Talk:Landing at Kip's Bay

Rewrite
I took the liberty of doing an almost literal rewrite of this article. It was acceptable as an unreferenced stub before, but this incorporates two reliable references and has a bit more detail.

There is one controversial bit between the two references on the location of Kip's Bay in present-day terms. Washington's Crossing (book) puts it at 33rd Street, while The War for American Independence puts it at 34th Street, as did the previous version of the article. As Washington's Crossing is more well-known, more recent, and has won the Pulitzer, I opted for 33rd Street for the moment. However, this should be considered tentative, and if anyone has any light to shed on this, by all means share with the class.

There are a few other issues:

1) I could not determine from these references who the American commander of the "forces" was. At the invasion point, the Americans were simply a line of sentries, while the bulk of the militia was gathered for a suspected invasion around Harlem. The previous article names William Douglas, which takes you to a disambiguation page with no obvious choice. In fact, if you look in either index of the two references, there is only one Douglas mentioned - Sir Charles Douglas, 1st Baronet, who is clearly not the American commander in question here. Unless someone has more information, I'm going to change this to G. Washington.
 * Update: In 1776, I found Douglas. "According to the official roster, the Connecticut brigade commanded by Colonol William Douglas numbered 1500 men". I am going to use this as an official reference for both the American commander and American strength. Tan   |   39  17:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I should also note that I arrived at the figure of 500 for American strength per David McCullough's statement "a third or more [of the 1500] were sick, and only about half of those fit for duty were manning the trenches by Kips Bay". Tan   |   39  18:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

2) The number of forces involved is highly suspect in the previous article. Neither reference gives much of a forces strength figure (although The War puts the American forces at 3,000, which I changed from the 900 in the previous article), probably because this isn't really considered a separate battle. I think the figures should stay for now as they seem in the ballpark, but these need citations. Hard to tag in the infobox. Tanthalas39 (talk) 01:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I also think the figures should stay for now with citations.--DavidD4scnrt (talk) 05:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Image discussion
Among other things (in-line citations, expanded battle section(!), etc), this article needs an image or two. These are the ones I've found so far and am considering:
 * A drawing of Kip's Bay in 1830. This is a great picture showing the bay from offshore, but it's from 1830, which is 54 years after the actual battle.
 * A Dutch house on Kip's Bay, circa 1800. A lot closer to the battle date, but not nearly as relevant to the article.
 * Image:Kipsbaydriz.JPG. Already in image space, but also already on Kips Bay page - is it proper to also include it on the battle page?
 * Kip's house. The British used this house as an HQ after taking possession of York Island.

Although I've read the image use policy many times, it's still hazy to me - I think that I will pretty much always seek "expert" help on this before using an image. If anyone has comments on the above pictures or their use on Wiki, please share. Tan  |   39  18:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The photo is mine, and it probably includes the landing site as well as the bicycle I used to get there. Wednesday I expect to have time to return again from Greenwich Village via the same route and on the same bike, but it will be the same time of day with a somewhat unfavorable sun angle but maybe less rainy.  I mostly use my pictures in only one article, but there is no limit and if this one were greatly relevant I would recommend using it here.  It just ain't much relevant to the event; the most relevant one seems to be the NYPL 1830 one, when the streets were only lines drawn on the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. The streets were actually built a decade or two after the 1830 drawing, so as far as I know the bay looked much the same during the battle as in the drawing more than half a century later.  Jim.henderson (talk) 09:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Foot of street

 * Speaking of which, 33d Street doesn't go all the way to the water, and I don't know whether it ever did or was suppressed for the 20th century NYU Medical Center. 34th does.  These streets are only 250 feet (80 meters) apart, so I doubt anyone knows with sufficient precision whether boats landed only at the later 33d or only 34th Street (Manhattan) or spread out over the sites of three or five later streets.  Where 33d would be, I think is a gas station on a pier or platform over the river, or maybe it's the part of Stuyvesant Cove Park where someone demonstrated the Brompton to a crowd, in late April of last year which is why I bought the one you see in my photo.  Jim.henderson (talk) 09:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A third reference to the street says 34th (Matloff, American Military History). After some thought, I'll keep as 33rd for now for the same reasons as I mentioned above. However, I'm open to other thoughts on this. Perhaps something along the line of "...present day 33rd/34th street"? That seems a tad clumsy, though. Tan   |   39  21:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, looking above I see that I promised photos, which I took but didn't link here because, well, they weren't any more informative on this topic than my old photo. Two, incidentally, went into the Brompton Bicycle article and one each into Swift Folder and Strida because of a show held on that spot.  What spot?  We keep citing these secondary sources that say, 33 and 34 and whatever else, but where can they come from?  No primary source could have given those streets, since nobody at the time knew the island would one day have numbered streets.  So, someone in a later century must have taken some kind of eyewitness description and converted to a street foot, but without the original report we have no reliable notion whether this was intended to be precise within a hundred or a thousand yards.  So, seems to me, something like "the site of the modern NYU Medical Center" would be proper, that being a huge sprawling complex providing geographical vaguess corrsponding to the vagueness of our information.  Pending, that is, someone providing the eye witness account that was converted by unknown parties with unknown precision to a modern street footing.  Jim.henderson (talk) 01:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Jim. The problem with doing that is that it would most likely constitute original research on our (your) part. We can really only state what has been published in reliable, third-party sources - and means, for the moment, that we have to choose between the two street names provided in the references I have. Tan   |   39  18:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Oof, it's difficult to keep up with my correspondence in summertime. Spent yesterday bicycling 33 miles around Queens including the site of Nathan Hale's capture, Long Island City car float, John Bowne Park, and Francis Lewis Boulevard. Anyway, though McCullough is a distinguished scholar, "1776" is a popularization and I haven't seen it and perhaps it isn't as fussy about indicating the vagueness of original sources as it ought to be. So yes, I think the article should be explicitly vague with "33d or 34th Street" or some such formulation. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

