by Bob Barnetson

In April 2008, Osprey Publishing released New York 1776: The Continentals’ first battle. Written by David Smith and illustrated by Graham Turner, this addition to Osprey’s Campaign series provides a useful examination of the British campaign to seize New York in the late summer and autumn of 1776. This was an important campaign in the American War of Independence (AWI), with battles such as Long Island, Harlem Heights and White Plains making for good games. This book is priced at $19.95 USD or $22.95 CDN.

Osprey’s Campaign books are often used by wargamers to develop scenarios or campaigns. This title has significant appeal to gamers because it contains a useful narrative of the campaign highlighting the strategic mistakes made by both George Washington and William Howe. It also offers five maps (three 3-D and two 2-D) of battles suitable for scenario development.

Initial Impressions
New York 1776 runs 96 pages, is perfect bound and contains 26 pages with full colour. This includes three two-page illustrations of battle scenes and three two-page, 3-D maps of the battles of Long Island (two maps) and Fort Washington as well as 2-D maps addressing the maneuvering around White Plains. The printing is crisp and correctly registered throughout.

The book offers two things for gamers. Firstly, it provides an understandable explanation of the New York campaign, including reference to the communication difficulties faced by the British forces and some commentary on the mindset of General Howe. It also provides useful commentary on how the inexperience of the American forces and commanders affected the outcome of the battles.

Secondly, it provides orders of battle (although not as comprehensive as those found in last autumn’s Philadelphia 1777 book) and maps that could be used to generate an excellent game addressing the Battle of Long Island. The only disappointment that is immediately apparent is that the two-page, three-dimensional battle maps again have the most interesting part of the battles hidden in the seam of the binding. This requires readers to badly crease the book to see what is happening. This is somewhat offset by a much crisper index of events on the map than in many of Osprey’s AWI campaign books.

Overview
The book is divided into six main sections:

• Origins of the Campaign: The book begins with a quick history of the Revolution to 1776. As New York happened early in the Revolution, this discussion is likely comprehensive enough for both casual readers and gamers.
• Chronology: This single page provides readers with a quick listing of events relevant to the New York campaign, from 1775 to 1777.
• Opposing Commanders: In five pages, readers are presented with brief biographical sketches of the key commanders on each side.
• Opposing Forces: A brief description of the forces on both sides is provided, followed by an order of battle for each side.
• Opposing Plans: Smith provides four pages of discussion about the strategy of each side, including the strategic problem facing Washington that led him to entrench on Long Island and risk his army in the face of British sea power.
• The Campaign: This 54-page section describes the actual campaign in narrative form. The Battle of Long Island receives the most attention and is fairly gameable. Various clashes as the British cleared the rest of New York are also detailed, including Harlem Heights, White Plains and Fort Washington.

There is also a brief Aftermath section, some discussion of the battlefields today, a list of further reading, and an index.

Battle of Long Island
The main battle of the New York campaign was fought on Long Island on August 27. The value of Long Island to the Americans was that the gun emplacements in New York City were overlooked by Long Island’s Brooklyn Heights. Thus the Americans sought to occupy the heights and were forced to defend them from attack on the landward side. Consequently, the Americans occupied a ridge-line (with four passes) protecting the Brooklyn Heights. The American commanders defended only three of the passes, leaving a small detachment of riders to alert them should the British try to outflank the American line through Jamaica Pass.

Smith very ably explains the British plan of having troops demonstrate against the main American line, while Cornwallis conducts a flank march through Jamaica Pass and almost succeeds in bagging the American army. Smith provides an interesting discussion of why Jamaica Pass was not garrisoned. Interestingly, Washington would again almost lose his army to a flank march a year later at Brandywine. About the only criticism I have of this section is that the exact relationship between the two three-dimensional maps is not immediately clear; a two-dimension map noting the orientations of the 3-D maps would have been useful.

There is significant grist for scenario development in the text. Gamers playing at the battalion level can likely fight out the historical battle of Long Island on a 4×6’ table. While a historical game drawn from Smith’s explanation would be interesting, the narrative suggests several other options. First, the game could be played twice: once with historical set ups (including the surprise flank attack) and a second time by assuming the British had not bagged the American outpost riders and thus allowing the Americans to secretly redeploy their troops. An alternative would be to allow the British side to re-assign troops between the demonstration and flanking attacks, but allow for some attrition along the way.

