Chapter XXXI (1)

```"In the year seventy-six came the two noble brothers.

````With an army and fleet fit to conquer a world;

```And Cornwallis, and Rawdon, and Tarleton, and others--

````And murder and rapine on our country were hurl'd."

`````Yankee Chronology.=

``"There the old-fashioned colonel galloped through the white infernal

`````Powder cloud;

``And his broad sword was swinging, and his brazen throat was ringing

`````Trumpet loud:

````There the blue bullets flew,

``And the trooper jackets redden at the touch of the leaden

`````Rifle breath;

``And rounder, rounder, rounder, roared the iron six-pounder,

`````Hurling Death!"

`````Knickerbocker Magazine.=

N Thursday morning, the twenty-second of August, 1776, the British troops under General William Howe landed upon Long Island, in the vicinity of New Utrecht. Four thousand men crossed the ferry from Staten Island, at the Quarantine Ground, to Denyse's strong stone house, where Fort Hamilton now stands, and landed under cover of the guns of the Rainbow, anchored where Fort La Fayette looms up in the center of the Narrows. Some riflemen, under Colonel Edward Hand, posted on the hill above, retired toward Flatbush. An hour afterward, British and Hessian troops poured over the sides of the English ships and transports, and in long rows of boats, directed by Commodore Hotham, five thousand more soldiers landed upon Long Island, in the bow of Gravesend Bay (at a place known as Bath, in front of New Utrecht), under cover of the guns of the _Phonix, Rose, * and Greyhound._

The chief commanders of the English were Sir Henry Clinton, Earls Cornwallis and Percy, and Generals Grant and Sir William Erskine. Count Donop, who was killed at Red Bank in 1777, landed, with some Hessians, with the first division, and on the twenty-fifth,[[August, 1776]] the veteran De Heister, ** with Knyphausen, and two Hessian brigades, also landed near New Utrecht. The whole invading force was about ten thousand men well armed, with forty cannons. Lieutenant-colonel Dalrymple remained to keep Staten Island.

* The Rose and Phoenix, after remaining in Haverstraw Bay three weeks, had passed the American batteries and joined the fleet.--See page 802.

** Lieutenant-general De Heister was an old man, and warmly attached to his master, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel. The long voyage of almost fourteen weeks dispirited him, "and," says Sir George Collier, "his patience and tobacco became exhausted." A sniff of land breeze revived him. "He called for Hock, and swallowed large potations to the health of his friends."

*** This view is from the road on the high shore, a little below Fort Hamilton, looking southeast; the house in the center belonged to Simon Cortelyou, a Tory, during the Revolution, and has not been altered. Gravesend Bay is seen beyond the house, and the distant land is Coney Island beach.

[[[Alarm in New York.--General Putnam.--General John Morin Scott]]]

{805}When this movement of the enemy was known in New York, alarm and confusion prevailed. * Re-enforcements were sent to General Sullivan, then encamped at Brooklyn, and the next day the veteran General Putnam ** was ordered thither by Washington, to take the supreme command there. The military works on Long Island had been constructed under the immediate direction of General Greene, who made himself acquainted with every important point between Hell Gate and the Narrows. Unfortunately, he fell sick, and none knew so well as he the importance of certain passes in the rear of Brooklyn. The chief fortifications were within the limits of the present city, *** while at the passes alluded to

* Many Whig families left the city, and for seven long years of exile they endured privations with heroic fortitude. * Many of their houses were destroyed by fire, and others were ruined by military occupants.

** Israel Putnam was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the seventh of January, 1718. He was a vigorous, athletic lad, and in 1739 we find him cultivating land in Pomfret, Connecticut. He was appointed to the command of the first troops raised in Connecticut for the French and Indian war in 1755, in which capacity the reader has met him several times in these volumes. He returned to his farm after the peace, where he remained until he heard of the affair at Lexington. At the head of Connecticut troops, he distinguished himself in the battle of Bunker Hill. He was one of the four major generals appointed by Congress in 1775. His services during the war are mentioned in many portions of this work, and we will not repeat them here. His last military services were performed at West Point and vicinity in 1779, where he was chiefly engaged in strengthening the fortifications. Paralysis of one side impaired the activity of his body, but his mind retained its powers until his death. He lived in retirement after the war, and died at Brooklyn, Windham county, Connecticut, on the twenty-ninth of May, 1790, aged seventy-two years. His remains repose beneath a marble slab in the grave-yard south of the village, upon which is an appropriate inscription.

