Although Washington was geared up to enter New York City in triumph the moment the British departed, they kept postponing the promised day. On November 20, having moved down the Hudson River to the Harlem River, just north of the city, he waited in the wings amid mounting suspense. To ensure the safety of American spies in the city, Washington sent Benjamin Tallmadge on ahead to protect them against any reprisals as their identities became known. He received reports of “universal consternation” among departing Tories in New York, who were frantic to get aboard ships before the remnants of the Continental Army marched into town. Washington described these distraught refugees as “little better than a medley of confused, enraged, and dejected people. Some are swearing, and some crying, while the greater part of them are almost speechless.”7

On the cold morning of November 25, 1783, Washington and a small contingent of eight hundred men tarried at a barrier north of the city, awaiting word of the British departure. The day was so overcast and blustery that British ships in the harbor kept deferring their sailing. In one last vindictive gesture, the British greased the flagpole at Fort George in lower Manhattan, causing a delay before the American flag could be hoisted in its place. Then the cannon sounded thirteen times, signaling that Washington, astride his fine gray horse, could lead the cavalcade down the Boston Post Road into the city. Always sensitive to political symbolism, he rode beside Governor George Clinton of New York to show his deference to civilian authority and was also accompanied by the Westchester Light Dragoons, a surefire local crowd-pleaser. It was a boisterously elated procession of citizens and soldiers that trooped into the liberated city, marching eight abreast, along streets lined with wildly cheering citizens.

For one woman in the crowd, the contrast between the splendidly uniformed British troops who had just left and the unkempt American troops in homespun dress who now straggled in conveyed a telling message:

We had been accustomed for a long time to military display in all the finish and finery of garrison life; the troops just leaving us were as if equipped for show, and, with their scarlet uniforms and burnished arms, made a brilliant display. The troops that marched in, on the contrary, were ill-clad and weatherbeaten and made a forlorn appearance. But then they were our troops, and as I looked at them and thought upon all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my eyes were full and I admired and gloried in them the more, because they were weatherbeaten and forlorn.8

For seven years, the British had flattered themselves that only they could maintain order in this raucous city. In a self-congratulatory spirit, they had insisted that anarchy would descend without them. But when one British officer returned briefly from his ship to retrieve some forgotten personal items, he was struck dumb by the law-abiding crowds. “This is a strange scene indeed!” he commented. “Here, in this city, we have had an army for more than seven years, and yet could not keep the peace of it . . . Now [that] we are gone, everything is in quietness and safety. The Americans are a curious, original people. They know how to govern themselves, but nobody else can govern them.”9

Casting his eyes beyond the jubilant onlookers, Washington could discern a desolate city of empty lots, burned-out buildings, and churches despoiled of pews to house British troops. Animals roamed the streets freely. The British surrendered only five hundred American prisoners at the end, which attested both to the large number already freed in exchanges and the appalling number who died in captivity. Most had been kept aboard British prison ships anchored in the East River, where they languished in infernal conditions. Stuffed in airless spaces belowdecks, they had been wedged together in vermin-infested holds slick with human excrement and forced to eat worm-infested rations or devour their own body lice. Typhus, dysentery, and scurvy were common scourges. For years afterward the bones of dead prisoners washed up on East River shores. The American Revolution was never a bloodless affair, as is sometimes imagined. Of 200,000 Americans who served in the war, about 25,000 died, or approximately 1 percent of the population, making it the bloodiest American war except for the Civil War.

During eight hectic days in New York, Washington’s calendar was crowded with dinners, receptions, and fireworks galore. Suddenly an avid consumer again, he went shopping for teapots, coffee urns, and other silverware for entertaining guests at Mount Vernon. Earlier that fall, when inquiring of his nephew Bushrod about silverware purchases, he had asked “whether French plate is fashionable and much used in genteel houses in France and England,” showing that the great American liberator was still enslaved to European styles. On Saturday night, November 29, a rare earthquake struck New York—three quick tremors rumbled through town after midnight—and people started from their sleep, darting into the streets for safety. Asleep at the former Queen’s Head Tavern, a three-story brick building at the corner of Broad and Pearl streets better known to history as Fraunces Tavern, Washington scarcely stirred: a man accustomed to the alarums of war wasn’t about to be unsettled by the earth’s minor trembles.

On December 1 Sir Guy Carleton wrote to Washington that, if wind and weather permitted, he hoped to remove the last of his troops from Long and Staten islands and depart by December 4. Washington sent back such an exceedingly polite note that he might have been saying goodbye to an affable weekend guest at Mount Vernon: “I have received your favor [i.e., letter] of yesterday’s date, announcing the time of your departure, and sincerely wish that your Excellency, with the troops under your orders, may have a safe and pleasant passage.”10

When it came time for Washington to bid farewell to his officers, Fraunces Tavern seemed the ideal spot. The innkeeper, Samuel Fraunces, was a West Indian called Black Sam; his nickname probably refers to a swarthy complexion rather than African parentage. An excellent cook and a Freemason, Fraunces was partial to wigs and fancy clothing and had a rather aristocratic air. A secret friend to the American cause during the war, he had helped to relieve the agony of American prisoners held in New York and also worked to thwart a plot to assassinate Washington. Congress would later repay him handsomely by housing government offices in Fraunces Tavern. Well aware of his heroism, Washington wrote to Fraunces warmly that summer and thanked him for his “constant friendship and attention to the cause of our country.”11

Shortly before noon on December 4, Washington assembled his men in the long banquet room on the second floor of Fraunces Tavern. One tends to picture Washington on this occasion surrounded by a full complement of officers, but those on hand represented the sturdy, resilient band who had held out until the very end. Only three major generals—Knox, Steuben, and McDougall—and one brigadier general attended; a handful of lesser officers rounded out the crowd of thirty or forty. When Washington strode into their midst in his familiar blue and buff uniform, they all rose in respect. He invited them to heap their plates with cold buffet meats but was too overwrought to have much appetite himself. Amid what one officer described as “breathless silence,” glasses were handed around and filled with wine.12 Raising his glass with a shaking hand, Washington began to speak, his voice breaking with emotion: “With a heart filled with love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”13