White Plains

The Battle of White Plains and the Fight for American Independence

By the autumn of 1776, the American Revolution was in danger of ending before it had truly begun. George Washington's Continental Army, battered and demoralized after a catastrophic defeat on Long Island in August and a harrowing retreat from Manhattan in the weeks that followed, was running out of room to maneuver. The British commander, General William Howe, possessed one of the most powerful expeditionary forces the British Empire had ever assembled—some 25,000 well-trained regulars and German auxiliaries, supported by the Royal Navy's unchallenged dominance of the waterways surrounding New York. If Howe could trap and destroy Washington's army, the rebellion would almost certainly collapse. It was in this desperate context that the rolling hills and farmlands of White Plains, a modest courthouse town in Westchester County, became the site of one of the most consequential engagements of the war's opening year—not because of what happened there, but because of what did not.

White Plains had already played a pivotal role in the cause of independence before a single shot was fired there. In the county's first courthouse, built in 1758, the members of the Fourth Provincial Congress of New York assembled on July 9, 1776, and there received a copy of the Declaration of Independence sent to them by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The document was referred to a committee of five, chaired by John Jay.

This committee reported back favorably that same day, whereupon the Provincial Congress immediately approved the document, and instructions were sent to New York's delegates in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration. New York's delegation had been the sole colony unable to vote on July 4, lacking authorization from its provincial legislature; the Convention unanimously resolved "that the reasons assigned by the Continental Congress for declaring the United Colonies free and independent States, are cogent and conclusive." On the same day, the body changed its name from the Provincial Congress of the Colony of New York to the Convention of Representatives of the State of New York. On July 11, 1776, Judge John Thomas of Purchase stood on the steps of the courthouse in White Plains and read the Declaration of Independence to the public for the first time in the State of New York. The town thus holds a singular distinction in the story of American independence—it is, by the reckoning of many New Yorkers, the birthplace of New York State itself. That courthouse was burned during the Westchester Campaign in the fall of 1776.

To understand why the armies converged on White Plains, one must follow the sequence of moves and countermoves that defined the New York campaign of 1776. After driving the Americans from Brooklyn Heights and then from lower Manhattan, Howe executed an ambitious flanking maneuver in mid-October, landing a substantial force at Throgs Neck on the western shore of Long Island Sound, intending to swing behind Washington's army and cut off its line of retreat into the interior. The plan was sound, but its execution was slowed at a critical juncture by the tenacious resistance of Colonel John Glover and his brigade at Pell's Point on October 18. Glover, a weathered fisherman from Marblehead, Massachusetts, who had already proven indispensable by organizing the nighttime evacuation across the East River after Long Island, deployed his small force behind a series of stone walls along the Split Rock Road near present-day Pelham Bay. His men—many of them sailors and fishermen accustomed to discipline under pressure—fought a skillful delaying action against a much larger British and Hessian column, buying Washington precious hours. Around noon, General Cornwallis completed his flanking movement on the American left and the Patriots faced possible envelopment; sensing this, Glover ordered a withdrawal across the Hutchinson River, and later in the day a redeployment north along the road to White Plains, reaching Tuckahoe by nightfall. The engagement at Pell's Point rarely receives the attention it deserves, but without Glover's stand, the Continental Army might never have reached White Plains at all.

Washington, recognizing the peril of remaining on Manhattan with the British maneuvering to his rear, ordered the bulk of his army northward along the roads of Westchester County. Washington believed a series of low hills near the American supply depot at White Plains would provide good terrain for his defenders. The march was grueling. The army was short of supplies, many soldiers lacked shoes and blankets, and the autumn rains turned the roads to mud. On October 20, Washington sent Colonel Rufus Putnam out on a reconnaissance mission from his camp at Harlem Heights. Putnam discovered the general placement of the British troop locations and recognized the danger to the army and its supplies. When he reported this to Washington that evening, Washington immediately dispatched Putnam with orders to Lord Stirling, whose troops were furthest north, to immediately march to White Plains. They arrived at White Plains at 9:00 am on October 21, and were followed by other units of the army as the day progressed. Nevertheless, by October 22, the Continental forces began arriving at White Plains, where Washington established a defensive position on a series of low ridges and hills overlooking the Bronx River. White Plains was a crossroads town commanding one of the few bridges over the Bronx River—or "Brunks" River as the maps of the day termed it—and, more importantly, it held a depot of desperately needed supplies. The choice of White Plains was driven by both geography and necessity: the town sat astride important roads leading north toward the Hudson Highlands and the vital supply route to Peekskill.

Even as the main army settled into its new position, Washington sought to strike back at the enemy where opportunity presented itself. Howe had established his camp at New Rochelle, but advance elements of his army were near Mamaroneck, only seven miles from White Plains, where a unit of Loyalists occupied the village. The latter was attacked that night by a detachment of Lord Stirling's troops under John Haslet, who took more than thirty prisoners as well as supplies, but suffered several killed and fifteen wounded.

The expedition consisted mostly of the Delaware and Maryland regiments, who were regarded as elite units, as well as 150 Virginia Continentals and a few local guides. Led by the widely respected Delaware colonel, these combatants set out late at night and marched in total silence along the road from White Plains to Mamaroneck. Their target was the Queen's American Rangers under the notorious Major Robert Rogers, the famed frontiersman of the French and Indian War who had cast his lot with the Crown. The Americans managed to capture thirty-six prisoners, sixty muskets, sixty highly prized blankets, and a pair of colors, all of which they evacuated safely. The raid at Mamaroneck was a minor affair in strategic terms, but it offered a fleeting boost to American morale at a moment when such gestures mattered enormously.

Washington established his headquarters at the Elijah Miller House in North White Plains on October 23, and chose a defensive position that he fortified with two lines of entrenchments. The trenches were situated on raised terrain, protected on the right by the swampy ground near the Bronx River, with steeper hills further back as a place of retreat. The American defenses were three miles long.

He anchored the American right on Purdy Hill near the Bronx River and the left on a large pond. Washington did not initially occupy Chatterton's Hill, which was to the right of the American lines. The Elijah Miller House, an eighteenth-century Rhode Island–style farmhouse, would serve Washington on multiple occasions during the war. Elijah Miller had joined the Westchester County Militia and died in August 1776 while in camp. Two of his sons, John and Elijah, were also in the Westchester County Militia, both dying of fever in camp during December 1776 —a grim reminder that the revolution exacted its toll family by family. Anne Miller, a widow, was General Washington's hostess during his stays.

The hasty fortifications the Americans erected revealed the desperate character of their situation. Major Benjamin Tallmadge wrote that "breastworks were improvised… cornstalks pulled from the fields were stacked with the clods of earth on the bottoms facing the enemy, quickly creating defenses that looked much stronger than they were." These improvised works, fashioned from the autumn harvest of Westchester's farms, would prove effective in one crucial respect: Washington, crafty as his nickname the fox, had his men pull up cornstalks and layered them tops in and clods out, with additional earth sprinkled over the sod. It did the trick. General Howe decided not to assault the American lines head-on, and instead looked for a flanking alternative.

On October 23, about 8,000 Hessians, commanded by Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, arrived at New Rochelle and reinforced Howe's army.

On October 24 and 25, Howe's army moved from New Rochelle to Scarsdale, where they established a camp covering the eastern bank of the Bronx River. This move was