Analysis: William Duer's Letter to George Washington, March 2, 1777

Date: March 2, 1777

Author:Duer, William

Genre: letter; report

Summary Overview

In the early spring of 1777, the New York colonial government was in the process of transforming the colony into an independent state. A select group of political leaders was engaged in the painstaking process of approving a state constitution, laying the legal basis for a new government that did not rely on royal sanction for its legitimacy. One of the men involved with debating the details of the New York Constitution was William Duer, who had settled in New York at the beginning of the decade and became acquainted with some of the most important Patriot leaders in the region.

Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War was beginning to rage on in earnest. General George Washington, the leader of the Continental Army, had been badly defeated in New York in the late summer and fall of 1776. The British had taken full control of New York City and were using it as a recruiting base for Loyalist fighters, colonists who supported the British Crown and chose to take up arms against their American countrymen. British troops and their mercenary allies were roaming throughout New York, hunting down Patriot leaders, and seeking material support for the occupation. As a result, the members of the New York Constitutional Convention were on high alert and moved a number of times to avoid capture.

Washington spent the beginning of 1777 in New Jersey fighting a series of skirmishes against British forces, mainly seeking to secure food supplies for his troops and horses. In order to keep the respected general abreast of happenings in New York, the members of the emerging New York government formed a committee of correspondence, headed by Duer. Through the efforts of a trusted American spymaster named Nathaniel Sackett, Duer and Washington traded a series of letters. In his March 2, 1777, letter to Washington, Duer paints a rather grim picture of current affairs in the area. Duer writes that there was an overall lack of new recruits to expand the ranks of the Patriot military forces in New York. Worse, General David Wooster had fled from his position covering British troops on Long Island, leaving a huge unprotected gap in the American line.

Duer was very concerned about how this would affect public morale and material support for the American troops in the area. He appeals to Washington to consider supporting legislation that would compel farmers to sell supplies to the American military at fair prices, instead of holding out to see if the British would give them more money. Duer also strongly suggests that Washington order another attack on the British. According to his intelligence sources, the British were drawing down forces from New York City and were actually fairly weak in Long Island. Duer recommends that the American army take advantage of this opportunity to send in a surprise attack to take back Long Island, which he believed would cut off other British troops in the region from precious food and fodder that they needed to continue their occupation.

Document Analysis

The letter penned by William Duer to George Washington on March 2, 1777, is one in a series of correspondences between the general and the New York legislature going back to June 1775. The initial letters were mainly notes of mutual encouragement, with both parties expressing their wishes for a swift victory over the British occupation army and an opportunity to create a new American government. As the fighting in the Revolutionary War became more intense, these letters came to take on a more concrete tone. The March 2, 1777, letter is an example of the practical planning that took place between the nascent New York government and the Continental Army.

Indeed, by March 1777, both the New York legislature and Washington were deeply enmeshed in the revolutionary struggle, and neither side was certain of the independence movement’s success. New York political leaders, including Duer, were working to approve a final draft of the constitution for their new state. They were hunted and harried by British troops and forced to move several times for their own safety. Meanwhile, Washington’s Continental Army had been defeated in Brooklyn and Manhattan, had given up New York City to the British, and was engaged in a string of desperate battles throughout New York and New Jersey. With little success beating back the British on the New York and New Jersey fronts, Washington was contemplating a strategy to confront royal forces in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Duer revealed in the course of this letter that he hoped Washington would not give up on the possibility of victory in New York and would commit more resources to the state.

In the chaos of war, Washington did not have an entirely clear picture of how much potential for success still remained in New York. Moreover, he was haunted by his gross tactical failures at the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776, in which he nearly lost the entire war but for a lucky escape on a foggy night. In his attempt to develop a workable war plan, he sought intelligence about conditions on the ground in New York and information about whether the emerging New York government would be able to supply him with troops and provisions adequate to the challenges the British posed in that region.

Duer became the representative of the New York legislature in its efforts to supply information to Washington. Beginning with a letter he wrote on January 28, 1777, Duer discussed the possibility of raising new battalions to retake control of New York with the general. Fearing capture of potentially sensitive information by British patrols, the men employed the talents of Nathaniel Sackett, who became Washington’s most trusted spy during the war. Washington replied on February 3, 1777, that while he would like to see new battalions organized in the state, he did not think that it seemed practical in the near term but that the matter deserved further consideration.

Duer began his letter of March 2, 1777, by stating that he should have replied sooner to this letter but that he did not because he was waiting to hear back from key leaders in the state, namely Prussian-born Colonel Frederick Von Weissenfels of the Second New York Regiment and John Livingston, the noted intellectual and revolutionary agitator. Duer states in the opening of his letter that he expects to meet with John Livingston any day but has not yet done so, and therefore he hesitated to pass along incomplete information to Washington.

He goes on to state that to the best of his knowledge, the Tenth New York Regiment under Henry Livingston, the Second New York Regiment led by Philip Van Cortlandt, and the Fifth New York Regiment under Lewis DuBois were only half full. He expresses concern that New York would not be able to raise more than five more battalions. He attributes this partly to the fact that the British had recently increased the land grant bounties they were offering to people in Connecticut who fought for the Loyalist rather than revolutionary cause.

Duer then writes that since General William Heath’s defeat in January 1777 at Fort Independence—which he euphemistically refers to as his “departure”—there simply have not been enough troops in the New York area. As a result, he states, the American forces in New York did not have enough manpower to procure adequate supplies of food from the countryside or post a defendable line from the Long Island Sound to the North (Hudson) River to exclude the British from roaming the territory.

