Greene’s first field test was the successful defensive action at Harlem Heights in September 1776, one of the very few bright spots of the New York Campaign. Greene offered bad advice and was responsible for the disaster at Fort Washington, but he redeemed himself by leading a wing of the army well at both Trenton and Princeton. Two historians characterized him thusly: “He was a thoughtful strategist, rather than an inspiring leader. He knew how to make the most of limited resources. He seldom showed brilliance, but he had much of Washington’s capacity for enduring.”6

A native of Haverhill, Massachusetts, Moses Hazen had a great deal of combat experience by the time his regiment deployed west of Philadelphia. He had fought in the French and Indian War as the commander of a ranger company at Crown Point, Louisburg, Quebec, and Sillery, before settling in Canada. From 1771 to 1773, Hazen served as a lieutenant in the British 44th Regiment of Foot and married a Catholic woman. He was a prominent Canadian landowner when the Revolution broke out in 1775, and the British seized his land and imprisoned him. Hazen joined Richard Montgomery’s advance into Canada in 1775 and was commissioned a colonel in January 1776 to raise a regiment of Canadians. The regiment, which became known as “Congress’s Own,” was involved in the retreat from Montreal in the spring of 1776. It later joined Washington on Long Island and wintered at Morristown with the rest of the army.

Admiral Richard Howe was Gen. William Howe’s older brother and in command of the British fleet in North America. Howe joined the navy at the age of 13 and served throughout the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War, where he fought in the important naval victory at Quiberon Bay in 1759. He was 50 in 1777 and stood five feet, nine inches tall, with (in the words of his biographer), a “large nose and mildly protruding lips [that] detracted from his impressive brown eyes.”⁷ Like his brother, the admiral was sympathetic to the American cause, which may have influenced how he employed his naval power. His naval blockade of the American cosat proved ineffective.

Washington’s antagonist for the 1777 Campaign, William Howe, was born in England in 1729 and entered the army in 1746 as an officer in a dragoon regiment. He fought in the War of the Austrian Succession, commanded the light infantry under James Wolfe during his Canadian operations during the Seven Years’ War, and served in Havana. In 1761, Howe was elected to Parliament, and later trained the army’s light infantry companies. In June of 1775, Howe commanded the assaults at Bunker (Breed’s) Hill near Boston, and that October was elevated to overall command in North America. His 1776 New York Campaign nearly (and likely could have) destroyed the Continentals.