Are There Others?

I've been reading 1776 by David McCullough. I love history particularly American history from the colonial and federalist periods. I devoured McCullough's John Adams. And even though 1776 is not as long or as detailed as some of his previous works, McCullough's sweeping narrative of the events that crucial year - you wouldn't think the siege of Boston could be made interesting - pulls you along nonstop.

Last night I was reading his conclusion to the Battle of Long Island. On August 27, the rebels (us) got their asses kicked. Washington had been woefully out-generaled; his first attempt at open field battle was a failure against the better-disciplined Redcoats. It was a rout. Now the Continental Army was stuck in Brooklyn, backs against the water, the British Army on the other side, and the British Navy just down the river waiting for favorable winds so they too could join in the assault. Washington's army desperately needed to get back to New York to avoid annihilation. Somehow, miraculously, during the night of August 29, Washington managed to ferry 9,000 troops across the East River to Manhattan without the British finding out. To succeed, the evacuation required near total silence.

Writes McCullough on page 187:

"At about nine o'clock the troops with the least experience, along with the sick and wounded, were ordered to start for the Brooklyn Ferry landing, on the pretext that they were being relieved by reinforcements. But of this the soldiers near the front lines knew nothing. 'The thing was conducted with so much secrecy, ' wrote another of the Pennsylvanians, Lieutenant Tench Tilghman, 'that neither the subalterns or privates knew the whole army was to cross back again to New York.'"

*sigh*

David, David, David. I am so disappointed in you. Pennsylvanian Tench Tilghman? Pennsylvanian Tench Tilghman!?! You might as well stick a knife in my heart and break it off. As any Maryland schoolchild knows Tench Tilghman is from Maryland. Born and bred in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. And Tilghman wasn't just a nobody during the Revolutionary War, he went on to become Washington's aide-de-camp. Valley Forge, Yorktown, through thick and thin. That sort of thing. How could you get that wrong? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

David, are some of your other facts in this book wrong? I'm not really sure what I can believe from you now. Was Washington's horse not really named Gumball? Did Nathanael Greene not really wear ladies underwear into battle? Did Henry Knox not really drive back from Ticonderoga in an Abrams tank?

I just don't know what to believe anymore.
K-