1776
Captain John Manley, commanding the schooner Lee, captured the British supply ship Betsey. The capture was vital not just for the food supplies it carried for the British in Boston, but for intercepted letters that revealed Lord Dunmore’s military plans.
Colonel Henry Knox reported to George Washington that he had successfully moved the heavy artillery captured from Fort Ticonderoga across Lake Champlain using sleds and oxen. He predicted these cannons would be ready to break the Siege of Boston within weeks.
1777
While Washington was hunkered down in Morristown, his “flying camps” were busy. On this day, American forces engaged a British detachment near Bennett’s Island (near New Brunswick). These constant strikes were part of the Forage War strategy, designed to keep the British from gathering hay and grain for their horses.
From his headquarters at the Arnold Tavern in Morristown, Washington spent this day coordinating with Governor William Livingston. Their focus was on the “New Jersey Problem”—dealing with local citizens who had signed oaths of loyalty with the British during the retreat of 1776 but now wanted to return to the Patriot fold.
1780
During the second, more brutal Morristown winter encampment in 1780, February 4 was a day of pure survival. The Jockey Hollow camps were buried under feet of snow, and Washington reported that his men were often without bread or meat for days at a time. The harbor in New York was so frozen that the British were able to move heavy cannons over the ice, keeping the New Jersey shoreline on high alert for an invasion from Staten Island.
1783
In a monumental shift, Britain's King George III issued a formal proclamation for the cessation of hostilities against the United States. This followed the preliminary peace articles signed in late 1782 and effectively ended the combat phase of the war.
1789
Several years after the war's end, the Electoral College unanimously elected George Washington as the first President of the United States.