05-17-2018, 02:25 PM
Candidate Operation: Long Island, AUG 1776. I'm including both the Battle of Long Island, the Siege of Brooklyn Heights, and the evacuation. You might object that it was more than one battle, but the operation took less than 96 hours from the beginning to the end, and was territorially contiguous. Each event flowed seamlessly into the next. Besides, it's all on a single Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Long_Island ?
The troops at the Battle of Long Island, and those trapped on Brooklyn Heights weren't the only Patriot troops by a long stretch (they weren't even the only ones in the NYC area), so it might be an exaggeration to claim that the Revolution would have died on Long Island if Washington's forces had been wiped out (as they probably should have been), but it would have been a lot harder. Would the victories of Trenton and Princeton have rejuvenated the Revolution after such a disaster? Most of the victors of Trenton were survivors of the Long Island operation, so they might not have even been enough guys to win at Trenton. The same thing goes for Princeton, or any number of operations thereafter (Saratoga, Brandywine, and later).
Washington himself could have been killed or captured (he came very close several times). What would have happened, militarily, to the Revolution without Washington? His most likely replacement would have been Charles Lee. Ugh. We'd have been lucky if Lee still got himself captured. Politically, how many men would have rejected the temptation at Newburgh? Even if we'd won the war against the Crown, we could have ended up being Mexico with a larger proportion of white people. You could argue that we might as well have lost.
The troops at the Battle of Long Island, and those trapped on Brooklyn Heights weren't the only Patriot troops by a long stretch (they weren't even the only ones in the NYC area), so it might be an exaggeration to claim that the Revolution would have died on Long Island if Washington's forces had been wiped out (as they probably should have been), but it would have been a lot harder. Would the victories of Trenton and Princeton have rejuvenated the Revolution after such a disaster? Most of the victors of Trenton were survivors of the Long Island operation, so they might not have even been enough guys to win at Trenton. The same thing goes for Princeton, or any number of operations thereafter (Saratoga, Brandywine, and later).
Washington himself could have been killed or captured (he came very close several times). What would have happened, militarily, to the Revolution without Washington? His most likely replacement would have been Charles Lee. Ugh. We'd have been lucky if Lee still got himself captured. Politically, how many men would have rejected the temptation at Newburgh? Even if we'd won the war against the Crown, we could have ended up being Mexico with a larger proportion of white people. You could argue that we might as well have lost.