Key Figures: William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe; King George III; General Thomas Gage; Admiral Richard Howe; General George Washington
Summary
General Sir William Howe (1729–1814) served as the commander-in-chief of British military forces in North America from October 1775 to May 1778, orchestrating all major campaigns of 1776 including the victories at Long Island, Kip’s Bay, and Fort Washington, as well as the occupation of New York City. A capable tactician with royal connections and substantial amphibious experience, Howe dominated Washington in 1776 yet repeatedly faltered at decisive moments—halting advances that could have destroyed the Continental Army and pursuing Philadelphia over supporting operations in the north. His decisions transformed the course of the war: his delays allowed Washington to regroup and strike at Trenton, while his Philadelphia focus left General Burgoyne unsupported at Saratoga, a defeat that prompted French intervention and ensured American victory.
Early Career and Background
Born August 10, 1729, William Howe was the third son of Emanuel Howe, 2nd Viscount Howe. His mother, Charlotte, was descended from Sophia von Kielmansegg, an acknowledged half-sister of King George I, providing valuable court connections that shaped his advancement. His eldest brother George died during the Seven Years’ War; his younger brother, Admiral Richard Howe, became one of Britain’s most distinguished naval commanders and would serve alongside William in America.
Howe commenced his military career at age 17 in 1746, purchasing a cornet’s commission in the Duke of Cumberland’s Dragoons during the War of Austrian Succession. He later transferred to the 20th Regiment of Foot, where he befriended James Wolfe and earned a reputation for capable leadership. During the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), Howe distinguished himself through amphibious operations and light infantry tactics. He commanded landings at the Siege of Louisbourg in 1758 and led shock troops under Wolfe’s command at Quebec in 1759. Most notably, Howe led the decisive assault up the cliffs at Anse-au-Foulon, a frontal attack in which his troops scaled a ravine to reach the Plains of Abraham and enable Wolfe’s victory. This success established Howe as one of Britain’s most talented field commanders.
After the Seven Years’ War, Howe served in Parliament representing Nottingham from 1758 to 1780. Notably, he initially opposed the punitive legislation targeted at the American colonies, publicly questioning the Crown’s policy. However, when called upon to serve, he accepted the King’s summons to command in America, stating he could not bear “the odious name of backwardness to serve my country in distress.”
Appointment and Assumptions of Command
Howe arrived in Boston with reinforcements in May 1775, after hostilities had already erupted. At the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, he personally led assaults up the Breed’s Hill fortifications, suffering over 1,000 British and Hessian casualties—approximately 40 percent of the engaged force—against a final success. Though tactically victorious, the pyrrhic cost reportedly shook Howe’s confidence and influenced his subsequent caution.
Following the costly Bunker Hill assault, Howe assumed formal command as commander-in-chief from General Thomas Gage in October 1775. In the spring of 1776, after Washington built fortifications at Dorchester Heights using captured artillery from Ticonderoga, Howe ordered the evacuation of Boston on March 17, 1776. As he observed the American position, Howe reportedly declared: “The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army would have done in a month.”
The 1776 New York Campaign
Howe’s greatest successes came during the 1776 New York campaign. Commanding approximately 30,000 troops supported by Admiral Richard Howe’s fleet of thirty ships and numerous transports, he executed a sophisticated amphibious strategy to trap Washington on Long Island.
The Battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776): Howe orchestrated a masterful flanking maneuver, landing forces on Jamaica Pass to the east of the American defensive line at Brooklyn Heights. Approximately 1,600 British and Hessian troops under General Henry Clinton crossed the pass at dawn, while the main assault under Generals Cornwallis and von Heister struck the American center and right. Washington’s forces suffered approximately 1,000–2,000 casualties and losses (killed, wounded, captured, or missing), while British losses were around 400. The American army was driven back to the Brooklyn Heights fortifications.
The Opportunity Forfeited: However, Howe did not immediately assault Brooklyn Heights. Instead, he ordered siege preparations, giving Washington a critical reprieve. Over the night of August 29–30, Washington successfully evacuated approximately 9,000 troops across the East River to Manhattan under cover of darkness and fog, preserving the Continental Army’s core force. The escape meant that despite a decisive tactical victory, Howe failed to achieve a strategic annihilation.
The New York Campaign Advances: Howe subsequently landed forces in Manhattan at Kip’s Bay (September 15, 1776), routing Connecticut militia in an amphibious assault, and occupying New York City on September 16. He pursued Washington northward across Manhattan and through the Harlem Heights engagement (September 16), the White Plains battle (October 28), and the attack on Fort Washington (November 16, 1776), where he captured nearly 2,900 American prisoners and seized the last major American fortification on Manhattan.
By late 1776, Washington’s Continental Army had retreated across New Jersey to the Delaware River with fewer than 3,000 enlisted men and barely two weeks’ enlistments remaining. Howe, believing the rebellion effectively crushed, established winter quarters in New York and New Jersey and dismissed many Hessian regiments to winter camps.
The Howe Peace Commission: Soldier and Diplomat
An often-overlooked dimension of Howe’s 1776 role was his dual appointment as both military commander and peace commissioner. Parliament authorized the Howe brothers—William commanding the army, Richard commanding the navy—to offer pardons and negotiate terms with colonies willing to cease hostilities. This commission gave the brothers authority to issue pardons to rebel colonists, meet with American representatives, and report back to London on the feasibility of reconciliation.
The commission’s fundamental constraint was that the brothers could offer pardon and the restoration of prior conditions but could not negotiate American independence or repeal Parliamentary legislation—the very points that Congress demanded. On August 17, 1776, after the Battle of Long Island, Admiral Howe sent a letter via captured American General Sullivan to Congress, proposing informal talks. Congress responded by sending a three-man delegation: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge.