*** Over all the sites of Revolutionary fortifications, near Brooklyn, the modern city is rapidly spreading. Streets and avenues reticulate the whole area, and it is difficult now to identify the consecrated places.

* I have before me a manuscript letter, written by a daughter of General John Morin Seott, from Elizabethtown, three days after the landing of the British on Long Island, whieh exhibits the alarms and privations to which wealthy families, who had left the city, were subjected. After mentioning their hourly expectation of the landing of the British at Elizabethtown Point, she says: "We have our coach standing before our door every night, and the horses harnessed ready to make our escape, if we have time. We have hardly any clothes to wear: only a second change." Warned by Governor Livingston to leave Elizabethtown, the family of General Scott fled at night to Springfield, in the midst of a terrible thunder-storm. The writer continues: "We were obliged to stop on the road and stay all night, and all the lodging we could get was a dirty bed on the floor. How hard it seems for us, that have always been used to living comfortable!... Papa, with his brigade, has gone over to Long Island, whieh makes us very uneasy. Poor New York! I long to have the hattle over, and yet I dread the consequences." This letter is in the possession of her grandson, Charles S. M'Knight, Esq., of New York.

* John Morin Scott was an early opponent of British oppression, the coadjutor of Sears, Lamb, Willett, and others. He was a descendant of the baronial family of Scott of Ancram, Teviotdale, Scotland, and was born in New York in 1730. He graduated at Yale College in 1746. He adopted the profession of the law, married Helena Rutgers, of New York, and made that city his field of active usefulness. With William Livingston, of New Jersey, his voice and pen boldly advocated extreme measures, and, because of his ultra Whig principles, the timid ones defeated his election to the General Congress in 1774. He was one of the most active and influential members of the General Committee of New York in 1775, and was a member of the Provincial Congress that year. On the ninth of June, 1776, he was commissioned a brigadier, which office he held until March, 1777. He was with his brigade in the battle of Long Island, and was one of the Council of War called by Washington to decide whether lo fight longer or retreat. He was afterward with General Heath in the lower part of West Chester, but left the service in March, 1777, when he was appointed secretary of the State of New York. He was a member of the General Congress in 1782 and 1783. In 1784 he was elected an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati. He died on the fourteenth of September of the same year, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. His remains lie in Trinity church-yard with those of his ancestors, close by the railing on Broadway, north of the great entrance-door to the church. I am indebted to John Morin Scott, Esq., of Philadelphia, a grandson of the general, for the materials of this brief sketch.

** This monument is erected to the memory of the Honorable Israel Putnam, Esq., major general in the armies of the United States of America; who was born at Salem, in the Province of Massachusetts, on the seventh day of January, 1718, and died at Brooklyn, in the State of Connecticut, on the twenty-ninth day of May, A.D. 1700. Passenger, if thou art a soldier, go not away till thou hast dropped a tear over the dust of a Hero, who, ever tenderly attentive to the lives and happiness of his men, dared to lead where any one dared to follow. If thou art a patriot, remember with gratitude how much thou and thy country owe to the disinterested and gallant exertions of the patriot who sleeps beneath this marble. If thou art an honest, generous and worthy man, render a sincere and cheerful tribute of respect to a man whose generosity was singular; whose honesty was proverbial; and who, with a slender education, with small advantages, and with powerful friends, raised himself to universal esteem, and to offices of eminent distinction by personal worth, and hy the diligent services of a useful life."

[[[The "Passes."--Miles and Woodhull.--Fortifications near Brooklyn.]]]

{806}breast-works were cast up. These rows to the Jamaica road, at the present East New York, and in broken elevations further on. There were several roads traversing the flat country in the rear of these hills.

