On the night of 4 March 1776, Continental Army batteries positioned at Cambridge, just east of Boston, opened fire on the British-occupied city. It seemed a waste of precious ammunition, because the barrage had little effect other than to cause the British to expend some of their more abundant ammunition to retaliate. But what the British did not know was that while they were preoccupied with returning fire, 2,000 American troops ascended Dorchester Heights south of the city and began digging in. Using hay bales positioned to muffle the sounds, the Americans hauled up the slopes a number of heavy cannon that they had captured from Fort Ticonderoga in New York.
At dawn, the British were astonished to see the maws of American guns pointed at them from the tactically advantageous heights to their south. It was a brilliant American tactical maneuver. With the memory of the Battle of Bunker Hill still fresh in his mind, British General William Howe rejected the idea of another costly assault on higher ground and decided instead to evacuate Boston.
It seemed like a great victory for the upstart Americans—driving the powerful British army out of the city that had long been at the epicenter of the rebellion. But strategically it represented something more fundamental—a truth acknowledged by famed naval historian Commodore Dudley Knox, when he wrote that “the Revolution is revealed as much more of a naval than a military war.”
In his 1932 study, The Naval Genius of George Washington, Knox convincingly argued that the “cause of American Independence was indeed fortunate in having combined in Washington the rare qualities of a great general and a great naval strategist.” Washington’s correspondence confirms he understood that although the seizure of Dorchester Heights had effectively dislodged the British from Boston, it also clearly illustrated that their control of the sea meant that they could come and go as they pleased. This was a great strategic advantage enjoyed by the British during the first years of the war, and Washington knew that the war would not be won until this advantage could be countered.
But both sides also understood that as long as the Continental Army remained in the field, the British could not quell the rebellion and restore control over their colonies. Washington knew the British were geographically limited by their dependence on sea power and that their army could never stray very far from the coast or the navigable inland waterways without risk of being cut off from the Royal Navy. Washington kept the Revolution alive by taking advantage of the virtual sanctuary that this created for him, employing a so-called “Fabian strategy” that entailed keeping his distance and only selectively engaging the British when circumstances prevented his being trapped or becoming too heavily engaged.
This virtual stalemate ended when the French entered the war, bringing more troops and more importantly, their navy. Washington eventually was able to take advantage of this at Yorktown when some British blunders and a timely battle at sea at last allowed him to isolate the British army from their navy, ultimately forcing surrender.
A comparison of Dorchester and Yorktown ratifies Knox’s contentions that sea power was so decisive a factor in the outcome of the Revolution and that Washington’s appreciation of that fact was essential to the eventual victory and ultimate independence earned by the Americans. In his foreword to Dudley Knox’s book, Admiral Hilary P. Jones agreed, writing: “We have been taught to regard Washington as a great General, a great Statesman, and above all, a great Citizen. . . . To these titles now we may add another, a great Admiral.”
Lieutenant Commander Cutler is the author of several Naval Institute Press books, including A Sailor’s History of the U.S. Navy and The Battle of Leyte Gulf.