The colonies had recently been defeated in the Battle of White Plains, and the British
wanted to take over Fort Washington. Fort Washington was located at a very high point on
an island called Manhattan. The colonies received news of the British planning the attack
and George Washington ordered them to abandon the fort. Commander Robert Magaw was commander
of the fort, and he believed that they could defend the fort against the British. Washington
would have intervened, but he wasn't able to arrive at the fort in time for the attack. The
British came in from three sides, and the colonies defenses were exhausted very quickly.
Also note that the British had about eight thousand troops compared to the three thousand
that the colonies had. The colonies were easily forced out of the fort and were pursued by
the British in battles all the way to New York. The casualties on the colonial side were much
more than the little damage that they inflicted upon the British. The Battle of Fort Washington
was arguably one of the harshest battles for the colonies in the entire revolutionary war.
