On This Day In 1776, The Declaration Kept Moving As Washington Braced For Attack

ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

• On This Day In 1776, Adams Saw The Cost Of Independence
• On This Day In 1776, Jefferson Had A Draft And Washington Had A Crisis
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Sent A Life Guard Member To The Gallows For Betrayal
• On This Day In 1776, Jefferson’s Draft Reached Congress As War Erupted
• On This Day In 1776, Britain’s Fleet Appeared Off New York
• On This Day In 1776, Britain’s Fleet Swelled Off New York As Washington Warned ‘Delays Are Dangerous’
• On This Day In 1776, Independence Had A Majority But Not Unity
• On This Day In 1776, Congress Held The Actual Vote For Independence
• On This Day In 1776, The Vote Was Done But The Declaration Was Not
• On This Day In 1776, The Declaration Went To Print
• On This Day In 1776, The Declaration Hit The Newspapers
• On This Day In 1776, The Declaration Kept Moving As Washington Braced For Attack
• On This Day In 1776, Washington’s Army Heard The Declaration And New York Tore Down The King
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Warned His Army Independence Was Not A License For Riot
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Warned The British Could Strike At Any Moment
• On This Day In 1776, British Warships Fired Their Way Past Washington’s Guns
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Refused A British Letter That Would Not Call Him General
• On This Day In 1776, Congress Rushed Supplies As British Warships Threatened The Hudson
• On This Day In 1776, Congress Approved The Declaration. Now Read It.
• On This Day In 1776, Washington And Franklin Rejected Britain’s Pardon Offer
• On This Day In 1776, Congress Ordered The Declaration Onto Parchment As Washington Built Defenses
• On This Day In 1776, Boston Burned The King’s Arms As America Looked Beyond Britain
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Called Britain’s Peace Commission A Deception
• On This Day In 1776, Congress Told Washington To Deploy Troops As He Saw Fit
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Said British Troops Fought ‘To Enslave Us’
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Warned ‘The Sick Must Perish’ If The Market Failed
• On This Day In 1776, British Ships Closed In As Washington Waited For Nearly 7,000 Troops
• On This Day In 1776, A Jewish Merchant Sent The Declaration To Europe
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Warned Soldiers Not To Drink New York’s Water
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Tightened Password Security As British Ships Arrived
• On This Day In 1776, Washington Warned Troops Their Divisions Helped The Enemy
• On This Day In 1776, America’s Founders Signed Their Names Beneath The Declaration

It was Sunday, July 7, 1776.

Congress did not meet.

But the Declaration kept moving.

In Philadelphia, John Adams, 40, folded up “a Magazine, and an Evening Post” and sent the packet by express to Abigail Adams, 31, in Massachusetts.

That mattered because the Evening Post had printed the Declaration the day before.

In New York, George Washington, 44, did not yet have the Declaration read to his troops. That would come two days later.

For now, he prepared for an attack.

The British had landed on Staten Island. Patriot officers along the New Jersey shore sent a shoreline map and deserter intelligence. Washington ordered soldiers to fill their canteens every evening in case the enemy attacked early the next morning.

The words were spreading.

The army was waiting.

The DX Brief

• Congress did not meet on Sunday, July 7, 1776.
• John Adams sent Abigail Adams a newspaper packet after the Pennsylvania Evening Post printed the Declaration.
• Adams warned that Britain seemed to plan a “powerfull Invasion of New York and New Jersey.”
• Washington ordered soldiers in New York to fill their canteens each night in case the British attacked early.
• A deserter report from Staten Island said British forces expected another 10,000 to 12,000 men.

Adams sends the Declaration home

The Declaration did not spread only through official orders.

It also moved through private letters, newspapers, and express riders.

In a July 7 letter to Abigail Adams, John Adams wrote that he had “folded up a Magazine, and an Evening Post” and sent them by express.

The express could not wait long enough for Adams to write a full letter.

So Adams sent the news itself.

The Pennsylvania Evening Post had printed the first newspaper version of the Declaration on July 6. By July 7, Adams had put that newspaper on the road to Massachusetts.

That is the part worth remembering.

The Declaration was not yet a museum document.

It was breaking news.

New York draws the danger

Adams did not send Abigail a patriotic celebration note.

He sent a warning.

“The Disign of our Enemy, now seems to be a powerfull Invasion of New York and New Jersey,” Adams wrote.

He said the Halifax fleet and army had arrived, and another fleet under Lord Howe was expected.

Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey militia were moving toward the fight. Congress had also made large demands on New England.

Adams wanted those men to come.

“We must maintain and defend that important Post, at all Events,” he wrote of New York.

That was the reality on July 7.

The Declaration was moving through the country.

The British were moving toward New York.

Washington prepares for morning attack

Washington’s July 7 general orders show how close the army felt to danger.

He ordered a 150-man working party to Kingsbridge the next morning, with arms, tents, and two days of provisions.

He also issued a simple order that said more than it first appears to say.

Because the enemy might attack early in the morning, Washington directed soldiers to fill their canteens every evening. Officers had to make sure they did not neglect it.

That was not ceremony.

That was preparation.

Washington expected the British to move when his men might have little time to do basic things before battle.

The army needed water ready before sunrise.

A deserter reports from Staten Island

Across the water in New Jersey, Brig. Gen. William Livingston sent Washington another warning.

Livingston wrote from Elizabethtown on July 7, enclosing a rough map of the Sound and Jersey shore from Elizabeth Point to Amboy.

Then came the intelligence.

A deserter from the British 55th Regiment told Patriot officers that British forces on Staten Island numbered about 9,000, with roughly 1,000 sick or lame. He said the British expected another 10,000 to 12,000 men.

The deserter also reported that the British had not built major works yet, that heat had weakened the men, and that they had only begun buying fresh provisions.

His conclusion was blunt.

“If they are to be attackd now is the Time.”

Washington had to weigh that kind of information while waiting for a much larger British force.

Arms, powder, and Crown Point

Washington’s arms problem did not ease on July 7.

He also asked Ward to place 300 to 400 barrels of powder at Norwich, a safer point on the route between Boston and New York.

He had already asked Artemas Ward to send the captured Highlander muskets from Massachusetts to New York.

On July 7, he pressed again.

“In my Letter of the 1st., I desired you to send a Quantity of the Highlander’s Musquets that were taken,” Washington wrote.

He asked Ward to send them “with all possible Expedition.”

“The Deficiency here, in this essential Article is greatly alarming,” Washington wrote.

The northern army also remained a disaster.

Adams told Abigail the army at Crown Point was an “Object of Wretchedness.” The retreat from Canada had left men defeated, sick, short of supplies, and exposed to smallpox.

So July 7 had no single battlefield moment.

It showed the Revolution under strain everywhere at once.

The Declaration was spreading.

New York expected attack.

New Jersey watched Staten Island.

Washington needed arms.

The northern army suffered from disease and defeat.

Why it mattered

July 7, 1776, looked quiet in Congress.

It was not quiet in the country.

Adams sent the Declaration home in a newspaper packet. Washington prepared New York for a British strike. Livingston forwarded shoreline maps and deserter intelligence from New Jersey. The army struggled with arms, water, disease, and discipline.

That is what makes the day important.

Independence had moved from vote to text to print.

Now it had to move through a country at war.

On July 7, the Declaration kept moving.

So did the danger.

Tomorrow on Road to Independence

July 8, 1776: Philadelphia heard the Declaration read aloud in public for the first time as the words moved from printed page to public proclamation.

Read yesterday’s installment: The Declaration Hit The Newspapers.