Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/279



NEW YORK IN 1780 AND 1781.

When Sir Henry Clinton set sail for Charleston in December, 1779, he left the command of the garrison of New York to Lieutenant-general von Knyphausen. The regular troops in and about the city numbered some six thousand—Englishmen, Hessians, and Anspachers. By arming the inhabitants and the sailors from the ships that were icebound in the harbor, Knyphausen succeeded in nearly doubling the number of his men, and the new recruits were such as could do good service behind fortifications. Washington, meanwhile, commanded a small, ill-fed, and unpaid army, which in the spring of 1780 contained less than seven thousand regulars, only half of whom could be spared from garrison duty and made available for active operations.

The winter was an unusually cold one. The North and East rivers and Long Island Sound were frozen over, as was also the channel between Staten Island and the New Jersey shore. This state of things was favorable to expeditions, and these were constantly undertaken by both sides. In January, Lord Stirling landed on Staten Island, but found that the garrison there was expecting him, and returned to New Jersey, many of his men having suffered from frost-bites. Knyphausen was preparing to send reinforcements