These Colonel Miles, of Pennsylvania, was directed to reconnoiter with his regiment, to watch and report upon the progress of the enemy. To Sullivan was intrusted command of the troops without the lines, assisted by Brigadier-general passes were in a range of hills extending from the Nar--Lord Stirling; General Woodhull (late president of the Provincial Congress), now in arms, was commissioned to deprive the invaders of provisions by removing the live stock to the plains of Hempstead.

The invading army prepared for marching soon after the debarkation. The Hessians, under De Heister, formed the center or main body; the English, under General Grant, composed the left wing, which rested

* By a careful comparison of maps, military plans, and other authorities, with maps of the modern city, I have endeavored to locate the various works. I am satisfied that there will be found no material errors in the statement.

* The first work erected, after fortifying Red Hook and constructing Fort Stirling, on Brooklyn Heights (see page 799), was a redoubt called Fort Putnam, upon a wooded hill near the Wallabout, now known as Fort Greene and Washington Square. This was a redoubt with five guns; and when the trees were felled, it commanded the East River, and the roads approaching Brooklyn from the interior. An intrenchment extended from Fort Putnam northwesterly down the hill to a spring now(1852,) in a tanning yard, with a pump in it, near the intersection of Portland Street and Flushing Avenue. This spring was then on the verge of the Wallabout. From the western side of the fort an intrenehment extended in zigzag course across the Flatbush road, near the junction of Flatbush Avenue and Power Street, to Freek's mill-pond, at the head of Gowanus Creek, near the junction of Second Avenue and Carroll Street. Near the intersection of Nevins and Dean Streets, about half way between Fort Putnam and the mill pond, on the land of Debevoise and Vanbrunt, a redoubt was constructed with five guns, and called Fort Greene.

* A little eastward of Fort Putnam, near the Jamaica road, was a small redoubt; and upon the slope of Bergen Hill (also ealled Boerums's Hill), opposite Brower's mill, was a small redoubt with four guns. It stood between Smith Street and First Avenue, not far from the termination of Hoyt Street, at Carroll. This is supposed to be Box Fort. It was afterward strengthened by the British while a detachment lay encamped on Bergen Hill. Last year (1851) a friend of the writer picked up arrow heads, and buttons marked "42" (42d Highlanders), on the site of this redoubt. At the head of the tunnel of the Long Island rail way, in the vicinity of Boerum and Atlantic Streets, was a high, conical hill, called Ponkiesbergh and Cobble Hill. A redoubt for three cannons was constructed on the top of this hill, and, from the circumstance that an intrenchment extended spirally from summit to base, it was called Cork-screw Fort.--(See Onderdonk's Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island, ii" 118.) This redoubt remained until 1812, when it was strengthened and ealled Fort Swift. Fort Putnam was strengthened at the same time, and called Fort Greene. The banks then raised on those of the fort of the Revolution were very prominent until the present year (1852), when diluted patriotism and bad taste allowed them to be leveled so as to give the face of Washington Square a smooth appearance. To the eye of a true American there is more beauty in a single mound consecrated by patriotism than in a score of graveled walks trodden by the gay and thoughtless. These several fortifications, with other localities and events mentioned in the account of the battle, will be better understood by reference to the accompanying map, which is a reduced copy of one carefully prepared by Henry Onderdonk, Jr., and published in his valuable collection of Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island. Mr. Onderdonk has thoroughly explored the ground we are considering; and to him, as a cicerone, when visiting the field of conflict, I am much indebted for a knowledge of the various localities.

