Farsighted

the Heights of Gowan. It was not the topography that created the natural barricade but rather the dense canopy of eastern deciduous forest that covered the ridge, with its towering oaks and hickory trees and heavy thicket on the ground. An army could not hope to move a large mass of men and equipment through such an environment, and besides, if the battle turned into the forest, the Revolutionary forces would have the upper hand.

 

The Heights were not a perfect barricade, however. Four roads cut through the woods from south to north: Gowanus, Flatbush, Bedford, and a small gorge that went by the name Jamaica Pass. If the British chose not to make a direct assault on Brooklyn or Manhattan from the water, they would likely have to move their troops through these narrow conduits.

 

From the moment word spread in early June that the British ships had left Halifax, headed south, it was clear to everyone that the British would attempt to take New York. The question was how they would go about doing it. That was the crux of the decision that confronted George Washington in the long, quiet summer of 1776, as an imposing armada-the "four hundred ships in New York Harbor" that appear in the opening minutes of Hamilton-took anchor off the shores of Staten Island. Should he defend Manhattan or Brooklyn? Or, perhaps, should he concede that New York was beyond defending, a hopeless cause, and move the fight to more promising ground?

 

Washington was confronting a classic example of a full-spectrum decision, one that required him to think simultaneously on several different scales of experience. To make the right decision, Washington had to think about the topography of the land, those ridges and bluffs and beaches; he had to think about the notoriously unpredictable currents of the East River, which could wreak havoc on any attempt to rapidly move troops between New York and Brooklyn; he had to think about the physics of war-the cannons of those Br