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Following the American Revolution, Evacuation Day on November 25 marks the day in 1783 when the last vestige of British authority in the United States — its troops in New York — departed from Manhattan. ^[1] The last shot of the American Revolutionary War was reported to be fired on this day, as a British gunner on one of the departing ships fired a cannon at jeering crowds gathered on the shore of Staten Island, at the mouth of New York Harbor (the shot fell well short of the shore).^[2]

Background

Following the first and largest major engagement of the Continental Army and British troops in the American Revolutionary War, at the Battle of Long Island (also known as the Battle of Brooklyn) on August 27, 1776, General George Washington and the Continental Army retreated to Manhattan Island. The Continentals withdrew north and west and, following the Battle of Fort Washington on 16 November 1776, evacuated the island. For the remainder of the Revolutionary War much of what is now Greater New York and its surroundings were under British control. New York City became, under Lord Howe and his brother Sir William, the British political and military center of operations in North America. Correspondingly, the region became central to the development of a Patriot intelligence network, headed by Washington himself. The famous Nathan Hale was but one of Washington's operatives working in New York, though the others were generally more successful. The city suffered two devastating fires of uncertain origin during the British occupation. These resulted in the British forces and prominent Loyalists occupying the remaining undamaged structures, relegating the fire-scarred ruins for the rest of the city's residents to live in squalor. In addition, over 10,000 Patriot soldiers and sailors died through deliberate neglect on prison ships in New York waters (Wallabout Bay) during the British occupation — more than died in every single battle of the war, combined. These men are memorialized, and many of their remains are interred, at the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, overlooking the nearby site of their torment and deaths.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

Evacuation

In mid-August 1783, Sir Guy Carleton received orders from London for the evacuation of New York City. He told the President of the Continental Congress that he was proceeding with the withdraw of refugees, liberated slaves and military personnel as fast as possible, but it was not possible to give an exact date because the number of refugees entering the city had increased dramatically. More than 29,000 Loyalist refugees were evacuated from the city. The British also evacuated former slaves they had liberated from the Americans and refused to return them to their US enslavers as the Treaty of Paris had required them to do.

Carleton gave a final evacuation date of noon on November 25. Entry into the city by George Washington was delayed until after a British flag had been removed. A Union Flag was nailed on a flagpole in the Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. The pole was allegedly greased. After a number of men attempted to tear down the British color - a symbol of tyranny for contemporary American Patriots - a veteran, John Van Arsdale, was able to ascend the pole with the use of climbing cleats used to scale masts on ships, remove the flag, and replace it with the Stars and Stripes before the British fleet had sailed out of sight.^[12][13] General George Washington led the Continental Army in a triumphal march down Broadway to The Battery immediately afterward.

Sir Guy Carleton, the governor Andrew Elliot, and some other former British officials left the city on December 4.^[14] Washington left the city shortly after the British departure.

Even after Evacuation Day, British troops still remained in frontier forts in areas which had clearly been defined by the Treaty of Paris (1783) to be part of the United States. Britain would continue to hold a presence in the old Northwest until 1815, at the end of the War of 1812.

Commemoration

An early view of the Battery, it shows recent tree plantings and other improvements. The flagstaff base, characterized as a "gigantic churn" by Washington Irving, was built in 1790. From the New York Historical Society collection.

For many years, until the warming of relations with Britain immediately preceding World War I, this event was commemorated annually with boys competing to tear down a Union Jack from a greased pole in Battery Park, as well as the anniversary in general being celebrated with much adult revelry and corresponding beverages.

In the 1890's the anniversary was celebrated at Battery Park with the raising of the Stars and Stripes by Christopher R. Forbes, the great grandson of John Van Arsdale, with the assistance of a Civil War veterans' association from Manhattan — the Anderson Zouaves.^[15] John Lafayette Riker, the original commander of the Anderson Zouaves, was also a grandson of John Van Arsdale. Riker's older brother was the New York genealogist James Riker, who authored Evacuation Day, 1783^[16] for the spectacular 100th anniversary celebrations of 1883, which were ranked as “one of the great civic events of the nineteenth century in New York City.”^[17]

In 1900 Christopher R. Forbes was denied the honor to raise the flag at the Battery on Independence Day and on Evacuation Day^[18] and it appears that neither he nor any veterans' organization associated with the Riker family or the Anderson Zouaves took part in the ceremony after this time.