For gamers more interested in skirmish-level engagements, the encounter at Howard’s Inn between the American Pickets and the vanguard of the British flanking column would be a very interesting game as the few Americans seek to escape, while the Red Coats attempt to prevent word of their flank march from getting out.

Consolidating New York
Smith’s description of Washington’s eventual evacuation of Long Island and unsuccessful attempt to defend New York is again well handled. The battle of Harlem Heights would provide an excellent company-level game, given the fluid nature of the encounter. Although Smith’s textual description is very good, a two- or three-dimensional map of the battle would have been appreciated.

The 30-day “battle” of White Plains could make an excellent map game, using area movement to address the maneuver and battalion-level miniature rules to resolve engagements. Smith provides two maps and a brief commentary regarding Washington’s slow withdrawal of his forces. From a gaming perspective, a bit of additional detail would have been useful, but this can be found in books such as Mark Boatner’s Encyclopedia of the American Revolution.

The final battle of note is Howe’s attack on Fort Washington. Again illustrated with a three-dimensional map, this battle would be an ideal game for four players (three British and one American) played out at the battalion level. The American player is forced to trade space for time against overwhelming British numbers but might, with some secret deployment, be able to concentrate his forces so as to defeat the three British thrusts individually.

Graphic Appeal
Visually, New York 1776 is a typical Osprey campaign book. The colour plates (depicting battle scenes along with two- and three-dimensional maps) are very nicely done and the rest of the book has diagrams, pictures and line drawings interspersed.

For gamers, these three-dimensional maps are exceptionally useful, conveying a sense of the strategy at work, the topography of the battlefield and the historical outcome of the battle in a glance. The battles around New York are fairly straight-forward affairs and the maps reflect this. In this way, they are superior to the maps found in Osprey’s book on Monmouth Courthouse (which is so complex as to be almost unreadable) and Philadelphia (which encompasses too large of an area). The explanatory text on the maps is also easy to understand.

The major drawback of these maps (as with almost all Osprey maps) is that the centre of the map (which is usually the most interesting part) is buried in the seam of the binding. This is an extremely frustrating aspect of Osprey’s design and could be remedied by using a fold-out map, although this would likely result in a significant price increase.

Two other useful maps address the maneuvering around White Plains in the late autumn and the eventual evacuation of New York as winter set in. This provides a useful segue into Washington’s attacks at Trenton and Princeton at the end of 1776.

Comment
For gamers with little knowledge of the AWI, this book provides a valuable resource. It explains the basics of the campaign well and articulates it with earlier action in Boston and later action in Trenton/Princeton. It also provides gamers with enough details to sketch out at least five good scenarios. There are relatively few commercial scenarios available addressing the New York campaign outside of the battle for Long Island (although the first scenario book for British Grenadier has a White Plains scenario).

Setting aside my concerns about how the binding limits access to the three-dimensional maps, these maps continue to make Osprey campaign titles extremely useful to gamers. There are few maps (including those specifically designed for wargaming scenarios) that are as effective at conveying troop dispositions, key terrain features and the historical outcome of the battle, all at once. The maps in New York 1776 are very gamer-friendly and handy for in scenario development.

Osprey might usefully expand its line of tactically focused books with a title focused on the AWI. Books on both WW2 and ancient tactics have been published recently (e.g., WW2 Reconnaissance Tactics, Roman Battle Tactics, 109BC-AD313). This sort of book puts the interests of wargamers front and centre, allowing us to evaluate the degree to which contemporary rules agree with history.

Conclusion
Overall, New York 1776 is a solid effort, providing gamers with a useful reference for understanding the importance and development of the campaign. It nicely combines commentary about the political and military decision making with a narrative of the engagements. Most usefully, it clearly explains the battle of Long Island and highlights the potential of Harlem Heights for gaming.

The colour illustrations of battlefield scenes, although well executed, serve little purpose for gamers. They could have been usefully replaced with further three-dimensional maps (particularly of Harlem Heights and key portions of White Plains). The author could also have usefully included fuller orders of battle, more along the lines of those presented in the Philadelphia 1777 title.

Pros

• Contains material useful in creating up five scenarios and a map game.
• Solid explanation of the New York campaign.

Cons

• More compete orders of battle would have been useful.
• Illustrations were not particularly useful.