Happy Evacuation Day! 240 years ago today, on November 25, 1783, the last shot of the American Revolution was fired by a gunner on a departing Royal Navy ship at jeering crowds gathered on the shore of Staten Island, at the mouth of New York Harbor. The shot went wide, missing its target.  

Sir Guy Carleton had ordered his troops to sail at noon on November 25th.  George Washington and an honor guard from the Continental Army marched in shortly thereafter. Before Washington could arrive, officially ending the seven-year occupation of New York, the British flag, which had been nailed to a greased flag pole at the Battery, needed to be taken down. John Van Arsdale, a survivor of a British prison ship, climbed the greasy pole, ripped down the Union Jack, and nailed up the Stars and Stripes.  For years, greased pole climbing contests were popular in celebrations of Evacuation Day in New York.

The British occupation of New York had been brutal. In 1783, the city had roughly 12,000 inhabitants. During the occupation, over 11,000 American prisoners died from intentional neglect aboard sixteen British prison ships anchored in Wallabout Bay in New York’s East River. The total number of Americans who died in combat during the seven-year war was roughly 6,800, which is to say that more Americans died from hunger and disease on these ships than died in every battle of the war, combined.

Until the early 20th century, New Yorkers would celebrate Nov. 25 with a large parade ending at the Battery, where a descendant of van Arsdale’s would replicate the slippery feat. For most of the 19th century, Evacuation Day was a bigger holiday for New Yorkers than even the Fourth of July. 

Evacuation Day has been superseded by Thanksgiving, which typically falls within a day or two of November 25th.  The Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument in Fort Greene Park, in Brooklyn, New York memorializes those who died in the prison ships. Sadly like Evacuation Day, the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument has also been largely forgotten.

The last official parade was in 1916. The United States entered World War I the following year. At that point, there was little appetite, understandably, for celebrating the British defeat.

25th November 1783: The British Army evacuated New York City at the end of the American Revolution