The Great New York Fire of 1776
A Lost Story of the American Revolution
Benjamin L. Carp
Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2023, 360 pages
Book Review published on: June 9, 2023
New York City in early 1776 contained about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, which ranked it behind Philadelphia, but its fine harbor and location made it an ideal base from which to reestablish British rule over the colonies after the British were forced out of Boston. The greater skill of royalist forces at that point in the war made the fall of the city almost inevitable. Gen. George Washington urged the burning of the city prior to the withdrawal of the Continental Army to prevent its use by the British. The Continental Congress and New York Provincial Congress denied permission and the British took the city intact. Around midnight, on 21 September, six days after the British arrived, fires started in several locations. Southeast winds pushed the fires north along the west side of Manhattan. The fires were mostly out by 11 a.m. the next day but not completely out for three days. The fire destroyed 20 percent or more of the city but had little impact on the ability of the British to house men and materiel.
Benjamin L. Carp, a professor of history at Brooklyn College who has worked extensively on the American Revolution, has produced what will probably stand as the definitive account of the fire for some time. The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution is a scholarly work aimed at bringing the event to light and in overturning popular images of the war. Carp vividly describes the city prior to the fire, the course of the fire, and its impact. Carp uses the fire—its causes, path, and results—to explore tensions within the city’s population, as well as the complexity of the revolutionary struggle. Perhaps more important is his exploration of the nature of historical memory, how each side attempted to shape the discourse on the causes, and how both sides largely chose to ignore the fire after the war.
The fire failed in its purpose—most barracks, warehouses, and facilities for ships survived. Remarkably, no civilian deaths were recorded, other than those suspected arsonists who were shot, bayonetted, or thrown into the flames by the British. Rebels told lurid tales of suspects hung up by their heels and their throats slit. The population dropped to around five hundred immediately after the fire, but largely returned to prewar levels soon after, though only about eleven thousand were civilians, mostly displaced loyalists. The others were British and German soldiers.
The fire had precedence in the burning of Falmouth and Charleston in Massachusetts and Portsmouth and Gosport in Virginia by the British, and in their threats to burn much of the New England coast. Both sides blamed the other for the fire. The Rebels understood that burning New York City would undercut their moral high ground. They implied British or German soldiers or sailors on a drunken rampage started the fires, while the loyalists generally pointed at New England “levelers” who took the opportunity to rid themselves of a hated rival. British authorities tended to blame a well-organized rebel plot. Carp makes the case that, while the total truth will never be known, the fire was probably intentional, and rebels set it (p. 240). The question remains as to whether the fire was planned from higher levels or more a result of local initiative. Washington was in an awkward position, as he understood that getting blamed for burning the city would work against his efforts to protect not only his personal honor but also that of the whole rebel cause. His order for the removal of women, the elderly, children, and the infirm prior to the evacuation by Continental forces raises questions. The fire, when it came, was a relief to him. Carp hedges when speculating whether Washington ordered it, hinting that he did but without accusation (p. 244).
An informative and thought-provoking book, Carp makes only a few missteps when he assumes too much from scanty evidence; for example, with his speculations on the motives of an African American man who revealed the location of a Continental officer, Abraham Van Dyck, to the British (p. 130). Carp consistently reminds readers that the Revolution also involved women and nonwhite people in various capacities, but aside from descriptions of the man, almost nothing is known of his status or his relationship to Van Dyck.
If Carp is correct in his larger argument, that the fire was an intentional act to destroy New York City as a base for British operations, it was a failure. The facilities the British army and navy needed remained undamaged. The fire that swept through New York City, like most uses of fire in war, was indiscriminate in what was destroyed, harming the property of rich and poor, loyalist and rebel alike. Destroying towns by fire has been part of the American way of war arguably since the destruction of the Pequots’ village in 1636 through the firebombing and atomic bombings of World War II. Carp reminds us of the role of fire in the Revolutionary War, and the popular idea that war, where the lines between royalist forces and rebels were clear, is hardly accurate.
Book Review written by: Barry M. Stentiford, PhD, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas