to New York City, Evacuation Day was formerly equal in importance to the Fourth of July. Referring to the evacuation of British troops from New York City following the Revolutionary War, the celebration of the troops’ departure was observed yearly throughout the early 20th century. While interest wavered over the years, in its prime, Evacuation Day was one of the most important holidays in the city.
November 25, 1783: The EvacuationMarking the end of their occupation in America, the last of the British soldiers who served during the American Revolution left Manhattan on November 25, 1783. Following their departure, the city was secured by American troops under the command of General Knox, who promptly called for all residents to welcome New York’s Governor Clinton and General Washington into lower Manhattan.
Clinton and Washington were escorted to Cape’s Tavern by a parade of soldiers, New York government officials, General Knox and his officers, and the Speaker of Assembly.
Meanwhile, U.S. troops sought to remove the British flag from Castle Clinton (known as the Fort on the Battery). However, thanks to British soldiers' departing gifts of sabotage (greasing the flag pole and cutting its halyards), this proved to be quite a difficult task.
After failed attempts to scale the pole, a young sailor ultimately used wooden cleats to successfully climb and raise the American flag in place of Britain’s. This triumphant symbol sparked the first Evacuation Day celebrations, which went on to last several days.
Beginning with a public dinner hosted by Governor Clinton at Fraunces Tavern, over 120 guests celebrated with 13 formal toasts* in honor of Washington and his officers. Festivities continued until Washington departed the city over a week later on December 4th.
An Annual HolidayOn its first anniversary, Evacuation Day was remembered with the ringing of church bells, a flag raising on the (formerly greased) flagpole at the Battery, and entertainment at the City Tavern - as reported by the New York Gazetteer.
* " ... Washington had not returned to New York since his retreat in 1776. Now he would attend a Public Dinner at Fraunces Tavern on Pearl Street where he would propose 13 Toasts of Hot Butter'd Rum.'
The 13 Official Toasts: "To the United States of America, To His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVI of France; To the United Netherlands; To the King of Sweden; To the American Army; To the Fleet and Armies of France which have served in America; To the memory of those heroes who have fallen for our freedom; May our country be grateful to her military children; May justice support what courage has gained; To the indicators of the rights of mankind in every quarter of the globe, May America be an asylum to the persecuted of the Earth; May a close union of states guard the temple they have erected to Liberty; May the remembrances of the day be a lesson to princes."
3) PODCAST: Life in British New York: 1776-1783, Bowery Boys
"Join us as we stroll through the streets of revolutionary New York, examining what it would have been like to be a New Yorker under British rule."
Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to it HERE
New York as it looked during British occupation (i.e. before various lower Manhattan landfills!)
The HMS Jersey, docked right off the show of Brooklyn, and home to the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and prisoners
The horrible conditions of the prison ships, as hinted at in this illustration
The Prison Ships Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene, honoring the thousands who died nearby off the shore of Brooklyn
"The last major battle of the American Revolution was at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 25, 1781. The end result of the Battle of Yorktown and the surrender of General Cornwallis had broken the resolve of the British troops and the Loyalists who had held New York since 1776.
With the battle over, Washington withdrew his forces to Newburgh, New York, to protect the Hudson Highlands and to regroup his soldiers during the winter of 1781-82. It was also a defensive posture for the American army, since they were so close to British-held New York City.
This created two difficult tasks for General Guy Carleton, the British military commander of New York for the British forces. First was the need to organize an evacuation of all British military forces and Loyalists who wished to leave, and second was the transfer of power from Royalist to Rebel control of the city. During the transfer, Americans held in jails and on the prison ships in the harbor were to be freed.
Washington returned to take possession of the forts that had been abandoned seven years prior. This repossession meant so much for the cause of freedom after the bitter blow to the Rebels in 1776. The repossession of Fort Washington strengthened the resolve of the victorious Americans. The password of the day was “PEACE.”
In honor of Washington’s entrance to New York, many patriots proudly displayed the American flag. British Provost Marshal William Cunningham, who was notorious for being the commander of the prisons and prison ships in New York City, went throughout the city tearing down the rebel flags while there was still a British presence in the city.
When Cunningham arrived at Day’s Tavern, which is located on what is now 128th Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue, Mrs. Day attacked the British soldier with a broom when Cunningham tried to remove the flag from the premises. Powder from Cunningham’s wig got all over his uniform from being pummeled over the head.
There was an atmosphere of unreality in New York City. Washington and his troops passed half-ruined mansions and earthworks and trenches that dotted the streets, making them impassable. The largest structure in the city, Trinity Church, was a blackened hull.
Trees and orchards were cut down or no longer viable, and the rest of Manhattan was denuded of trees. This had been proven by a reconnaissance party that reported to Washington in 1781. The wells were also dry, and attempts were made by the Hessians to dig wells as deep as 40 feet to obtain water, but to no avail.
The last of the Royalist forces departed from Manhattan at 1 p.m. Within an hour of the British evacuation, the American forces triumphantly returned to a city that had been held under tight control for seven years. One woman recalled that the British were “equipped for show … with their scarlet uniforms,” and the Patriots marched in “ill-clad and weather-beaten … but they were our troops … and my eyes were full.”
