The choice of pronunciation was probably very regional within Britain, like horse and hoss or curse and cuss in 19th Century America.
That is so. Indeed, they were quite clever to drill holes in the ice so water would flood the ice and freeze to make it thick enough to get some of those heavy cannons across, saving at least a day otherwise. Either someone was really clever or this tactic had been used before somewhere (Canada? Russia?)
During the American Revolution, the Hudson’s ice gave a boost to George Washington’s Continental Army, facing a superior British force in Boston over the winter of 1775-6. Without it, the cross-river passage of cannons captured upstate at Fort Ticonderoga would have been delayed, stalling the commander in chief’s plans to force the enemy from their comfortable encampment. At some river crossings, the haulers drilled holes in the ice, then waited for it to flood and refreeze thick enough to hold sledges laden with 60 tons of artillery.
Just a little north of where the George Washington Bridge is now.
Well, they did cross with heavy artillery. I am unable to find other historical cites (or sites) that say the Continental Army assured the ice was thick enough to drill and flood. The best I can find is that the Soviets did it to cross Lake Ladoga during the siege of Leningrad in WWII. That would have been needed supplies and food, not so much artillery or tanks.
The Continental Army would likely have had the needed auger drills to do so. If none of their Engineers thought of it, then I’d have to think Napoleon would have done so in Russia. Or some other General carting tons of artillery around.
Anecdotally, I remember on the man-made lake in Eisenhower Park on Long Island the Nassau Police would test the ice safety for skaters by driving a radio (marked cop) car onto it. One year - floating cop car in a 4 foot deep lake.
So any military scholars know when some General had lots of heavy stuff to get across a frozen river that maybe was not quite thick enough?
Sweden’s March Across the Belts over the ice to Denmark was a gamble. The weight made it so that the Swedish soldiers were up to their knees in water.
I dunno why the above site would have fabricated drilling to thicken the ice yet it seems the Continental Army used some combination of asking locals, knowing something about the weight a given thickness of ice could bear, trial and error and finding the best spots was what they did.
Napoleon wouldn’t have had time to spend on new ice as the Russians were burning stuff as they retreated.
As for the siege of Leningrad I’d think Lake Ladoga is frozen thick enough right now to drive a convoy of M1Abrams across yet maybe in spring this drilling technique was used. I don’t know how many spare Tanks Stalin had to shift from Moscow’s defence yet Leningrad was getting some extra materiel besides food over the lake. The Finns had parked themselves a bit north and were not inclined to interfere with the operation despite Hitler asking them to.
Henry Knox used the strategy of drilling holes in the ice to let water up to freeze and make the ice thicker when he was transporting cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights outside Boston.
The Wikipedia article says they poured water on the ice, but other sources I’ve read said they drilled holes in the ice. – see here – American Revolution Podcast: Episode 080: The Knox Expedition
So the drilling bit (pun intended) was indeed a known strategy. How long could the notion of moving 60 tons of artillery across icy rivers been around to have a strategy?
Good thing General Washington reckoned having some heavy weaponry might be good. Fort Ticonderoga is well North of Albany and closer to Montreal than New York City. Yet Washington hadn’t yet lost the Battle of New York (highly loyalist) yet (or later won it on another try) so this artillery needed to be on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and around 200 miles south so “Make it so”
I said the crossing was “just a little north of where the George Washington Bridge is” yet the Palisades cliffs make that a good place to build a bridge yet not a good place to cross. It could have been Newburgh, near West Point or wherever the terrain was good on both sides and up there the Hudson is not tidal or brackish as directly across Manhattan or New Jersey (say near the Cloisters and the GWB).
That is a very noble feat indeed. They should name a fort after Knox. Well, they did. Two but the one in Kentucky has the gold. And he was Secretary of War.
It must have pissed off Cornwall lots to have his own artillery used against him.
(I know nothing)
He placed cannons from Ticonderoga at Lechmere’s Point and Cobble Hill in Cambridge, and on Lamb’s Dam in Roxbury.[28][29] These batteries opened fire on Boston on the night of March 2, 1776, while preparations were made to fortify the Dorchester Heights from which cannons could threaten both the city and the British fleet in the harbor. Continental Army troops occupied this high ground on the night of March 4.[30][31]
[
British General William Howe first planned to contest this move by assaulting the position, but a snowstorm prevented its execution. After further consideration, he decided instead to withdraw from the city. On March 17, British troops and Loyalist colonists boarded ships and sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Incredible. A win in the winter of 1775-1776. What rivers were crossed, no idea. Lake George perhaps.
I guess the question for climate comparison is - when was the last time the Hudson was safe to walk across near Manhattan?
With daily ferries, weekly cruise ships & all of the other commercial traffic that uses it now I would say it’s been a long time.
Allowing Bostonians of the future to take St. Patrick’s Day off as non-sectarian “Evacuation Day”.
(hope it’s okay to wander even further from the exploits of the Continental Army as I think the Valley Forge question was answered. If not, my apologies in advance).
