Note 57 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Washington's Headquarters in New York.—This reference creates some uncertainty as to the particular house occupied by Washington in New York during the first part of the campaign. If the site of the Oyster Battery were known exactly the house could be identified. On the other hand, if headquarters, as generally supposed, were at the Kennedy Mansion, No. 1 Broadway, then the battery should have stood still lower down, at the corner of Battery Place and Greenwich Street; but the Grand Battery terminated there, and Hills' map shows no distinct battery at that point. Mr. Lossing states ("Field Book of the Rev.," vol. ii., p. 594, n.) that Washington, on his first arrival in the city, took up his quarters at 180 Pearl, opposite Cedar Street, his informant being a survivor of the Revolution, and that, on his return from a visit to Philadelphia, June 6th, he went to the Kennedy House. That Washington, however, spent the greater part of the summer at the "Mortier House," on Richmond Hill, is well known. He was there on June 22d and probably much earlier, as appears in Force, 4th Series, vol. vi., p. 1157, where one Corbie is described as keeping a tavern "to the south-east of General Washington's house, to the westward of Bayard's woods, and north of Lispenard's meadows." The house referred to was the Mortier. From Mr. Lossing's informant, and the reference in the orders of August 8th, which speaks of the "old head-quarters on the Broadway," we may conclude that Washington first put up at 180 Pearl Street; that if he then went to the Kennedy House at all, it was but for a short time; that it is more likely, from the position of the batteries, that the house he did occupy was one of the two or three next above it; and that in June he moved his quarters to the Mortier House, where he remained until September 14th, when he went to the Morris Mansion at Harlem Heights. The Kennedy House was Colonel Knox's artillery headquarters during part if not all of the time, his wife being with him there up to July 12th. (Drake's Life of Knox.)