Key figures: George Washington, William Howe, Henry Clinton, William Douglas
Summary
The Battle of Kip’s Bay, also known as the Landing at Kip’s Bay, was a British amphibious assault on Manhattan Island during the New York campaign of the American Revolutionary War, fought on September 15, 1776. Kip’s Bay was a cove on Manhattan’s East River shore, roughly between present-day 32nd and 38th Streets. Following a council of war on September 12 at which Continental commanders decided to abandon New York City and withdraw the main army to Harlem Heights, General William Howe moved to seize the city directly. Five British warships anchored close offshore and, while additional Royal Navy vessels in the Hudson River staged a diversion on Manhattan’s western side, roughly 4,000 British and Hessian troops under General Henry Clinton crossed from Long Island in some eighty-four flatboats.
The cove was held by about 450–500 Connecticut militia under Colonel William Douglas, inexperienced troops posted in a shallow breastwork, some armed only with improvised pikes rather than muskets. The warships opened a sustained hour-long bombardment — as many as eighty guns firing on the American position — before the landing craft touched shore. Douglas’s militia broke almost immediately, and the panic spread to nearby units; British and Hessian troops came ashore largely unopposed. General George Washington, alerted by the naval gunfire, rode to the scene and tried personally to rally the fleeing militia, reportedly drawing his sword and pistol and cursing the men, but the rout could not be stopped, and Washington himself was left dangerously exposed near the advancing British line before aides pulled him back.
American casualties were roughly fifty killed — some after surrendering — and about 320 to 367 captured, against a handful of British and Hessian casualties. The landing gave Howe’s forces control of lower Manhattan and, within days, New York City itself, which the British would hold for the remainder of the war. The Continental Army completed its withdrawal to the defensible high ground of Harlem Heights, where the following day it fought its first tactical victory of the war.
Significance
Kip’s Bay was among the most humiliating routs of the war for the Continental Army, exposing the unreliability of untrained militia against a coordinated amphibious assault backed by naval gunfire, and it nearly cost Washington his life or capture. The landing completed the collapse of the American position in New York City, handing the British a base of operations they would occupy for the rest of the Revolutionary War and enabling the further British advances up Manhattan that culminated in the fall of Fort Washington that November. The disaster also set the stage, just one day later, for the Battle of Harlem Heights, whose success partially restored American morale after the shocks of Long Island and Kip’s Bay.