At the battery at the lower end of Manhattan, General Knox had the privilege of raising the American flag at Fort George (near what is now Castle Clinton). Unfortunately, the flagpole was heavily greased with the Union Jack on top, which had been one of the last acts of defiance made by the British before they left.
After making several attempts to climb the flagpole by an American sailor by the name of William Van Arsdale, he went to a hardware store and purchased a halyard, saw, cleats, nails, and a hammer and returned with a carpenter. The carpenter proceeded to climb the pole hammering the nails for steps. A pulley and rope were affixed to the top of the pole, and the American flag was raised after the British flag was torn down.
On December 4, 1783, Washington bade farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern, located on Queen (now Pearl) Street and Canal (now Broad) Street. Once New York was secured, Washington left the city to return to his commission to Congress, which was now meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, on December 23rd. The ceremony was a tearful one, and after nine years of service, Washington returned home to Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve 1783.
The following day the last British warship sailed from Staten Island. As the ship was passing the point where Fort Wadsworth is presently located, the victorious patriots began jeering at the ship from the shore. The captain became so incensed with the action induced by the former enemy that he ordered one of the ship’s cannons to be fired upon them, thus making it the last shot fired in the Revolution.
In 1783, when the occupation of the Royalist forces ended, the population of New York City had dropped 40 percent to 12,000 people, from 20,000 that had been in the city thirteen years before. In 1784, James Duane was appointed Mayor of New York City by Governor George Clinton to oversee the reconstruction of the city.
After the war, Evacuation Day (November 25th) was celebrated with military parades, patriotic oratories, fireworks, and banquets. The centennial of the day was one of the greatest events ever seen in the city. Statues were unveiled in honor of the event in 1883. One was that of George Washington in front of Federal Hall National Monument on Wall Street. Governor Grover Cleveland was in attendance for the unveiling. Another was that of Nathan Hale in City Hall Park, which was unveiled a decade later for the 110th anniversary of the event.
The Evacuation Day celebration was eventually canceled due to the decline of anti-British sentiment and the onset of the First World War, where the United States and the United Kingdom would become allied in many causes. ... "
From 1775 to 1783, some 200,000 colonials took up arms against the crown. While the statistics are rough, it has been estimated that more than 6,800 died in battle. An additional 10,000 perished from wounds or disease. At least 18,200 became prisoners of war, most of whom were confined in New York City — along with perhaps as many as 1,500 civilian prisoners.
New York's little-known role as the jailhouse of the Revolution stemmed from a decision by the British to use the city as the nerve center of military operations in North America. An invasion in the summer of 1776 brushed aside General Washington's hastily arranged defenses and left the British with a bumper crop of American captives — and no place to put them.
The solution was to squeeze the men into an assortment of public and private buildings — including the new municipal almshouse and jail, a half-dozen churches, and two or three "sugar houses," or refineries. Broken-down warships and transports, stripped of masts and rigging, were soon pressed into service as well. Anchored in Wallabout Bay (now the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard), they became one of the most widely recognized and terrifying symbols of the British occupation.
"It's estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of the population back then still remained loyal to the British Crown. Naturally, they weren't so thrilled by the climactic British surrender at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, which effectively sealed the fate of King George's attempt to keep the colonists in line.
So what became of these loyalists who suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of history? To answer that question, NPR's Rachel Martin spoke with Maya Jasanoff, a professor of history at Harvard University.
On what it was like to be a British loyalist during the American revolution
There were definitely instances of people being beaten up on by gangs who would come to their house and harass them for being on the wrong side. It has to be said that some loyalists certainly were able to just kind of lie low and go about their business and try to not say too much about politics. But if you were living on the front lines of these advancing armies going back and forth across the colonies, it could be really a difficult choice and a difficult situation to be in.
On the lives of loyalists after the war
The fighting actually continued, in the backcountry of the South in particular. And it was in regions like that that loyalists still tried to fight for the empire that they believed in. ...
It's a part of the war that we tend to not think too much about or learn about in school. But there was a lot of bloodshed, and particularly in the South. And gangs of revolutionaries, gangs of loyalists, would attack each other, go to each other's plantations. In fact, some of the big battles in the South happened after the surrender at Yorktown.
So, what all of this means is that there was a climate of violence and a climate of fear for many loyalists. And it meant that when the peace negotiations were going on, they were really concerned about what kinds of protections they might have in the new United States. And during this period, many of them felt that the protections that the U.S. was offering were not promises that they could really get behind.
And so, when the British pulled out in city after city in the United States, up to tens of thousands of loyalists sometimes went with the retreating army to Britain and other parts of the British Empire. ... About half of the loyalists who left the United States ended up going north to Canada, settling in the province of Nova Scotia and also becoming pioneering settlers in the province of New Brunswick.
On how history books commemorate the loyalists
On the American side, of course, they're losers. And history is, as we know, written by the winners. So there's not much place for the loyalists — especially the loyalists who left — in standard American history.