Little celebrated in the past century, Evacuation Day was commemorated on 25 November 2008 with searchlight displays in NJ and NY at key high points.^[19][20][21]. The searchlights are modern commemorations of the bonfires that served as a beacon signal system at many of these same locations during the revolution. The seven NJ Revolutionary War sites: Beacon Hill in Summit, South Mountain Reservation in South Orange, Fort Nonsense in Morristown, Washington Rock in Green Brook, the Navesink Twin Lights, Princeton, and Ramapo Mountain State Forest near Oakland. Five New York locations contributed to the celebration: Bear Mountain State Park, Storm King Mountain State Park, Scenic Hudson's Spy Rock (Snake Hill) in New Windsor, Washington's Headquarters State Historic Site in Newburgh, Scenic Hudson's Mount Beacon.

References

• Schecter, Barnet. The Battle for New York — The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (2002)
• Riker, James. Evacuation Day, 1783; Its many stirring events; with recollections of Capt. John Van Arsdale of the Veteran Corps of Artillery, by whose efforts on that day the enemy were circumvented and the American flag successfully raised on the Battery, New York, 1883.
• Hood, Clifton. An Unusable Past: Urban Elites, New York City’s Evacuation Day, and the Transformations of Memory Culture, Journal of Social History, Summer 2004.

Notes

1. ^ Treaty of Paris, 1783, Article 2
2. ^ Staten Island on the Web: History
3. ^ Stiles, Henry Reed. "Letters from the prisons and prison-ships of the revolution." Thomson Gale, December 31, 1969. ISBN 978-1432812225
4. ^ Dring, Thomas and Greene, Albert. "Recollections of the Jersey Prison Ship" (American Experience Series, No 8). Applewood Books. November 1, 1986. ISBN 978-0918222923
5. ^ Taylor, George. "Martyrs To The Revolution In The British Prison-Ships In The Wallabout Bay." (originally printed 1855) Kessinger Publishing, LLC. October 2, 2007. ISBN 978-0548592175.
6. ^ Banks, James Lenox. "Prison ships in the Revolution: New facts in regard to their management." 1903.
7. ^ Hawkins, Christopher. "The life and adventures of Christopher Hawkins, a prisoner on board the 'Old Jersey' prison ship during the War of the Revolution." Holland Club. 1858.
8. ^ Andros, Thomas. "The old Jersey captive: Or, A narrative of the captivity of Thomas Andros...on board the old Jersey prison ship at New York, 1781. In a series of letters to a friend." W. Peirce. 1833.
9. ^ Lang, Patrick J.. "The horrors of the English prison ships, 1776 to 1783, and the barbarous treatment of the American patriots imprisoned on them." Society of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick, 1939.
10. ^ Onderdonk. Henry. "Revolutionary Incidents of Suffolk and Kings Counties; With an Account of the Battle of Long Island and the British Prisons and Prison-Ships at New York." Associated Faculty Press, Inc. June, 1970. ISBN 978-0804680752.
11. ^ West, Charles E.. "Horrors of the prison ships: Dr. West's description of the wallabout floating dungeons, how captive patriots fared." Eagle Book Printing Department, 1895.
12. ^ Riker, J. 1883, p. 3.
13. ^ Hood, C. 2004, p. 6. Clifton Hood in his essay on New York's Evacuation Day makes the following citation for John Van Arsdale's role in removing the Union Flag and replacing it with the Stars and Stripes: Rivington’s New York Gazette, November 26, 1783; The Independent New-York Gazette, November 29, 1783; Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York to 1898 (New York, 1999): 259–61; Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, v. 5, Victory with the Help of France (New York, 1952): 461; James Thomas Flexner, George Washington, v. 3, In the American Revolution (1775–1783) (Boston, 1967): 522–8. Van Arsdale has sometimes been identified as an Army enlisted man or an Army officer.
14. ^ Schecter, pg. 379
15. ^ The Sunday Advocate (Newark, Ohio) November 26, 1893,

    NEW YORK, Nov. As the sun rise guns pealed forth at Fort William. "Old Glory" was run up to the truce of the city flagstaff at Battery park on the site where stood the staff to which the British nailed their flag before sailing down the harbor. The British flag was torn down and replaced by the American colors by Van Arsdale, the sailor boy, and the "flag run up by one of his lineal descendants, Christopher R. Forbes, who was assisted by officers of the Anderson Zouaves. The flag was saluted by the guns at Fort William.

