Could the American Revolution have ended at the King’s Bridge?

Ken Burns’ remarkable documentary on the American Revolution has dropped in time for the 250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the military events of 1776 in Brooklyn, Manhattan and points north. The episodes which captured the actions of George Washington and the Continental Army in 1776 were not able to relate the full history of Washington’s evacuation of Manhattan Island. Rather, the narrative moves from the skirmish in Harlem Heights directly to the Battle of White Plains, reducing the actual evacuation to a footnote, regardless of the near demise of the Continental Army as it departed Manhattan.

This presentation explores the details of Washington’s departure from Manhattan and the near destruction of the Continental Army as it moves north over the King’s Bridge from Manhattan to the mainland in the current northwest Bronx. It includes the critical roles of two militia units in obstructing British General Howe as his force attempts to encircle the departing Americans. The second of these militias, under Colonel John Glover, included free Black and indigenous soldiers fighting among their white counterparts. 

If not for these militias, the American forces certainly could have been encircled and destroyed, which would have ended the Revolutionary enterprise.