Background
The Battle of Harlem Heights was fought during the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The action took place on September 16, 1776, in what is now the Morningside Heights area and east into the future Harlem neighborhoods of northwestern Manhattan Island in what is now part of New York City.
On August 27, 1776, British troops under the command of General William Howe flanked and defeated the American army at the Battle of Long Island. Howe moved his forces and pinned the Americans down at Brooklyn Heights, with the East River to the American rear. On the night of August 29, General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, evacuated his entire army of 9,000 men and their equipment across the water to Manhattan.
On September 15, Howe landed his army in an amphibious operation at Kip’s Bay, on the eastern shore of Manhattan, along the East River. After a bombardment of the American positions on the shore, 4,000 British and Hessian troops began to disembark. The American troops began to flee at the sight of the enemy, and even after Washington arrived on the scene and took immediate command, demanding that his soldiers stand and fight, they refused to obey orders and continued to flee.
After scattering the Americans at Kip’s Bay, Howe landed 9,000 more troops, but did not immediately cut off the American retreat from New York Town in the south of the island. Washington had all of his troops in the city on their way to north along the west side of Manhattan to Harlem Heights by 4:00 pm and they all reached the fortifications on the Heights by nightfall.
The British casualties were officially reported by Howe at 14 killed and 78 wounded, but a member of Howe’s staff wrote in his diary that the loss was 14 killed and 154 wounded. The author David McCullough suggests much higher figures of “probably…90 killed and about 300 wounded” but cites no source for this. Henry Johnston, whose 1897 study remains the only detailed investigation of the battle, assessed British losses at 14 killed and 157 wounded and those of the Americans at about 30 killed and 100 wounded, including Colonel Knowlton among the dead.
Major Andrew Leitch, commander of the Virginia riflemen, died some days later. Both sides claimed victory. The repulse of British troops in this “pretty sharp skirmish” boosted morale in the American ranks “prodigiously”, as George Washington observed, even among those who had not been engaged. It also marked the first success of the war for the army directly under Washington’s command.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Harlem_Heights
The Game
Horse and Musket Tuesday was upon us and we needed to decide what we would play. One of our buddies that is moving out of the area stepped up an volunteered to run one last game for the group. It gave him the opportunity to break out his old school Rev War armies. We talked about doing some Rebels and Patriots, but then decided to do a full battle using Crusader Publishing Rank and File rules. These are a simple toy soldier set of rules that works well playing ranked up 25mm figures with an entry level period gaming group.
Tuesday arrived and he had decided to go with the Battle of Harlem Heights. It was a relatively small battle that would work well for our Tuesday afternoon schedule, for a group of four to six players. TJ provided the terrain set up and the troops were set up in the rough starting positions. He opted to not include the units that did not do too much during the battle.
Victory would go to the side that had control of the heights at the end of the game. In reality, this would mean that the strategy would be to break the opponent’s army. This would be determined using the Rank and File army break rules.
The forces were divided up between the players and both sides decided on their strategy. The continental plan was to hold their forward pickets in place and then reinforce with their supporting units. The militia would then fill in any gaps that appeared in the main line, with the hope of wearing down the British. The British plan was to attack, by pinning on their left and massing on their right and turning the continental flank.
The initial turns focused mostly on the two sides moving into position. The British went forward with their plan by attacking across the front and deploying their artillery to support the advance and cover their left. The main forces moved forward feinting to the center. The continentals moved forward with their units to occupy the front lf the heights.
British skirmishers engaged first on the left to pin the continentals. The resulting firefight mostly went the way of the British. The continental artillery found itself out of position, so started to prolong into a more forward position.
The skirmishers continued to press and forced back the forward deployed continentals. On the right, the British slowly moved forward and cleared out the forward deployed continentals on the flank. The militia moved up slowly towards the continental left, as the British plan started to become more clear.
The British mainline finally slammed in the continental line on the heights. Using their numbers, they were able to cause disproportionate casualties on the continentals and sweeping onto the heights, while working to turn the line. The militia moved forward to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, the the continentals, their forward units fell back directly into the militia, intermingling with the units and blocking their fire. The British were able to take advantage of this confusion the next few turns and continue to overwhelm their opponent with their musketry.
The British slowed their attack on the heights, as their flanking force marked to get behind the continental positions. The continentals had taken disproportionate losses and had to fall back to avoid getting cut off. The line was reestablished, but the losses had been too egregious and it continentals had had en ought and quit the field.
In the end, a counter historical British victory! Now the rest of us need to finish up our own AWI collections so we can keep AWI battle going….
- Manteuffel