Fort Lee

The Cliffs of Decision: Fort Lee and the Revolutionary War's Darkest Hour

On the morning of November 20, 1776, roughly six thousand British and Hessian troops under Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis began scaling the sheer rock face of the Palisades in the pre-dawn darkness, ascending from the Hudson River toward the flat ground above where the Continental Army's Fort Lee sat largely unprepared. Within hours, the fort would be abandoned, hundreds of pieces of precious equipment lost, and George Washington's army would begin a desperate retreat across New Jersey that nearly ended the American Revolution before it had truly begun. Fort Lee's story is not one of triumph. It is a story of strategic miscalculation, narrow escape, tenacious leadership, and the forging of resolve under catastrophic pressure — the kind of story that reveals far more about the character of the Revolution than any victory ever could.

To understand what happened at Fort Lee, one must first understand why it existed. In the summer of 1776, after the Continental Army evacuated New York City following its defeat at the Battle of Long Island, American commanders confronted a pressing strategic question: how to deny the British Royal Navy control of the Hudson River. If British warships could sail freely up the Hudson, they could sever New England — the cradle of the rebellion — from the middle and southern colonies, splitting the new nation in two. Washington and his generals conceived a plan to block the river using a paired fortification system. Fort Washington, on the high ground of Manhattan's northern tip, would work in concert with a companion fort on the New Jersey Palisades directly across the river. That companion was originally called Fort Constitution, but it was soon renamed Fort Lee in honor of Major General Charles Lee, then one of the most celebrated officers in the Continental Army. The name was chosen specifically to honor General Charles Lee's victory in Charleston, South Carolina — his successful defense of Fort Sullivan in June 1776, which had made him a hero throughout the colonies.

Construction of Fort Lee began in the summer of 1776. In July 1776, General Washington instructed General Hugh Mercer to build Fort Lee on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. The work fell under the broader supervision of Nathanael Greene, the Rhode Island-born major general whom Washington trusted perhaps more than any other subordinate. Greene, who was largely self-educated in military science and had risen from a Quaker ironworker's son to a commanding general in barely two years, oversaw the building of earthwork fortifications on the bluff overlooking the Hudson. At first, efforts were concentrated close to the water level near Burdett's Landing. Later, fortifications were added atop the bluff under the supervision of Joseph Philips, Battalion Commander of the New Jersey State Militia. The position seemed formidable: the Palisades rose some three hundred feet above the river, and the fort commanded sweeping views of the waterway and the opposite shore. The original Fort Lee was star-shaped , a design common to eighteenth-century military engineering, and it was positioned to work in tandem with Fort Washington across the river.

The land upon which the fort was built carried its own history. In 1756, Stephen Bourdette had purchased 400 acres of wooded land north of present-day Edgewater; present-day Fort Lee was part of his property. The stone house Mr. Bourdette built was the only one for nearly a mile around. This same house later became General George Washington's headquarters during the American Revolution.

The Bourdette's ferry service was taken over by the Army, and Peter Bourdette was forced to vacate his house; although as a patriot he considered it no sacrifice and offered the work of his slaves to General Mercer's construction efforts. Burdett's Landing, the small cove at the base of the Palisades below the fort, would become a critical lifeline. Burdett's Ferry served as the only supply and communication line with Fort Washington on the eastern side of the Hudson River.

To complement the fixed fortifications, American engineers deployed chevaux-de-frise — massive underwater obstructions made of iron-tipped wooden beams anchored to heavy stone-filled cribs — sunk into the riverbed between the two forts. At General Rufus Putnam's suggestion, obstructions were sunk in the river channel between the forts. The theory was elegant: the chevaux-de-frise would force enemy ships to slow or stop in the channel, where they could be raked by cannon fire from both banks simultaneously.

The theory failed. On October 9, 1776, British warships HMS Phoenix, HMS Roebuck, and HMS Tartar ran past the fortifications, demonstrating that the twin forts and their underwater obstructions could not seal the river. The British ran their ships up the Hudson on several occasions and proved that these forts were not up to the task. Yet even as the strategic rationale for Fort Lee eroded, events conspired to keep American forces pinned there.