* Explanation of the Plan.--Figure 1, Gravesend beach, where the British landed; 2, Denyse's (Fort Hamilton); 3, Martense's Lane, along the southern boundary of Greenwood Cemetery, extending from Third Avenue, at the lower end of Gowanus Bay, to the Flatbush and New Utrecht road; 4, Red Lion tavern; 5, Grant's forces; 6, Stirling's forces; 7, Stirling's last encounter; 8, Cortelyou's house; 9, Port or Mill road; 10, Flatbush pass; 11, Americans retreating across the creek; 12, Party of Americans covering the retreat; 13, Box Fort; 1-1, Brower's mill; 15, Fort Greene, near the mill-pond; 16, Cork-screw Fort; 17, Baker's tavern, near the junction of Fulton and Flatbush Avenues; 18, British redoubt, cast up after the battle; 19, Fort Putnam, now Fort Greene; 20, Stone church, where Washington held a council of war; 21, Fort Stirling; 22, The ferry, foot of Fulton Street; 23, Fort at Red Hook; 24, Corlaer's Hook; 25, Battery, foot of Catharine Street; 20, Panlus' Hook; 27, Governor's Island; 28, The Narrows; 29, Vandeventer's Point; 30, Shoemaker's Bridge, near New Lots. Bennet's Cove is near figure 4, where, it is said, three thousand British troops landed on the morning of the twenty-seventh of August, the day of the battle, a a, track of the left wing of the British army, under the immediate command of General Howe, from Flatlands, by way of the present East New York (Howard's half-way house) to Brooklyn. While in possession of New York and vicinity, the British so strengthened Fort Stirling, on Brooklyn Heights, that it assumed the character of a regular fortification, with four bastions, similar to Fort George, in New York. They also east up a line of intrenchments along the brow of the hill from the Heights to the present Navy Yard.

[[[March of the British.--Advantage gained.--Advance of Grant toward Gowanus.]]]

{807}on New York Bay; and the right wing, designed for the principal performance in the drama about to be opened, was composed of choice battalions, under the command of Clinton, Cornwallis, and Percy, accompanied by Howe, the commander-in-chief. While Grant and De Heister were diverting the Americans on the left and center, the right was to make a circuitous march by the way of Flatlands, to secure the roads and passes between that village and Jamaica, and to gain the American left, if possible. This division, under the general command of Clinton, moved from Flatlands on the evening of the twenty-sixth,[[August, 1776]] and, guided by a Tory, passed the narrow causeway, over a marsh near the scattered village of New Lots, * called Shoemaker's Bridge. At two o'clock in the morning they gained the high wooded hills within half a mile of the present village of East New York, unobserved by Colonel Miles and the American patroles, except some subaltern officers on horseback, whom they captured. Informed that the Jamaica road was unguarded, Clinton hastened to secure the pass, and before daylight that important post and the Bedford pass ** were in his possession, and yet General Sullivan was ignorant of the departure of the enemy from Flatlands. Expecting an attack upon his right, in the vicinity of Gowanus, all his vigilance seems to have been turned in that direction, and he did not send fresh scouts in the direction of Jamaica. The advantage thus gained by Clinton decided the fortunes of the day.

While the British right wing was gaining this vantage ground, General Grant, with the left, composed of two brigades, one regiment, and a battalion of New York Loyalists raised by Tryon, made a forward movement toward Brooklyn, along the coast road, *** by way of Martense's Lane--"the road from Flatbush to the Red Lion" (4) mentioned by Lord Stirling. The guard at the lower pass (3) gave the alarm, and at three o'clock in the morning[[August 27]] Putnam detached Lord Stirling, **** with Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland regiments, commanded by Atlee, Haslet, and Smallwood, to oppose Grant. The militia guard at Martense's Lane were driven back by Grant to the hills of Greenwood Cemetery, a little north of Sylvan Water, where they were rallied by Parsons, and maintained a conflict until the arrival of Stirling (v) at daybreak, with fifteen hundred men.

* New Lots village is about a mile south of the rail-way station at East New York, upon the same plain. The morass at Shoemaker's Bridge (30 on map, page 806) is now only a wet swale, with a small sluggish stream, and presents none of the difficulties of passage of former days. It is said that at the time in question a single regiment might have kept the whole British force at bay at Shoemaker's Bridge.

** There were four important passes through the hills which should have been well guarded, namely, at Martense's Lane (3), on the southern border of Greenwood Cemetery; the Flatbush pass, at the junction of the present Brooklyn and Flatbush turnpike and the Coney Island Plank road; the Bedford pass, about half a mile northward of the junction of the Flatbush and Bedford roads; and the Jamaica pass, a short distance from East New York, on the road to Williamsburgh, just at the entrance to the Cemetery of the Evergreens. At East New York, "Howard's half-way house" of the Revolution is yet standing, though mueh altered. William Howard, a son of the Whig tavern-keeper, is yet (1852) living there, at the age of ninety. He told me that he remembers well seeing the British approaching from New Lots, and then taking his father a prisoner and compelling him to show them the Jamaica pass, and the best route over the hills east of it, to the open country toward Brooklyn. We sat in the room in which he was born eighty-nine years before.

