Overview
After the British abandoned Boston, William Howe replaced Thomas Gage as the British supreme commander in North America. Howe led the highly successful invasion of New York City in the summer of 1776. However, he was severely criticized for a lack of aggressiveness and was dogged by rumors of being soft on the rebels. In the following year, Howe captured the rebel capital of Philadelphia and defeated the Patriot Army at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. After wintering in Philadelphia, the British replaced Howe with Sir Henry Clinton and Howe returned to Britain where he attempted to refute charges of poor generalship and to improve his reputation.
Diaries and Memoirs
Howe, William. The Narrative of Lieut. Gen. Sir William Howe, in a Committee of the House of Commons, on the 29th of April 1779, Relative to His Late Command of the King’s Troops in North America: To Which Are Added, Some Observations upon a Pamphlet, Entitled Letters to a Nobleman. Third. London: H. Baldwin, 1781. //catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100259140.
Howe, W.H., B.F. Stevens, and E.E. Hale. General Sir William Howe’s Orderly Book: At Charlestown, Boston and Halifax, June 17, 1775 to 1776, 26 May; to Which Is Added the Official Abridgment of General Howe’s Correspondence with the English Government During the Siege of Boston, and Some Military Returns, and Now First Printed from the Original Manuscripts; with an Historical Introduction. B.F. Stevens, 1890. https://books.google.com/books?id=aHYsAAAAMAAJ.
Muenchhausen, Levin Friedrich Ernst. At General Howe’s Side 1776-1778. Edited by Ernst Kipping and Samuel Stelle Smith. Monmouth Beach, N.J: Philip Freneau Press, 1974.
Other Primary Sources
Scribd. “Light Infantry Discipline Established by Major General Howe 1774 | Command And Control | Military Of The United Kingdom.” Accessed February 21, 2018. https://www.scribd.com/document/125727528/Light-Infantry-Discipline-Established-by-Major-General-Howe-1774.
Biographies and other Secondary Sources
Anderson, Troyer Steele. The Command of the Howe Brothers during the American Revolution. Cranbury, NJ: Scholar’s Bookshelf, 2005.
Flavell, Julie. The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women behind Britain’s Wars for America. First edition. New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation, A Division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.
Partridge, Bellamy. Sir Billy Howe`. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1932.
Gruber, Ira D. The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution. Place of publication not identified: Publisher not identified, 2015. https://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781469611303/.
Smith, David. Whispers across the Atlantick: General William Howe and the American Revolution, 2017.
———. William Howe and the American War of Independence, 2016.
Published Essays in Book Form
Billias, George Athan, ed. George Washington’s Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership. 1st Da Capo Press ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.
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