Battle of Fort Washington in the context of Nathanael Greene

Fort Tryon Park is a public park located in the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The 67-acre (27 ha) park is situated on a ridge in Upper Manhattan, close to the Hudson River to the west. It extends mostly from 192nd Street in the south to Riverside Drive in the north, and from Broadway in the east to the Henry Hudson Parkway in the west. The main entrance to the park is at Margaret Corbin Circle, at the intersection of Fort Washington Avenue and Cabrini Boulevard.

The area was known by the local Lenape tribe as Chquaesgeck and by Dutch settlers as Lange Bergh (Long Hill). During the American Revolutionary War, the Battle of Fort Washington was fought at the site of the park on November 16, 1776. The area remained sparsely populated during the 19th century, but by the turn of the 20th century, it was the location of large country estates.

The New York and New Jersey campaign in 1776 and the winter months of 1777 was a series of American Revolutionary War battles for control of the Port of New York and the state of New Jersey, fought between British forces under General Sir William Howe and the Continental Army under General George Washington. Howe was successful in driving Washington out of New York, but overextended his reach into New Jersey, and ended the New York and New Jersey campaign in January 1777 with only a few outposts near New York City under British control. The British held New York Harbor for the rest of the Revolutionary War, using it as a base for expeditions against other targets.

Landing unopposed on Staten Island on July 3, 1776, Howe had assembled an army that included components that had withdrawn from Boston in March following the British failure to hold that city, combined with additional British troops, and Hessian troops hired from several German principalities. Washington's Continental Army included New England soldiers and regiments from the Thirteen Colonies as far south as the Colony of Virginia. Landing on Long Island in August, Howe defeated Washington in the largest battle of the war in North America, but the Continental Army was able to regroup and make an orderly and covert retreat to Manhattan that night under a cover of darkness and fog. Washington suffered a series of further defeats in Manhattan but prevailed in a skirmish at the Battle of Harlem Heights and eventually withdrew his troops successfully to White Plains, New York. Howe, meanwhile, returned to Manhattan and captured those forces Washington had left on the island.

During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), management and treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) were very different from the standards of modern warfare. Modern standards, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions of later centuries, assume that captives will be held and cared for by their captors. One primary difference in the 18th century was that care and supplies for captives were expected to be provided by their own combatants or private resources.