*** It must be remembered that the present road along the verge of the high bank from Yellow Hook to Gowanus did not exist. The "coast road" was on the slopes further inland, and terminated at Martense's Lane.

**** Lord Stirling was in the English House of Commons on the seeond of February, 1775, when this same General Grant declared in debate that the Americans "could not fight," and that he would undertake to march from one end of the Continent to the other with five thousand men."--Duer's Life of Lord Stirling, 162; Par. Reg., i., 135.

* (v) William Alexander, earl of Stirling, was born in the eity of New York in 1726. His father, James Alexander, was a native of Scotland, and took refuge in America in 1716, after an active espousal of the ling took position upon the slopes a little northwest of "Battle Hill," in Greenwood, and Atlee ambuscaded in the woods on the left of Martense's Lane, near the Firemen's Monucause of the pretender, in the rebellion the previous year. His mother was the widow of David Provoost, better known in the city of New York, a little more than a century ago, as "Ready-money Provoost."* Young Alexander joined the army during a portion of the French and Indian war, and was aid-de-camp and secretary to General Shirley. He accompanied that officer to England in 1755, and while there he made the acquaintance of some of the leading statesmen of the time. By the advice of many of them, he instituted legal proceedings to obtain the title of Earl of Stirling, to which his father was heir presumptive when he left Scotland" Although he did not obtain a legal recognition of the title, his right to it was generally conceded, and from that time he was addressed as Earl of Stirling. He returned to America in 1761, and soon afterward married the daughter of Philip Livingston (the second lord of the manor), a sister of Governor Livingston, of New Jersey, and built a fine mansion (yet standing) at Baskenridge, in that state. He was a member of the Provincial Council of New Jersey for several years. In 1775, the Provincial Convention of New Jersey appointed him colonel of the first regiment of militia, and in March, 1776. the Continental Congress gave him the commission of brigadier. Lee left him in command at New York in April. He was conspicuous in the battle near Brooklyn in August, and in February ensuing Congress appointed him a major general. He performed varied and active service until the summer of 1781, when he was ordered to the command of the Northern army, his head-quarters at Albany.

* An invasion from Canada was then expected. Quite a large British force prevailed above the Highlands. He was at Ticonderoga and vicinity, under St. Leger, who have already met detachments, was repulsed at Fort Stanwix in 1777. and at that time were several respecting beacons and alarm posts. From one of them, in possession of the son of Colonel Aaron Burr, I copied the annexed sketch, made by the pen of Lord Stirling, together with the full order of Lord Stirling who died at Albany on the fifteenth of January 1783, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. It is a singular fact that at different periods during the war. Lord Stirling had under his command every brigade of the American army except Colonel William Duer, and became Judge John Duer, of the city of Duer. LL.D.

* The vigorous and effective preparations made by Lord Stirling intimidated St. Leger, and he returned to Canada. Late in the autumn Stirling took the chief command in New Jersey, and the following summer he was again in command at Albany, with a general supervision of military affairs between that place and New York. His youngest daughter married the btother of William A. Duer, late president of Columbia College, at New York.--See Life of Lord Stirling, by his grandson, William A.

* He acquired this title because he won riches rapidly by the illicit trade in which the colonists were then engaged. His family vault may now (1852) be seen a few rods from the bank of the East River, in "Jones's Woods," between Seventieth and Seventy-first Streets. On the top is a large marble slab, placed there in memory of the wife of his son David.

