A Year With George Washington
On April 4, 1776, General George Washington left Boston for New York City in anticipation of the next British attack occurring there. And so began the New York and New Jersey Campaigns of 1776 and 1777.
In addition to the near-impossible prospect of defending a city surrounded by water against the world’s most powerful navy, Washington had to mollify France’s leadership, which was aggrieved by a captured letter of his published by the British and which was critical of the French.
Washington did not want to be in a position where he would overthrow one monarchical regime only to replace it with another. He also felt that a great many of the cast of Frenchmen who were seeking rank in his army were there for their own aggrandizement rather than true believers of the American patriot cause. He would spend the next several years navigating the tension between courting and being wary of the French.
But for now, his biggest concern was stopping the British from bisecting the colonies by controlling New York and the Hudson Valley. In the coming months, this would prove more difficult than even he had imagined.
