The Fox-Hunt Call

Thomas Knowlton did not need to volunteer for the flanking movement at Harlem Heights. He was a lieutenant colonel, one of the senior officers present. He could have directed the operation from a distance, sent a major to lead it, and stayed where headquarters could reach him. He chose to go himself.

It is worth understanding what he was volunteering for. The British light infantry he was tasked with enveloping were professional soldiers who had been fighting in North America for years. They knew this style of woodland skirmishing. They would be watching for exactly the kind of flanking movement Knowlton was being sent to execute. The element of surprise, if it existed at all, would last only as long as it took the British to realize what was happening.

Knowlton led his column south through the wooded terrain west of the main action, trying to get around the British right flank without being heard or seen. He had done this kind of movement before — the night reconnaissance up Breed's Hill before Bunker Hill was his, one of the boldest pieces of light infantry work in the war's first year. He understood the risks and he understood the terrain.

He got most of the way to the objective before the British saw what was coming. They began pulling back to avoid encirclement. Knowlton's men followed, pressing the advantage, and then the shot came. Contemporary accounts do not agree on the exact moment or circumstances. What they agree on is that Knowlton was in the front of his column when he was hit, and that the wound was fatal.

Washington learned of his death while the action was still in progress. He had been watching the battle from a high point with field glasses. The report of Knowlton's wounding reached him and he understood immediately what it meant: the best light infantry officer in the army was gone. The tactical victory, such as it was, was already fading in importance.

What Knowlton's death meant for the army is difficult to calculate. In the short term, the Rangers continued to operate, and other officers stepped into the space his absence created. In the longer term, the loss of someone with his particular combination of tactical skill, personal courage, and organizational ability was never fully replaced. The Continental Army's intelligence capabilities remained uneven throughout the war, partly because the man who had been building them was dead at thirty-six in a field above the Harlem River.

He is buried — most historians believe — somewhere in the general area of the Harlem Heights battle, though no grave was ever marked. There is a monument. There are historical markers. But Knowlton himself is somewhere under the streets and buildings of upper Manhattan, which seems appropriate for a man who spent his career moving through landscape without leaving traces.