Fort Washington fell to a British assault on November 16, 1776, when Colonel Robert Magaw surrendered 2,700 Continental defenders, who crowded its inner works. Its loss not only greatly embarrassed the American cause, but also its namesake commander, General George Washington, who now added this latest fiasco to a stinging string of defeats and harrowing escapes. Without an American navy to contest British command of the seas and waterways, New York City was lost. Fort Lee was rendered useless and a greatly humbled General Greene immediately began evacuating military stores as fast as wagons became available, starting with gunpowder and ammunition, but received no boats from Newark despite several urgent requests.

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Most fortuitously for the fledgling nation, Generals Washington, Putnam, Mercer and Greene narrowly escaped capture, having ill-advisedly crossed the river in a small boat as the enemy advance upon Fort Washington commenced. Returning to the safety of the Jersey shore, Washington supposedly watched from a vantage atop the crest of the Palisades as the hapless American garrison, betrayed and besieged, surrendered an hour later. Unable by itself to close the Hudson River to the British navy, Fort Lee and its outlying artillery batteries atop the Palisades, situated uncomfortably on a narrow neck of land between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, were ordered abandoned.

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Fort Lee was a square earthworks with four bastions, occupying the neighborhood now defined by Parker Avenue, Cedar and English Streets in Fort Lee. The often separately named Fort Constitution comprised “several batteries facing the North River in which several 32 pounders in addition to 2 middle sized and one extraordinarily heavy iron mortar are located.” These heavy guns were positioned on Bluff Point, east of Hudson Terrace Street, overlooking the river. The narrow road rising from Bourdet’s ferry in Edgewater passed through a ravine between these works.

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On October 8, 1776, General Greene ordered soldiers’ barracks to be built no closer than 50 rods (825 feet) to the fort, or south and west of Dead Bridge Brook (now LeMoine Avenue). As Hessian Colonel Colonel Earl Emilius von Donop later reported, “At the summit of the forts themselves [which is to say, on the high ground southwest of these fortifications] there were huts and tents for more than 6000 men and quantities of all sorts of provisions and a large amount of ammunition.” Thomas Sullivan of the 49th Regiment of Foot, described “very artificial and convenient huts, at Fort Lee, [made] of timber lined with a kind of mortar, each held four men commodiously, and had large ovens and other necessaries made there for their winter quarters.” He was probably describing what Lt. Joseph Hodgkins (Massachusetts) referred to as a “Log House with a stone Chimney” on September 30, 1776. After the fall of Fort Washington, the garrison at Fort Lee grew to about 2,700 men, many being five-months’ enlistees in Generals Heard’s Brigade from New Jersey, General Beal’s Brigade from Maryland, and part of General Ewing’s Brigade of Pennsylvanians, whose term of service was nearing expiration. They were sent to remove military supplies from Fort Lee to Ackquackanonck (Passaic), Springfield, Bound Brook, and Princeton.

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Even though winter was fast approaching, the weather was still mild enough for the British to build on their momentum and conclude their campaign around New York City, perhaps to even end the rebellion. The moon shone half full and faded to blue as November 19, 1776, dawned sunny but cold, melting away a dewy frost. At eventide, a heavy rain drenched Manhattan and fog curtained the daybreak. Under command of Lieutenant-General Lord Cornwallis and his deputy, Major-General John Vaughan, two divisions of British troops were to set out across the Hudson River on a daring expedition into New Jersey.

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The first division, composed of about 2,500 British and German troops, clamored aboard about 50 flatboats and bateaux at Kingsbridge (West 230th Street in the Bronx) on what was then the northernmost tip of Manhattan, awaiting orders to row out of the Spuyten Duyvil and to land “about 5 miles further up the River” at a carefully chosen spot at the base of the Palisades. These troops passed “a very disagreeable night in the Flat boats, under a thick heavy Rain.” Starting out at 9 p.m., a second division of approximately 2,500 troops marched up Broadway from Kingsbridge to “Colonel Cortlands House…”, where they waited until 3 a.m., when they began marching to a landing point (near what is now Ludlow Metro-North Railroad Station) on the river for embarkation.

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Undoubtedly accompanied by at least one of several Loyalist guides (who knew the highways and byways of Bergen County well enough), Lord Cornwallis sailed under the rainy half-moon to inspect the narrow pass up the steep Palisades that his army was to scale at daybreak. Given low visibility, especially in a constant downpour, it seems probable (to me) that Loyalist guides with lanterns would have had to pinpoint the proposed landing site from the shore. In any event, arriving at midnight, the British commander stared in utter disbelief at the half-mile ascent up the steep escarpment that was pointed out to him, where his troops would have to climb a stony path scarcely four feet wide to overcome a nearly vertical rise of 420 feet in elevation.

