[Battle of Long Island]. Oliver Soper, Captain, 13th Continental Regiment of Foot

2 manuscript orderly books: (1) 50 leaves, folio (13 1/2 x 8 in.; 344 x 204 mm), Cambridge, Dorchester and New York, 16 March–28 July 1776, some gaps in dates, containing general orders, reports of court-martials, and returns for Captain Soper's company; very worn and frayed with losses and fading of text, some pages fragmentary. (2) 35 leaves, 4to (8 x 6 1/4 in.; 203 x 159 mm), Long Island, 6–9 August, 18–25  August, 29 August–9 September, 24 September 1776, being general orders, reports of court-martials and returns for Captain Soper's company; a few losses to text.

"The state of unborn Millions will now depend upon God on the Courage and the Conduct of this Army" (entry for 9 July 1776). Captain Soper's orderly book commences in Cambridge, 16 March 1776 just as the British are evacuating Boston, and by mid-April, Soper's company, attached to the 13th Continental Regiment Infantry under Colonel Joseph Read, is in New York. It was clear to Washington that Guy Carleton would press southward from Canada in 1776 and almost equally certain that General William Howe would appear at New York in order to drive a wedge between the Patriots' northern and southern armies and supply routes. Washington thus began to prepare to defend New York, even though it could not be held indefinitely owing not only to Britain's superior forces but also its massive naval power.  To keep the city as long as possible, General Charles Lee and other generals undertook to fortify the city. Most of the general orders for the period of April through July bristle with the business of distributing tools, fortifying King's Bridge, Fort George, Governor's Island,  and other key points around Manhattan and the western-most tip of Long Island. The patriots established batteries of artillery on the heights of Brooklyn and entrenchments to cover the batteries. They also placed cannon on both sides of the Hudson River to prevent British ships from going up the river, or at the very least to hinder their passage. Drilling the men at arms is constant, and diligence is stressed to sentries. Troops are streaming into New York from the militias of New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Simultaneously, the transports and men-of-war under Admiral Howe arrive week after week in New York harbor during July and August. The general order for 18 July states: "Two guns fired from Cobble Hill Long Island are to be a signal that the enemy has landed on this island."

"Falstaff's soldiers, poor and bare" so a Tory described Washington's rag-tag army. Supplies, particularly clothing, still continue to plague the Patriot forces. "In the early years of the conflict, there were Continentals wearing 'breeches that put decency to the blush.' A wit suggested in 1776 that the Americans must win the struggle if it continued to the end of the year, for the British troops, forced to fight naked men, would be terrified by the novel appearance of their enemies" (Alden, History of the American Revolution, p. 255). Washington thought there was one mode of dress other than uniforms that could terrify the enemy. Included in the general orders for  8 June is the following entry:  "The General being sensible of the difficulty of providing Cloaths of almost every kind for the Troops Fails,  an unwillingness to recommend ... to order any kind of uniform but as it is absolutely necessary that men should have Cloaths and appear decent ... he earnestly encourages the use of hunting shirts and long breeches of same cloth made gater-fashion about the legs ... Besides which it is a Dress which is justly supposed to carry no small Terror to the enemy who thinks Every such Person a Compleat marksman." And so hunting shirts and pants substituted for the smart blue and buff uniforms designed for the Continentals.

Officers, however, were garbed in full uniform but the entry for 19 August mentions Washington's dress code by which officers could be easily identified on the field of battle: "The Officers lately come into camp are also informed it has been found Necessary amidst such frequent Changes of Troops to Introduce some Distinction by which their several Ranks may be known viz. Field Officers were a Pink or Red cockaid Capt. White or Buff Subalterns Green."

"The Genl doubts not the persons who pulled down and mutulated the Statue in the Broadway last Night actuated in Zeal to the Publick Cause, yet it has so much appearance of riot and want of order in the Army that he Disapproves the manner and direxts that in future these things shall be avoided by the Solidery and left to be executed by proper Authority" (general orders,  10 July). Before 9 July 1776 an equestrian statue of King George III made of lead and gilded stood menacingly on Bowling Green in New York City. On the night of July 9, 1776—when the Declaration of Independence was received and read in New York City—the 2-ton statue met its demise. In a burst of patriotic fervor, a number of soldiers, sailors, and citizens decided to act. They threw ropes around it, succeeded in pulling it down, and cut it into pieces of manageable size (see also lot 79). They kept the head of the king aside, intending to impale it upon a stake, but by the next morning it had been stolen by Tories. The remaining parts of the statue were shipped to General Oliver Wolcott's farm in Litchfield, Connecticut, where a group of family members and neighbors melted down the lead and cast 42,088 musket balls. This count was meticulously recorded in a document, which has survived.

The orders for August particularly noting Washington's disclaimer of the Howe peace proposal and the disembarkment of enemy troops on Long Island are phrased similarly or identically to those in othe orderly book of Lt. Alexander Parkman (see previous lot). The entry for 31 August in Soper's book marks the retreat from Brooklyn to Manhattan and beyond: "The Genl acquaints the Army that the Removel from Long Island now made by the unanimous advice of all the Genl Officers not from any doubts of the Troops but because they found the Troops much Fatigued with hard Duty and Divided into many detachments while the Enemy had their Main Body on the Island and capable of receiving assistance from their shipping in these surcumstances it was thought unsafe to transport the whole of our Army on an Island or to engage them with a part and therefore 'unequal' number whereas now our Whole Army is collected together without intervening waters the Enemy can receive little assistance from their ships ..." Howe had routed a little over a third of Washington's army at the Battle of Long Island.