09/02/2026
250 years ago, your neighborhood may have been a warzone.
On September 2, 1776 — days after the Continental Army’s retreat from Long Island following the Battle of Brooklyn — General William Heath and two contingents of American troops were stationed at King’s Bridge, in what is now the Bronx.
Writing to the Continental Congress one week later, Commander-in-Chief George Washington reported that he was sending 9,000 troops northward to reinforce the area: “The post at Kingsbridge is naturally strong, and is pretty well fortified: the heights about it are commanding, and might soon be made more so.”
The Van Cortlandt House lay just north of this increasingly militarized landscape. As the British prepared to advance on Manhattan, the roads, crossings, fields and farms of the Bronx would soon become part of the Revolutionary War’s front line.
Learn more at VCHM!
Images:
Background: Disposition of British troops, with fortifications north of Fort Knipehausen, i.e. Fort Washington to Fort Independence, J. Montrésor, 1778 (Library of Congress).
Foreground: An American Officier [sic] & An American Soldier, F. von Germann, c. 1788 (NYPL).