Heath, Duer then says, had left General David Wooster behind to defend against British raids and told him to coordinate this defense with the members of the New York Constitutional Convention, including Duer. Duer enumerates the number of troops committed to each location. He states that five hundred troops from a Connecticut regiment were to form a defensive line between New Rochelle and Eastchester, three hundred New York troops were placed in the mile or so between Benjamin Drake’s farm on the White Plains Post Road to Stephen Ward’s house in Tuckahoe, and the rest of the Connecticut soldiers between Tuckahoe and the North (Hudson) River.

William Duer also laments that Heath gave the nascent New York government the impression that Wooster would have around a thousand troops but that Wooster actually had far fewer than this number. As a result, the New York troops were unable to form a defensive line that extended farther west than Tuckahoe. This left an undefended area that the British could exploit for supplies. On February 22, 1777, the New York Constitutional Convention recommended that Wooster command his troops to torch all crops in this area to deny the British any food supplies. Wooster refused to do so, however, saying that the endeavor would unduly tax his weakened ranks.

According to Duer, Wooster stated that he really only had six hundred troops under his immediate command and that he worried that the British were interested in launching another assault against him from Long Island. In fact, Duer explains to Washington, the advance post under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Van Rensselaer at Stephen Ward’s house in Tuckahoe received a desperate message on February 24, 1777, that Wooster had retreated from his position at New Rochelle in fear of such an attack. The members of the constitutional convention were not as concerned about an attack as Wooster was, and they stayed put. Rensselaer decided not to abandon his post in retreat until he consulted the New York Constitutional Convention. They told him to stay put until he was actually forced to retreat by incoming British troops.

Duer next informs Washington that Wooster’s panic was very bad for public morale. The emerging New York government, he states, was just beginning to gain support from its citizens. Wooster’s apparent lack of faith in the Continental Army’s ability to defend New York would make the masses of people still deciding if they should support the Patriotic cause shy away from it and even support the British. Duer expresses a good deal of frustration and even anger, stating that he no longer felt that Wooster’s forces could be relied upon at all.

Duer writes that his main concern was the protection of a large stock of forage or horse fodder, approximately five hundred tons of grain and hay, at Wrights Mills. He says that he had already initiated measures to move the fodder supplies in case of emergency but that he felt that it was exposed to a potential enemy offensive. Duer contacted General Alexander McDougal for help, but the general stated that his own forces at Peekskill were too small to spare reinforcements. Duer did, however, receive a promise from McDougal that if Wooster did not advance back to his original position, he would send in Colonel Henry Livingston. Duer then mentioned that, as Washington surely knew, a Maryland citizen who had been forced to fight for the British but then deserted had said that at least four hundred British troops and their Hessian mercenaries were in the vicinity.

Duer then addresses intelligence that he had received, and that surely Washington had heard, about the state of affairs in British occupied New York City. He states that the populace was known to be unhappy about having to swear oaths of allegiance to the royal government and was suffering from a lack of fresh food. The British, he declares, seemed to be drawing down forces in the city, perhaps in an effort to gather their troops in the Philadelphia area. Duer suggests, however, that this strategy was in his opinion designed to trick the American forces into focusing on Philadelphia and away from the Hudson River Valley.

Their motivation, Duer surmises, might be to access the large supplies of food in Dutchess County. In order to prevent the British from gaining access to this prize, he says, the Continental Army should buy as much of the Dutchess County food as possible. Due to the greed of war profiteers, however, this had proved difficult, as dishonest merchants were holding out to set higher prices for the relatively more wealthy British military. Duer admonishes Washington to support a proposed measure by members of the New York Constitutional Convention that would force farmers to sell to the American military at an honest price. Such a measure, Duer concedes, would be highly controversial with the public and indeed within the New York government itself. If the highly regarded General Washington would lend his support to the measure, it would increase the chances of succeeding.

With apologies for taking up so much of Washington’s time, Duer next suggests in his letter that serious consideration be given to launching an attack on Long Island. According to reliable intelligence he has received, Duer explains, the British had drawn down forces there to a relatively weak defensive line. Moreover, many residents did not like working with the British and would take up arms for the American cause if motivated by an actual military accompaniment. This would secure a valuable territorial gain for the Patriot cause and help Washington in his ongoing struggles in the New Jersey region.

Duer suggests that General Samuel Parsons, Colonel Henry Livingston, General Benedict Arnold, General George Clinton, and General Alexander McDougal might be able to assist in this matter. Duer recommends that for the sake of secrecy, the planning of this proposed attack on Long Island should be limited to a handful of people: Colonel Henry Livingston; General Samuel Parsons; John Sloss Hobart, who was also on the committee of correspondence; and the mutually trusted spymaster Nathaniel Sackett. This expedition, Duer adds, would also be useful because the British had stocks of horse feed and salted pork scattered throughout Long Island. Depriving the enemy of these supplies would be of great help in discouraging the British from remaining in New York.

Lastly, Duer reports that the nascent New York government ordered livestock to be moved to lower Westchester County, outside of the reach of the British. He estimates that they originally had secured four hundred head of cattle. Duer then proudly writes that although the American forces in the region were weak, they led an expedition on March 1, 1777, to take another 150 head of cattle, fifty horses, and some pigs and sheep from British sympathizers in Frogs Kneck (now Throggs Neck). He amusedly recounts how the small American force used a feint tactic to mislead the British troops while they stole away the livestock, increasingly precious to the British military as their occupation wore on and their preserved meat supplies dwindled.

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