Evacuation Day

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Christopher of The British-American Historian blog.

Almost two years after debating a joint French-American assailment of Lord Cornwallis’ precarious position in Yorktown, Virginia over Washington’s grand plan to recapture New York long after being swept from the city and its environs as independence was officially declared in 1776, the implacable Washington prepared to reenter New York in triumph.

Eight years after making New York the center of the British war effort in the American Revolution, the massive garrison was greatly reduced and preparing for its final retirement from the new nation. The new commander in chief of North America, Sir Guy Carleton, arrived in New York on May 5, 1782^[1] to relieve Sir Henry Clinton. Carleton won accolades for holding Quebec City when the Continental Army struck during a late night blizzard, an accomplishment that was all the more vaunted now that…