The Battle of Harlem Heights, 1776

The Battle of Harlem Heights is an underappreciated milestone in American military history. The engagement on upper Manhattan Island on September 16, 1776, was the first successful battle for George Washington's troops in the quest for independence from Great Britain and presaged the emergence of an effective fighting force among the citizen-soldiers who made up the Continental Army. The cooperative effort of regiments from New England, Maryland, and Virginia--whose men lacked any sense of national identity before the Revolution--indicated the potential for this fledgling army to cohere around a common national purpose and affiliation and become the primary instrument for securing America's right to self-rule.