The British Evacuation of Their Main North American Base in New York
Today, few Americans pay any particular attention to November 25th, but there was a time when that date used to be quite a big deal, particularly in New York City. Indeed, for more than a century, no holiday was celebrated with greater gusto by New Yorkers than November 25th, the anniversary of the British evacuation of their city in 1783. It did not fall into abeyance until World War I, when the British became our allies.
New York was widely viewed as one of the most Loyalist towns during the American Revolution, and it served as the headquarters and main base of the British war effort during the conflict. The British stayed put in the city after the 1781 defeat at Yorktown, the fall of Lord North’s government in 1782, and during the ensuing peace negotiations that lasted well into 1783. Finally, in August of 1783, the British commander in New York received orders from London to evacuate the city.
It was a complicated task, as the British shut down their major base in North America. In addition to embarking officials, men, and materiel, the British also evacuated nearly 30,000 Loyalists who preferred to not take their chances with the victorious Patriots. Thousands of Black Loyalists – former slaves who had escaped their masters to join the British – were also evacuated, despite the victors’ demands that they be surrendered to their owners in accordance with the terms of the peace treaty.
Final evacuation was set for noon, November 25th, 1783. George Washington was scheduled to lead the Continental Army into the city on a triumphal procession at that time, ending at Battery Park, in the southern tip of Manhattan. However, that was delayed by a British gesture that combined humor with pettiness: the departing Redcoats nailed a Union Jack atop a flagpole in Battery Park, then greased the pole. Many men tried to climb the pole and tear down the British colors, but were defeated by the grease. Finally, an army veteran named John Van Arsdale, with the help of specially cut wooden cleats, managed to ascend the pole, tear down the British flag, and replace it with Old Glory before the British fleet had sailed out of sight. Once the American flag flew in place of the British, Washington was finally able to ride at the head of his men into New York, in one the city’s greatest victory parades.
In the following century, a main feature of Evacuation Day celebrations was a descendant of Arsdale reenacting the event by shimmying up a flagpole to replace the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. However, the greased pole was not the final gesture of defiance from the departing British: that occurred when a gunner in a British warship sailing past jeering crowds on Staten Island’s shore fired his cannon at them. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, as the shot fell short. That (literal) parting shot was viewed by many as the final shot of the American Revolutionary War.