There is no historical record of anyone crossing the Hudson on ice into Manhattan proper.
During the last ice age which ended around 12,000 years ago, there were numerous land bridges that it is known people crossed: Bering Land Bridge from Russia to Alaska, Bassian Plain from “mainland” Australia to Tasmania, and Doggerland (cool name) between continental Europe and Britain, among others.
The retreat of the glaciers in that ice age sculped much of the hills and plains of Long Island (to include Brooklyn and Queens of course) and Manhattan. While the Hudson River was very likely there as snow was melting “upstate” New York, its shape may have also been influenced by glacial activity.
In 1916, a “Federal Dam” was built on the Hudson in Troy, still quite a bit north of Albany for some navigation reasons. Whether it was the furthest north there were tidal effects or the dam made it so, this is where the estuary of the Hudson begins and is affected by tidal forces. So continuing south, and south some more the river does widen quite a bit and somewhere’s around Newburgh it froze in 1917-1918. New York on both sides and you’ve still about 70 (regular) miles before you reach Manhattan and look across a rather wide expanse at New Jersey. The waters around here (New York Harbor) are tidal and brackish (salty). To all intents it’s inconceivable that an ice bridge here could have existed before the last ice age. If there were people wandering around, they likely could have crossed the East River and walked to Montauk (or Orient) on the respective “forks” out on eastern Long Island.
LOL. When I saw the date I thought of St. Patrick’s Day. For General Howe to take shots (using British artillery) from the heights around Boston that could hit ships in the harbor and not be able to retaliate because he couldn’t reach them and shoot uphill, plus a snowstorm of all things in Boston I don’t care if you made that up it just sounds so good. That was a mighty spanking the general took to flee all the way to Halifax.
It’s been heavily dredged near Manhattan. Large portions were once sandbars and mud flats. The first winter I lived in NY was 78-79 and Hudson froze over north of the Tappan Zee, don’t recall seeing anything south of there. It wasn’t a flat sheet of ice over the river then, looked like a bombing range with jagged piles of ice sticking up everywhere. I recall some partial freezes later on too.
There’s an interesting discussion about the re-enactments of the crossing in Robert Sullivan’s “My American Revolution”.
It started of almost by accident in 1953 when St. John Terrell made an offhand remark about taking a boat out and crossing the river on Christmas day. What began as sort of a homespun no-frills project morphed into the big state park-sponsored event that exists today.
I meant of course since the last ice age. I am also immune to Iocaine powder.
Vizzini: “Inconceivable!”
Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Even the article I first posted says:
The Hudson almost never freezes solid around New York City, but the last time it did, in 1821, taverns hastily erected in the middle of the river catered to strollers and skaters venturing between Manhattan and Hoboken, N.J.
And during the Revolutionary War:
The snow began to fall about the 10th of November, 1779, and continued falling almost every day until the middle of the following March. The Northeast virtually shut down. It was known as The Hard Winter, and may have been the coldest these parts have seen since the Wisconsinin glacier.
It was a world of ice. The rivers, creeks and streams on Long Island were frozen solid, as was Upper New York Bay. The East River and the Hudson River could be crossed by foot. British cavalry thundered from Manhattan to Staten Island. Long Island Sound was more ice than water.
ETA: That all sounds like St. Petersburg. Russia where even 10-15 years ago it would snow almost every day from November to March. And the Neva River reliably froze at some point and I walked over it several times. At night just before they raised the drawbridges, ice-breakers would clear a path for the oil tankers to get by easier.
Not disputing your weather reports or on-scene experience in any way. But this sentence caught my eye:
I’d expect they’d run the icebreakers just after the drawbridges were raised. It’s hard to fit an icebreaker under most lowered drawbridges.
Or do I misunderstand the geography / geometry of the situation?
You are correct. I thought they were more tugboat-sized and tried to find a picture of one clearing either an open or closed bridge, but could only find a picture of the hydrofoil that goes out to Peterhof during the day and it was just barely clearing the Troiitsky Bridge (likely chosen or designed for that as the bridges rarely went up in the daytime.)
So if the Troitsky bridge isn’t open, both icebreaker and bridge will be seriously damaged. If the boat keeps going, it’d likely destroy the span of the Palace Bridge, perhaps the most iconic of them all. There is I think only one more drawbridge if you’re headed out to the Finland Gulf - Blagovsky? - which might have enough room. There’s I recall only one bridge that isn’t a drawbridge and it’s noticeably higher.
ETA: Also asked my wife who lived there all her life and she concurs with you too.
There’s also paintings of he 1700’s(?) of people ice skating on the Thames in London.
I think the general conclusion could be that the Little Ice Age was a real thing and it was bloody cold in winter the northern hemisphere back then…
As someone who has received the standard education in Canadian history, I often wonder how people got by in some places (like Hudson’s Bay at the trading posts) without the benfit of modern winter clothing.
Or insulation or tight fitting windows or central heating. And no running hot water.