After the retreat of the American army to New York, Howe wasted two precious weeks, during which Washington had time to organize his defence; and when the British general crossed the East River, he committed a great mistake in debarking at Kip's Bay,—a halfway measure which involved a long land march to his objective, White Plains. Washington, with great vigor, seized his advantage, and, by availing himself of his shorter interior line, arrived first at the coveted position and fortified it. Had Howe moved to this point by water immediately after the battle of Long Island, he undoubtedly would have succeeded in turning Washington's left flank, and would thus have cut off his retreat. The British general's delay of _two months_ after the battle of Long Island in moving less than thirty miles to reach White Plains was inexcusable. In a shorter period Moltke began and ended the campaign of 1866, which so humbled the great power of the Austrian empire.
When Howe decided to attack the American army at White Plains he should have thrown his entire force upon Washington's centre, and thus have won a decisive victory with his superior troops; whereas he used less than one third of his army in driving Washington's right wing from Chatterton's Hill upon his main body, which then successfully retreated before the tardy and inert British general.
Howe's good fortune in capturing Fort Washington was due more to the treason of Magaw's adjutant and to Washington's yielding to bad advice, than to any skill of the British commander.[724]
With the invasion of New Jersey by the Anglo-Hessian army all military operations at the mouth of the Hudson were terminated. The struggle for the control of this great river was to be transferred to its upper waters, and it was expected that the coming campaign would be so conducted as soon to force the whole power of the colonies into silence and submission.
General Gates, who was appointed the successor of Sullivan in the command of the army of Canada, was, says Horace Walpole, "the son of a housekeeper of the second Duke of Leeds." He had neither brilliant qualities nor military genius, but possessed the vanity and ambition to covet the highest position, for the attainment of which he resorted to disgraceful intrigue. When assigned to this command, in June, 1776, the army of Canada was flying to Crown Point; so, like Sancho Panza, Gates found himself a governor without a government; but, nothing abashed, he at once claimed the command of the Northern department, then under Schuyler. Congress sustained the latter, whereupon Gates took post at Ticonderoga, where the remnant of the American army had retired upon the abandonment of Crown Point, and promptly adopted vigorous measures to put the work in good condition for defence and to reinforce its garrison against any forward movement of General Carleton.