Evacuation Day (New York)
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Evacuation Day on the 25th of November marks the day in 1783 when the last vestige of British authority in the United States — its troops in New York — departed from Manhattan.
Background
Following the first major engagement of the Continental Army and British troops in the American Revolutionary War at the Battle of Brooklyn (also known as The Battle of Long Island) on August 27 1776, General George Washington and the Americans retreated to Manhattan Island. The Continentals withdrew north and west and, following the Battle of Fort Washington on 16 November 1776, evacuated the island. For the remainder of the Revolutionary War much of what is now Greater New York and its surroundings were under British control. During that time New York became, under Lord Howe and his brother Sir William, the British political and military center of operations in North America. Correspondingly, the region became the center of the development of an American intelligence network, headed by Washington himself. The famous Nathan Hale was but one of Washington's operatives working in New York, though the others were generally more successful. The city suffered two devastating fires of dubious origin during the British occupation. These resulted in the British forces and prominent Loyalist collaborators occupying the remaining undamaged structures, relegating the fire scarred ruins for the rest of the city's residents to live in squalor. In addition, over 10,000 American soldiers and sailors died through deliberate neglect on prison ships in New York waters (Wallabout Bay) during the British occupation - more than died in every single battle of the war, combined. These men are memorialized, and many of their remains are interred, at the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, overlooking the nearby site of their torment and deaths.
Commemoration
With American independence recognized by the Treaty of Paris, Britain began its withdrawal from what was now the United States. The departure of the British troops in 1783 was immediately followed by the triumphal return of General Washington to the city. Legend has it, however, that wounded British pride resulted in the nailing of a Union Jack to the flagpole in the Bowling Green at the southern tip of Manhattan and a greasing of the pole. After a number of men attempted to tear down the offending symbol of monarchy and tyranny a boy was able to remove it and replace it with the stars and stripes before the British fleet sailed out of sight. For many years, until the warming of relations with Britain immediately preceding World War I, this event was commemorated annually with boys competing to tear down a Union Jack from a greased pole in Bowling Green, as well as the anniversary in general being celebrated with much adult revelry and corresponding beverages.
References
- [Schecter, Barnet. The Battle for New York - The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (2002)]
External links
- [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_4_37/ai_n6137401]
- [The Battle for New York, a book by Barnet Schecter]
- [The Founding Fathers of American Intelligence]
- [Britain's Prison Ships]
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