Isaac Bangs – Day-By-Day America

Two Ships, Six Men, and a Cow

The American defenders of New York had spent a lot of time fortifying and preparing against a British attack. There were trenches and artillery emplacements along the shoreline, and even obstacles in the river to keep ships from sailing up it. But on July 12, 1776, the Royal Navy showed that the Americans couldn’t even stop a couple of British warships. And although the only thing killed by British fire that day was a cow, six American artillerymen were killed from their own carelessness in handling their cannon.

The British warships *Phoenix* and *Rose* forced their way up the Hudson River despite the Americans’ best efforts to stop them. It’s a bit hard to see, but all the clouds of smoke in the background are from American cannon shooting at the ships. This picture was made by Captain Archibald Robertson, a British army engineer, from a viewpoint on Staten Island.

That afternoon, the Phoenix, which had 44 guns, and the Rose, which had 20, sailed up the Hudson River with a couple of tenders (small vessels that often accompanied the larger ships). The American artillery blazed away at them and inflicted some damage, but couldn’t stop them, and the obstacles in the river turned out to not be a problem for them. American lieutenant Isaac Bangs described it in his journal:

Sunday Adventures of Isaac Bangs

Among the notable features of the city of New York, this 1776 map lists 16 churches and a synagogue.

23-year-old American lieutenant Isaac Bangs kept an interesting and informative journal of his service in New York during the spring and summer of 1776, as he and the rest of the army waited and prepared for a British attack. Among other things, he described and critiqued the various church services he attended. Being from New England (specifically, Massachusetts), he was used to the Congregational church, but he wasn’t opposed to attending the meetings of other denominations. (One Saturday, out of curiosity, he even went to the synagogue in New York “to observe the Method of the Jewish Worship”, and wrote about the building and the worship service in detail.) Here are a few of his experiences.

The first time he attended church in New York, he got quite a surprise:

The Leaden George

A mob pulled down a lead statue of King George III in New York on July 9, 1776.

What do you think about pulling down statues? That and similar things happened during the American Revolution. Sometimes it was done by mobs, sometimes by the civil authorities. In New York City, for example, a mob pulled down a statue of King George III. Symbols of royal authority in government buildings were taken down and destroyed. A tavern in Worcester, Massachusetts, called the King’s Arms, used the royal coat of arms for its sign; the sign was taken down (and I’m guessing that the owner changed the name of the tavern thereafter). Many of these things happened just after the Declaration of Independence, which makes sense.