    New York Times, November 26, 1896,

    The day was also celebrated by raising the flag at sunrise at the Battery by Christopher R. Forbes, great-grandson of John Van Arsdale, assisted by the Anderson Zouaves. Sixty-second Regiment, New-York Volunteers. Capt. Charles E. Morse, and Anderson and Williams Post, No. 394, Grand Army of the Republic.

16. ^ Riker, James, 1883, Evacuation Day, 1783; Its many stirring events; with recollections of Capt. John Van Arsdale of the Veteran Corps of Artillery, by whose efforts on that day the enemy were circumvented and the American flag successfully raised on the Battery, New York.
17. ^ Goler, 'Evacuation Day', The Encyclopedia of New York City, p. 385.
18. ^ New York Times, July 3, 1900,

    Christopher R. Forbes, who for many years has had the privilege of raising and lowering the flag at the Battery on Evacuation Day and the Fourth of July, and claims that he inherited the right from his great-grandfather, John Van Arsdale, who tore down the British’colors on the spot and hoisted the American flag instead, feels very sore over the way in which he has been treated by the Park Department. He said last evening:

    “Early in June I made an application for permission to raise the flag on the Fourth, and I received a reply from President Clausen, on June 5 giving me permission to participate in the raising of the flag by the employes of the Park Department. Now any tramp can participate in the raising of the flag if he stands by and looks on, and that was the kind of permission that was given to me. If this was not a snub and an insult, I’d like to know what is. When my great-grandfather hauled down the British flag and hoisted the American colors I’d like to know where Mr. Clausen’s great-grandfather was and what he was doing.

    Later even this tramp permission was revoked. To-day I received another letter from Mr. Clausen informing, me that instead of my participating with the Park Department employes in hoisting the flag, that ceremony would be performed by the Veteran Corps of Artillery, Military Society of the War of 1812.

    “I saw the hand of Asa Bird Gardiner behind all this. He tried to do me out of I my privileges before, and he has succeeded now. The Veteran Corps was really wiped out in 1872 and in 1892 Mr. Gardiner was instrumental in organizing the present one. He wanted me and C. B. Riker to join, but we refused.

    In former years the Anderson Post, the Anderson Zouaves, the Anderson Girls, and the Camp Sons of Veterans used to go with me and assist me in the ceremony of raising the flag and now even the tramp permission of participating with employes has been revoked.

    I am going to consult with Mr. Riker about this matter and I shall probably be somewhere near the flag raising Wednesday morning. I think they will hear from me before then.”

19. ^ http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/2008/11/giant_light_show_to_illuminate.html
20. ^ http://www.revolutionarynj.org/newsEvents/revolutionary-war-beacons.php
21. ^ http://www.hvpress.net/news/125/ARTICLE/5692/2008-11-11.html

External links

• The Battle for New York, a book by Barnet Schecter
• The Founding Fathers of American Intelligence
• Britain's Prison Ships

New York in the American Revolutionary War Pre-war Sons of Liberty - First Liberty Poles erected 1770 Battle of Golden Hill 1775 Capture of Fort Ticonderoga – Invasion of Canada 1776 New York and New Jersey campaign – Battle of Long Island – New York Prison Ships Begin – Landing at Kip's Bay – Battle of Harlem Heights – Great Fire of New York – Execution of Nathan Hale – Battle of Valcour Island – Battle of Pell's Point – Battle of White Plains – Battle of Fort Washington 1777 Meigs Raid – Saratoga campaign – Siege of Fort Ticonderoga – Battle of Fort Anne – Siege of Fort Stanwix – Battle of Oriskany – Battle of Freeman's Farm (1st Saratoga) – Battle of Bemis Heights (2nd Saratoga) 1778 Setauket Spy Ring Launched – Battle of Cobleskill – West Point established – Cherry Valley massacre 1779 Battle of Stony Point – Sullivan Expedition – Battle of Newtown 1780 First Purple Heart – André Capture Reveals Traitor Benedict Arnold 1781 HMS Culloden Runs Aground at Montauk – Washington Calls Off Invasion of New York to Support Yorktown 1782 Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh – Newburgh letter 1783 Newburgh Conspiracy – British Evacuate New York – Washington's Farewell to His Officers