The resulting Staten Island Peace Conference (September 11, 1776) at the house of British loyalist Christopher Billopp on Staten Island lasted approximately three hours. The Howe brothers opened with flattery and offered pardons to those who laid down arms. Franklin’s response was polished but decisive: Congress could not negotiate anything short of independence, and the brothers’ commission extended only to pardoning individuals, not to recognizing American sovereignty. The conference ended without agreement. As John Adams recorded in his diary, Admiral Howe expressed sincere regret: “he should feel for America as for a brother, and if America should fall, he should feel and lament it like the loss of a brother.”
The failure of the Staten Island conference clarified that the war would be fought to a conclusion, not negotiated to a settlement. For William Howe, the dual role of warrior and peacemaker may have contributed to his tactical restraint: a commander who saw himself as pacifying rebels rather than annihilating an enemy might pull punches that a purely military commander would not. Some historians argue this explains his repeated decisions not to pursue Washington’s army to total destruction—Howe may have believed that captured territory and defeated armies would persuade colonists to accept terms, not that exterminating the Continental Army was the objective.
The Great Fire of New York (September 20–21, 1776)
Five days after British forces occupied New York City, a catastrophic fire swept through the city’s lower west side on the night of September 20–21, 1776. The fire destroyed approximately 493 buildings, roughly one quarter of New York City’s housing stock, rendering thousands of civilians homeless. British authorities suspected American saboteurs—General Washington had requested permission from Congress to burn New York rather than let it serve as British winter quarters, but Congress had refused. Washington later noted, ambiguously, that “Providence, or some good honest fellow, has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves.”
Howe, now responsible for governing the occupied city, faced immediate challenges: housing for his troops, administration of thousands of loyalist refugees, and management of American prisoners of war—the latter proving a humanitarian disaster. Prisoners held in city jails and converted sugar houses suffered severe overcrowding, disease, and starvation. Estimates of American prisoners who died in British custody in New York range from 8,000 to 11,500—a number exceeding all American battlefield deaths during the entire war. While direct blame fell on military administrators rather than on Howe personally, the conditions reflected the British army’s inadequate system for managing large numbers of prisoners.
Strategic Miscalculations and the Turning Point
Trenton and Princeton (December 1776–January 1777): Washington’s surprise crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night 1776 and the victory at Trenton on December 26 shattered Howe’s assumptions. In a second shock, Washington defeated a British force at Princeton on January 3, 1777, and withdrew to winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey. These victories restored American morale and demonstrated that the Continental Army, though battered, remained a viable fighting force.
The Philadelphia Campaign (1777): Rather than pursuing Washington aggressively into New Jersey or reinforcing General Burgoyne’s northern invasion, Howe devoted 1777 to capturing Philadelphia, the symbolic capital of the Revolution. He defeated Washington at the Brandywine (September 11) and Germantown (October 4), and occupied the city, which Congress had evacuated. However, his focus on Philadelphia meant no support for Burgoyne’s army in the north.
Saratoga and the Consequence: While Howe campaigned in Pennsylvania, General Burgoyne’s force in the Champlain Valley faced increasing Continental Army pressure. Outnumbered and unsupported, Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga on October 17, 1777—the first major American victory and a turning point in the war. The Saratoga victory convinced the French that American independence was achievable, leading directly to the Treaty of Alliance (February 6, 1778) and French entry into the war.
Whether Howe deliberately abandoned Burgoyne or merely prioritized his own objectives remains historically debated. Burgoyne’s plan had originated in London; Howe had not been consulted and felt no obligation to support an operation he had not endorsed. Nonetheless, the strategic consequence was catastrophic: with France now an active belligerent, Britain faced a global war it could not win in America.
Resignation and Legacy
Howe tendered his resignation in October 1777 and departed for England in May 1778, ending his command after nearly three years in America. A parliamentary inquiry subsequently exonerated him of impropriety charges, and he spent his remaining decades in respectability. He inherited the Viscountcy upon his brother Richard’s death in 1799 but died without an heir in Twickenham in 1814, the title becoming extinct.
Military Assessment: Historians generally characterize Howe as a capable field tactician hampered by a failure to comprehend the insurgent nature of the rebellion. He won nearly every significant engagement in 1776 but failed to deliver the war-ending blow. His caution at critical moments—halting after Long Island, pausing before Brooklyn Heights, dismissing Hessian reinforcements to winter—meant Washington survived to strike again. Had Howe pressed his 1776 advantage with relentless aggression, he might have destroyed the Continental Army and ended the rebellion. Instead, his decisions inadvertently preserved the American cause and demonstrated that victories in battle do not guarantee victory in war.
Significance
Howe’s tenure illustrates the paradox of tactical success amid strategic failure. As commander-in-chief of 1776’s dominant military force, he orchestrated brilliant amphibious operations and defeated Washington decisively in the year’s major engagements. Yet his repeated hesitations at critical moments—his most consequential strategic decisions were his failures to act decisively when opportunities arose—allowed the Continental Army to survive and regroup. The victories at Trenton, Saratoga, and ultimately Yorktown became possible only because Howe, at key junctures, chose consolidation over annihilation. His record thus illuminates how military capability and strategic vision do not always align, and how wars can be lost not through battles lost but through battles won at insufficient advantage.
Sources
- William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe — Wikipedia — Comprehensive biographical overview covering family background, military career, appointments, and major campaigns
- Sir William Howe: The Man Who Could Not Quell a Rebellion — American Battlefield Trust — Military analysis of 1776 New York campaign, strategic decisions, and Saratoga’s consequences
- Sir William Howe — George Washington’s Mount Vernon — Historical perspective on Howe from Washington’s headquarters records