American Strength
I did not see anything referenced there, so I decided to change it to 900 where I saw it referenced on another site. Prehaps it is 500. Do you have any references that state that? (Red4tribe (talk) 15:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC))
 * Yes, I stated it above in this page, on March 29. "I should also note that I arrived at the figure of 500 for American strength per David McCullough's statement 'a third or more [of the 1500] were sick, and only about half of those fit for duty were manning the trenches by Kips Bay'." Tan   |   39  15:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Assessment
I believe this easily meets the B-Class criteria for Milhist and I have amended the template to reflect this. Before an attempt at GA, I would try to expand the Lead per the guidelines here. It should be two paragraphs that completely summarise the article. I would also try to find some relevant images or explain why none can be found. Other than that, go for it. Any questions can be left on my talkpage. Regards. Woody (talk) 17:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Woody, I appreciate the time you took to assess and comment. Tan   |   39  17:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion on American commander
Moved from Tanthalas39's talk page

Kip's Bay
I posted this before but I guess you must have missed it. Do you think George Washington should go under commanders at the Landing at Kip's Bay? I know he was involved in the battle but I thought it would be better to ask you before taking action. Red4tribe (talk) 16:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it's a good question that I debated before (with myself). Considering that he wasn't present at the actual battle scene and didn't have much affect on the outcome (i.e., he didn't manage to stop the fleeing troops), I think that listing the actual "on-the-scene" commander is better. However, if you have a source that actually states that Washington was the commander at this battle, of course we should defer to that. Tan   |   39  17:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is quoted from the book How America Fought Its Wars, pg 157.

"An analysis of the major battles in which Washington held field command in reveals 5 fairly definitie British victories-Long Island, Kip's Bay, Fort Washington, Brandywine and Germantown" Red4tribe (talk) 18:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well then! I suppose we should change it. If anyone else has an opinion, chime in - but for now you should go ahead and make the edit, Red4tribe. Tan   |   39  18:24, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, and add the reference to the list (and citation to the commander box). Tan   |   39  18:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright I added it. I see most of the references came from 1776 by McCullogh, I just bought that. Red4tribe (talk) 18:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Harlem Heights
"However, the following day, the Battle of Harlem Heights resulted in an American victory."

This statement is offered without context or explanation. The claims of victory at Harlem Heights have been debated at length on the relevant page, but did you intend to suggest that what Washington himself termed a minor skirmish negated the British success in occupying York and the lower half of Manahattan?

The abrupt leap in the next sentence to"The campaign of 1776 had not been a decisive victory for the British as the enemy's resistance had not been broken" seems to suggest this was a consequence of the 'victory' at Harlem Heights, while glossing over the expulsion of Washington's forces from New York, culminating in the fairly catastrophic defeat at Fort Washington. Has a paragraph been lost?

To present the occupation of Manahattan as apparently balanced by the inconclusive skirmish at Harlem Heights, does look like some sort of special pleading.

1776 did not see a decisive victory for the British, nor did any other year, as we know. They lost the war. However, Kips Bay and the campaign for New York were victories nonetheless. "All the efforts at subjugation of the rebellion" had not failed. Between August and November 1776, the British effort had met with considerable success; (even if Howe failed to capitlise on his victories). You seem keen to play that down. Why is that? JF42 (talk) 15:03, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Painting of landing
I've removed the painting from the infobox. I think I have a viable replacement, but I'm still in the process of confirming that. After seeing this discussed on Wikipediocracy I did some of my own digging and found the original source of the picture was actually Francis West's 1780 work "A view of Gravesend in Kent, with troops passing the Thames to Tilbury Fort". The print is reproduced at Brown University, with the original description included. Sadly, it has taken us a bit long to find this error, so a lot of sources now seem to have erronously accepted our account that it shows the landing at Kip's Bay, but I guess that's how it goes. - Bilby (talk) 09:06, 16 September 2022 (UTC)