When the nation marked its 250th anniversary, our attention turned naturally to Philadelphia and July 4, 1776. We remember the ringing Declaration and the promise that a new nation could be founded on equal rights. But declaring a nation and keeping it alive are very different things. Just ten weeks later, the American experiment came perilously close to ending in the fields and woods of Upper Manhattan.<\/p>\n
I am reminded of this whenever I walk 10 blocks from my home along Morningside Park. At 114th St. and Morningside Ave. stands a monumental bronze sculpture by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric-Auguste Bartholdi, creator of the Statue of Liberty<\/a>. It depicts George Washington clasping hands with the Marquis de Lafayette beneath the intertwined flags of France and the United States. It is a heroic sculpture. It is also a temporal illusion.<\/p>\n Lafayette was not here in September 1776. He was an 18-year-old officer across the Atlantic, months away from sailing for America<\/a>. There was no French fleet coming to Washington\u2019s rescue, no French gold sustaining his army, and no alliance recognizing the fledgling nation. On Sept. 16, 250 years ago today, Washington was on his own. And he was losing.<\/p>\n Three weeks earlier, his army suffered a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Long Island, escaping destruction only through a desperate nighttime evacuation across the East River<\/a>. On Sept. 15, British and Hessian regulars landed at Kips Bay (near current day NYU Langone Medical Center). American militia broke and fled, prompting Washington to throw down his hat in despair: \u201cAre these the men with which I am to defend America?<\/a>\u201d By nightfall, his demoralized army was retreating northward through Manhattan.<\/p>\n The next morning, Washington sent Connecticut soldiers south to probe British lines on the Upper West Side. Outnumbered, they retreated toward Washington\u2019s position. The British pursued. Then came an insult. As British troops approached the valley around present-day Manhattanville and 125th St., a bugler sounded a fox-hunting call, the signal that the quarry was cornered<\/a>. The meaning was unmistakable: the Americans were the foxes, and the British were closing in for the kill.<\/p>\n Instead of retreating, Washington decided to fight. He dispatched troops into a buckwheat field near what is now Columbia University and Barnard College. Key officers fell mortally wounded, and the inexperienced Americans might easily have broken again. They did not. For nearly two hours, 1,800 American troops stood their ground against seasoned British and Hessian regulars in open-field combat before driving the enemy back down the slope.<\/p>\n Harlem Heights was no Saratoga or Yorktown. It did not destroy an army or end British control of New York. Measured by territory, it was a minor engagement. Measured by what the Revolution needed at that moment, it was decisive. After the humiliations of Long Island and Kips Bay, Washington\u2019s soldiers had faced the world\u2019s most formidable military and held their ground. The next day, Washington wrote that the action had \u201cgreatly inspirited the whole of our Troops.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Anniversaries tempt us to turn history into inevitability: the Declaration leads to Saratoga, Saratoga to the French alliance, and the alliance to Yorktown. But none of those outcomes was assured. Before any of that could happen, the Revolution had to survive September 1776.<\/p>\n Nations are sustained not just by declarations and famous generals, but by less celebrated moments when frightened, exhausted people decide not to give up. On Sept. 16, 1776, just up the hill from where I live, Americans began to believe their new nation could survive.<\/p>\n Ostrer is a physician-scientist and writer living in Upper Manhattan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the nation marked its 250th anniversary, our attention turned naturally to Philadelphia and July 4, 1776. 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