On this day 250 years ago on Manhattan Island in New York, the Americans defeated the British and Hessians at the Battle of Harlem Heights. This victory although not strategically significant gave a huge morale boost to the Continental Army. Some of the same men who had ignominiously fled from the British the day before at Kip’s Bay helped to drive a British detachment that had ventured close to the American lines back two miles to the British lines. The Americans also captured two British cannon.
Although Gen. Howe and the official British records understated the British losses, historians today mostly agree that the British and Hessians lost more men than the Americans. David McCullough estimated that the British lost 90 killed and had 300 wounded, but other historians give the numbers as 70 men killed and 100 wounded. Since a contemporary account recorded that the Americans buried 78 British soldiers on the field, McCullough’s numbers are more credible than the lower estimates for the British losses. There is less debate about the American losses; they lost 35 men killed and about 100 wounded in the Battle of Harlem Heights.
As with too many battles of the Revolution, I haven’t found a compilation of the names of the Continental Army troops who died in the Battle of Harlem Heights. The heroism of Lt. Col. Thomas Knowlton of Connecticut, who was killed, and Maj. Andrew Leith of Prince William County, Virginia, who was mortally wounded, in the battle is discussed in most of the histories and you can read about them at the links below. One article I link to below says that Lt. Noel Allen of Brig. Gen. James Varnum’s Brigade and a Captain Gleason of Brig. Gen. John Nixon’s Brigade were killed and names two wounded officers – Capt. Lowe (of Ewing’s Marylanders), Capt. Gooch ofVarnum’s Brigade I have not found any other sources mentioning Captains Lowe and Gooch so I do not know if their wounds turned mortal, as was often the case in the Revolution. By my count there are at least 32 Continental Army soldiers who died fighting at Harlem Heights that I cannot identify by name. If any readers of this blog can point me to sources for the names of other Americans killed in the battle, I will add them to this post.
Joseph Plumb Martin recorded in his Memoir the best tribute to one of these unnamed Americans who lost their lives at Harlem Heights:
When we came off the field we brought away a man who had been shot dead upon the spot; and after we had refreshed ourselves we proceeded to bury him. Having provided a grave, which was near a gentleman’s country seat, (at that time occupied by the Commander-in-chief,) we proceeded, just in the dusk of evening, to commit the poor man, then far from friends and relatives, to the bosom of his mother earth. Just as we had laid him in the grave, in as decent a posture as existing circumstances would admit, there came from the house, towards the grave, two young ladies, who appeared to be sisters;—as they approached the grave, the soldiers immediately made way for them, with those feelings of respect which beauty and modesty combined seldom fail to produce, more especially when, as in this instance, accompanied by piety. Upon arriving at the head of the grave, they stopped, and with their arms around each other’s neck, stooped forward and looked into it, and with a sweet pensiveness of countenance which might have warmed the heart of a misoganist, asked if we were going to put the earth upon his naked face; being answered in the affirmative, one of them took a fine white gauze handkerchief from her neck and desired that it might be spread upon his face, tears, at the same time, flowing down their cheeks. After the grave was filled up they retired to the house in the same manner they came. Although the dead soldier had no acquaintance present, (for there were none at his burial who knew him,) yet he had mourners, and females too.
General Washington’s headquarters 250 years ago today has been preserved at what is now called the Morris-Jumel Mansion. The Morris-Jumel Mansion earlier today, September 16, 2026 hosted a discussion of “The Battle of Harlem Heights at 250” by historian David Price. I hope David Price discussed the burial of this unknown soldier in his talk and that he or the staff of the Morris-Jumel Mansion can guide people to the location of this grave somewhere near the Mansion.
The battle of Harlem Heights was fought from what is now today’s 125th Street in north to 106th Street in the south. You can consider all the city between these streets and 3rd Avenue to the Hudson to be part of the Harlem Heights battlefield. The Morris-Jumel Mansion would be a good place to start if you want to tour the battlefield, but you could start at the Museum of the City of New York at 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, which would have been just inside the British lines 250 years ago. The Museum has an outstanding exhibit on the “Occupied City: New York and the American Revolution” that can orient you to tour the battlefield. What was once farm and woodlands is now a dense city but you can get a sense of the geography of the Hollow Way (today’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard formerly called 125th Street), Bloomsburg Heights (today’s Morningside Heights) and Harlem Heights (today’s Manhattanville and Hamilton Heights neighborhoods) that figures into the descriptions of the battle. You can also travel down Broadway and stop between 123rd and 124th Streets, at Barnard College on Broadway between 119th and 116th Streets, and at 106th Street and try to imagine the intense combat that occurred at those locations 250 years ago. And you can find markers for locations involved in the battle at Broadway between 148th and 147th Streets, on Broadway at 116th Street, and at Riverside Church next to Grant’s Tomb.
Sources: Schecter at 194-203; https://morrisjumel.org/events/virtual-parlor-chat-first-victory-the-battle-of-harlem-heights-at-250/; https://www.mcny.org/exhibition/occupied-city; https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/04/cursedly-thrashed-the-battle-of-harlem-heights/#_edn14; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=12668; Memoir of a Revolutionary War Soldier: The Narrative of Joseph Plumb Martin, Mineola, New York: Dover Publications (2006) at 30-31 accessed at https://dn721808.ca.archive.org/0/items/memoir-of-a-revolutionary-soldier-by-joseph-plumb-martin-2006/Memoir%20Of%20A%20Revolutionary%20Soldier%20by%20Joseph%20Plumb%20Martin%20%202006.pdf; https://www.revwartalk.com/09-16-1776-battles-battle-of-harlem-heights-in-new-york-city-new-york-campaign/; https://harlem350.commons.gc.cuny.edu/harlem-and-the-revolutionary-war/
On This Day In The Revolution 