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Unconvinced an ascent of the cliff at the Closter New Dock (also know as Lower Closter Landing and later Huyler’s Landing) was feasible, he explored about two and a half miles further north along the river, probably viewing Closter Dock (Alpine Boat Basin), which he found even more unpromising: the ascent was equally daunting, but its choice would have added several more miles and hours to the march on Fort Lee, thus costing the invaders the element of surprise. Moreover, the proximity of 5,000 American troops in the Highlands under Major General William Heath would pose a threat to the British rear as they advanced southward. Another 7,000 American troops under Major-General Charles Lee were stationed at North Castle in Westchester County, NY, posing an additional threat to the defense of Manhattan, now depleted by the troops who would make the crossing.

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With daylight approaching, Cornwallis returned to the Lower Closter Landing and ordered an advance guard of two companies of light infantry to scramble to the top of the Palisades and form a defensive perimeter, which would be enlarged as soon as the first division, composed mainly of light infantry and chasseurs, began landing at daybreak (6:48 a.m.) on November 20, 1776, passing out of the Spuyten Duyvil and into the Hudson River. According to Colonel Earl Emilius von Donop, the landing point and upward climb seemed “dreadful and impractical.” He noted, “All the troops had to pass one at a time up a steep path that was hardly 4 feet wide.”

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All this did not pass unnoticed. And, thanks to the pioneering research of military historian Todd Braisted we may finally dispense with legend and appreciate the facts of history. Todd has found evidence that American guards were placed at Bergen (Jersey City), Hoboken, Bull’s Ferry, Hackensack and, most critically, on or near Clinton Point, about three miles above Fort Lee and directly opposite Spuyten Duyvil. It was this latter outpost of American sentinels who spied British transports on the river and fired warning shots to alert the garrison. Its officer commandeered a horse and headed south to warn Fort Lee and its breakfasting garrison. Given the distance, it would have taken at least an hour for this officer to reach the fort and appraise its commander of the developing situation.

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Most importantly, Braisted has identified Lieutenant John Clifford, of Heard’s Brigade of New Jersey State Troops, as the “officer” whom eyewitness Tom Paine described in The American Crisis as arriving “with information that the enemy with 200 boats had landed about seven miles above.” Thus informed, General Greene immediately ordered the garrison to assemble under arms and sent word to General Washington in Hackensack by way of Little Ferry (moving at four m.p.h., a horse and rider would have taken about an hour and a half to complete the six-mile journey). But, according to Washington’s secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Harrison, an express rider from Orangetown, New York, arrived at Washington’s headquarters in Hackensack at 10 a.m., bringing the first news of the British landing above Fort Lee. According to Thomas Paine, “General Washington arrived in about three-quarters of an hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards the bridge…” But arrived where? Did Washington meet the advance troops of the retreating garrison of Fort Lee at Liberty Pole (Englewood) as is commonly told?

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Probably not. According to aide-de-camp Major William Grayson’s report to General Mercer, dated November 20, 1776, “an advanced party of them [i.e., the British] proceeded as far as a Hill, two miles above the Liberty Pole, at the crossroads, where I left his Excellency. The Road leading from thence to Hackensack [New] Bridge as well as the Bridge is open for our people to retreat & from present Appearances it is expected they may be got off without Loss of many of them….” Sending a similar report to General Charles Lee, Grayson again noted the British troops were halted on “a Hill two miles above the Liberty Pole, about a mile and a half above General Greene’s Quarters, where I left his Excellency.”

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Thus, it seems Washington and his staff road out to General Greene’s headquarters somewhere in the English Neighborhood, although it is not clear from Grayson’s statement whether Greene’s headquarters was a half mile above the Liberty Pole or a mile and a half below it (in Leonia?). In any event, this was the decisive “crossroads” at the intersection of Tenafly Road and West Palisade Avenue, where two roads led from Liberty Pole towards New Bridge, the only span across the Hackensack River that might carry the Fort Lee garrison to safety: Liberty Road, described as a “bye-road to New Bridge”, veered northwest and thus closer to the assembling enemy force; whereas Lafayette Place departs southwest to Genesee Avenue, continuing southwest on Loraine Avenue to Forest Avenue, and thence to Teaneck Road, which turns north to its junction with New Bridge Road.

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