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“Howe's Strolling Company”: British Military Theatre in New York and Philadelphia, 1777 and 1778

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Jared A. Brown
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Extract

In September 1776, General Sir William Howe's troops took possession of New York City, having badly defeated Washington's forces in the Battle of Long Island. Howe, who had accepted his assignment in America with the greatest reluctance, set about making life as pleasant as possible for himself and for those around him. He had grown greatly concerned about the morale and comfort of his troops in a city that, compared to London, was little more than a backwater. Howe wrote to Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the American Colonies, in England: “The troops had been so much harassed in the course of the last campaign, that I could not but wish that no manoeuvre of the enemy might hinder them from enjoying that repose, in their winter quarters, which their late fatigues rendered necessary, and their services entitled them to expect.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , May 1977 , pp. 30 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1977

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References

1 Sir William Howe, letter of April 19, 1777, quoted in Anderson, Troyer Steele, The Command of the Howe Brothers during the American Revolution (London, 1936), pp. 230–231Google Scholar.

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20 There is a considerable difference of opinion among historians on this point, however.

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47 Information concerning the Meschianza has been taken primarily from André's account in The Gentleman's Magazine (see note 46, above) and Wharton's Through Colonial Doorways.

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