Evacuation Day (New York)

Holiday in New York City on November 25

Evacuation Day on November 25 marks the day in 1783 when the British Army departed from New York City on Manhattan Island, after the end of the American Revolutionary War. In their wake, General George Washington triumphantly led the Continental Army from his headquarters north of the city across the Harlem River, and south through Manhattan to the Battery at its southern tip.

Following the significant losses at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, General George Washington and the Continental Army retreated across the East River by benefit of both a retreat and holding action by well trained Maryland Line troops at Gowanus Creek and Canal and a night fog which obscured the barges and boats evacuating troops to Manhattan Island. On September 15, 1776, the British flag replaced the American atop Fort George, where it was to remain until Evacuation Day. Washington's Continentals subsequently withdrew north and west out of the town and following the Battle of Harlem Heights and later action at the river forts of Fort Washington and Fort Lee on the northwest corner of the island along the Hudson River on November 16, 1776, evacuated Manhattan Island. They headed north for Westchester County, fought a delaying action at White Plains, and retreated across New Jersey in the New York and New Jersey campaign. For the remainder of the American Revolutionary War, much of what is now Greater New York was under British control. New York City (occupying then only the southern tip of Manhattan, up to what is today Chambers Street), became, under Admiral of the Fleet Richard Howe, Lord Howe and his brother Sir William Howe, General of the British Army, the British political and military center of operations in British North America. David Mathews was Mayor of New York during the occupation. Many of the civilians who continued to reside in town were Loyalists. On September 21, 1776, the city suffered a devastating fire of an uncertain origin after the evacuation of Washington's Continental Army at the beginning of the occupation. With hundreds of houses destroyed, many residents had to live in makeshift housing built from old ships. In addition, over 10,000 Patriot soldiers and sailors died on prison ships in New York waters (Wallabout Bay) during the occupation—more Patriots died on these ships 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.

In mid August 1783, Sir Guy Carleton, the last British Army and Royal Navy commander in the former British America, received orders from his superiors in London for the evacuation of New York. He informed the President of the Confederation Congress that he was proceeding with the subsequent withdrawal of refugees, liberated slaves, and military personnel as fast as possible, but that it was not possible to give an exact date because the number of refugees entering the city recently had increased dramatically (more than 29,000 Loyalist refugees were eventually evacuated from the city). The British also evacuated over 3,000 Black Loyalists, former slaves they had liberated from the Americans, to Nova Scotia, East Florida, the Caribbean, and London, and refused to return them to their American slaveholders and overseers as the provisions of the Treaty of Paris had required them to do. The Black Brigade were among the last to depart. Carleton gave a final evacuation date of 12:00 noon on November 25, 1783. An anecdote by New York physician Alexander Anderson told of a scuffle between a British officer and the proprietress of a boarding house, as she defiantly raised her own American flag before noon. Following the departure of the British, the city was secured by American troops under the command of General Henry Knox.

Entry to the city under General George Washington was delayed until a still flying British Union Flag could be removed. The flag had been nailed to a flagpole at Fort George on the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan. The pole was greased as a final act of defiance. After a number of men attempted to tear down the British colors, wooden cleats were cut and nailed to the pole and, with the help of a ladder, an army veteran, John Van Arsdale, was able to ascend the pole, remove the flag, and replace it with the Stars and Stripes before the British fleet had completely sailed out of sight. The same day, a liberty pole with a flag was erected at New Utrecht Reformed Church; its successor still stands there. Another liberty pole was raised in Jamaica, Queens, in a celebration that December.

Finally, seven years after the retreat from Manhattan on November 16, 1776, General George Washington and Governor of New York George Clinton reclaimed Fort Washington on the northwest corner of Manhattan Island and then led the Continental Army in a triumphal procession march down the road through the center of the island onto Broadway in the Town to the Battery. The evening of Evacuation Day, Clinton hosted a public dinner at Fraunces Tavern, which Washington attended. It concluded with thirteen toasts, according to a contemporary account in Rivington's Gazette, the company drinking to:

The United States of America. His most Christian Majesty. The United Netherlands. The king of Sweden. The Continental Army. The Fleets and Armies of France, which have served in America. The Memory of those Heroes who have fallen for our Freedom. May our Country be grateful to her military children. May Justice support what Courage has gained. The Vindicators of the Rights of Mankind in every Quarter of the Globe. May America be an Asylum to the persecuted of the Earth. May a close Union of the States guard the Temple they have erected to Liberty. May the Remembrance of THIS DAY be a Lesson to Princes. The morning after, Washington had a public breakfast meeting with Hercules Mulligan, which helped dispel suspicions about the tailor and spy. Washington was still staying at Fraunces Tavern the night of the earthquake a few days later, but being accustomed to battle, his sleep was untroubled.

A week later, on December 3, the British detachment under Captain James Duncan, under orders of Rear Admiral Robert Digby, evacuated Governors Island, the last of part of the then City of New York to be occupied, and afterward Major General Guy Carleton departed Staten Island on December 5. It is claimed a British gunner fired the last shot of the Revolution either on Evacuation Day or when the last British ships left a week later, loosing a cannon at jeering crowds gathered on the shore of Staten Island as his ship passed through the Narrows at the mouth of New York Harbor, though the shot fell well short of the shore. On December 4, at Fraunces Tavern, at Pearl and Broad Streets, General Washington formally said farewell to his officers with a short statement, taking each one of his officers and official family by the hand. Later, Washington headed south, being cheered and fêted on his way at many stops in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By December 23, he arrived in Annapolis, Maryland, where the Confederation Congress was then meeting at the Maryland State House to consider the terms of the Treaty of Paris. At their session in the Old Senate Chamber, he made a short statement and offered his sword and the papers of his commission to the President and the delegates, thereby resigning as commander in chief. He then retired to his plantation home, Mount Vernon, in Virginia.