The catastrophe that sealed Fort Lee's fate began not on the New Jersey Palisades but on the opposite shore, at Fort Washington. Greene had argued passionately that Fort Washington could and should be held, contending that it would keep open communications across the river and might dissuade the British from attacking New Jersey. Magaw and Putnam concurred with Greene. Washington deferred to Greene and did not abandon the fort. It was a decision that would haunt them all. On November 16, 1776, a massive British and Hessian force — some 8,000 troops attacking from three directions — overwhelmed Fort Washington's defenders. The Americans had 59 killed, 96 wounded casualties, and 2,837 men captured. It was one of the worst Patriot defeats of the entire war.

Washington witnessed much of the disaster firsthand. Washington and Greene decided to spend the night at Fort Lee and figure out what to do about Fort Washington in the morning. When the sun rose on Saturday 16 November, Washington got in a small boat, intending to cross the Hudson River and visit the garrison at Fort Washington himself; he was accompanied by three of his generals including Greene, Israel Putnam, and Hugh Mercer. As the battle turned against the Americans, the four generals were urged to flee Manhattan. They convinced Washington to leave the fort just 30 minutes before it was surrounded.

Washington, Greene, and the others were soon rowed across the Hudson back to Fort Lee. Tradition holds that Washington wept as he watched the final collapse from the bluffs above Burdett's Landing. Among those also watching from Fort Lee was Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, who was serving in the Continental army as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene . He witnessed the fall of Fort Washington from across the Hudson at Fort Lee.

With Fort Washington gone, the entire strategic premise of Fort Lee vanished overnight. After the fall of Fort Washington, George Washington made plans for the evacuation of Fort Lee, which stood across the Hudson River in New Jersey. In a letter written to John Hancock on November 19, 1776, the general wrote that "...Fort Lee was always considered as only necessary in conjunction with [Fort Washington]...," and that it would be abandoned as soon as provisions and other supplies were removed. But an orderly withdrawal was not in store for the Americans.

Moving with uncharacteristic speed, General William Howe sent Charles Cornwallis across the Hudson the morning of 20 November to take Fort Lee. Howe's orders to Cornwallis were blunt: "clear the rebel troops from New Jersey without a major engagement, and to do it quickly before the weather changed."

The force included Hessian units commanded by Colonel Carl von Donop.

Crossing in the rain, with between 4,000 and 6,000 troops, Cornwallis landed at Closter (modern Alpine), New Jersey, six miles (by road) above Fort Lee. His plan was to march south rapidly and trap the entire American garrison on the narrow peninsula between the Hudson and the Hackensack rivers before they could escape.

The element of surprise was nearly complete. Surprise and the opportunity to capture the garrison of Fort Lee were lost when news of the British landing at Closter was brought to the Americans. Scholars disagree about who provided the warning. Some claim it was the work of a British deserter, others say it was an American civilian. Whatever the source of the intelligence, the warning came just in time. General George Washington and Major General Nathanael Greene quickly ordered the evacuation of Fort Lee on the morning of November 20. In his own account of the moment, Paine would later write that "an officer arrived with information that the enemy with 200 boats had landed about seven miles above."

What followed was a frantic race. The approximately 2,000 American troops at Fort Lee abandoned virtually everything as they fled westward toward the Hackensack River. The British found 200 or 300 tents still standing and pots still boiling. Twelve drunken Americans were captured in the fort, and about 150 other prisoners were taken in the vicinity.

Although the Americans managed to evacuate stocks of gunpowder, they left behind 1,000 barrels of flour, all their entrenching tools, about 50 cannon, and their baggage. The combined materiel losses at Forts Washington and Lee were staggering — between the two forts, the British took a total of 146 iron and brass cannon ranging from the smallest to 32 pounders, 12,000 shot and shell, 2,800 muskets, and a startling 400,000 musket cartridges, besides tents, entrenching tools, and precious equipment and provisions that the Americans could not replace.

Greene's performance in those