**The following is a copy of the order: "Each of the beacons are to be of lhe following dimensions: at bottom, fourteen feet square, to rise in a pyramidal form to about eighteen or twenty feet high, and then to terminate about six feet square, with a stout sapling in the center of about thirty feet high from the ground. In order to erect them, the officer who oversees the execution should proceed thus: he should order the following sized logs to be cut as near the place as possible: twenty logs of fourteen feet long and about one foot diameter; ten logs of about twelve feet long; ten logs of about ten feet long; ten logs of about nine feet long; ten logs of about eight feet long; twenty logs of about seven feet long; twenty logs of about six feet lone. He should then sort his longest logs as to diameter, and place the four longest on the ground, parallel to each other, and about three feet apart from each other. He should then place the four next logs in size across these at right angles, and so proceed till all the logs of fourteen feet be placed. Then he is to go on in the same manner with logs of twelve feet long, and when they are all placed, with those of a lesser size, till the whole are placed, taking care, as he goes on, to fill the vacancies between the logs with old dry split wood or useless dry rails and brush, not too close, and leaving the fifth tier open for firing and air. In the beginning of his work, to place a good stout sapling in the center, with part of its top left, about ten or twelve feet above the whole work. The figure of the beacon will appear thus. [The sketch above given.] The two upper rows of logs should be fastened in their places with good strong wooden plugs or trunnels." These beacons were erected upon hills from the Hudson Highlands through New Jersey by way of Morristown, Pluckemin, and Middlebrook, and upon the Neversink Hills at Sandy Hook. They were to be used as signals denoting the approach of the enemy, for the assembling of the militia at certain points, and to direct the movements of certain Continental battalions.

*** I have before me an old manuscript schedule of Lord Stirling's wardrobe, in which the material and color of each article is given. I print the number as a curious example of the personal provisions of a gentleman of his class at that time, namely: Thirty-one coats, fifty-eight vests, forty-three pairs of breeches, six powdering gowns (used when powdering the hair), two pairs of trowsers, thirty shirts, seventeen handkerchiefs, twenty seven stocks, twenty-seven cravats, eight razor cloths, one hundred and nineteen pairs of hose, six pairs of socks, fifteen night-caps, five pairs of drawers, two pairs of gloves, fourteen pairs of shoes, four pairs of boots; total, four hundred and twelve garments.

[[[Skirmish between Grant and Stirling.---Storming of the Flatbush Redoubt.---Descent of Clinton.--Surrender of the Americans.]]]

{809}After two or three rounds Atlee fell back to the left of Stirling, on the top of the hills.

At this moment Kichline and his riflemen, De Haas and his battalion, and Captain Carpenter, with two field-pieces, arrived. Grant advanced and took post in an orchard, * within one hundred and fifty yards of Stirling, and a severe skirmish ensued. Grant had also two field-pieees, but neither party made much use of their cannons. In that position the belligerents remained, without severe fighting, until eleven o'clock in the forenoon, ** when events on the left wing of the American army changed the whole aspect of affairs.

While Grant and Stirling were thus engaged, De Heis-ter and his Hessians moved from Flatbush, and cannonaded the works at the Flatbush pass, where Sullivan was in command with the regiments of Colonels Williams and Miles.

In the mean while, Clinton had descended from the wooded hills and attacked the extreme left of the Americans on the plain at Bedford. The firing was understood by De Heister, who immediately ordered Count Donop to storm the redoubt at the pass, while he pressed forward with the main body of the Hessians. A fierce and bloody combat ensued,3 when Sullivan, perceiving the peril of his little army (for Clinton was rapidly gaining his rear), ordered a retreat to the lines at Brooklyn. The opportunity was gone, and on descending the rough slope from Mount Prospect, they were met by Clinton's light infantry and dragoons, who drove them back in confusion upon the Hessian bayonets. Sullivan and his ensnared soldiers fought desperately, hand to hand, with the foe, while driven backward and forward between the full ranks of the assailants. Many broke through the gleaming fence of bayonets and sabers, and

* A few trees of this orchard yet remain in the southwest part of Greenwood Cemetery.

** During the morning the Roebuck frigate approached Red Hook and cannonaded the battery there. This, like the movement of Grant, was intended to divert the Americans from the operations of Clinton on their left.

*** The Hessians fought with desperation, and gave no quarter. They had been told that the Americans would not suffer one of them to live, and their sentiment was total extermination. "Our Hessians and our brave Highlanders gave no quarter," wrote an offieer of the 71st, "and it was a fine sight to see with what alacrity they dispatched the rebels with their bayonets, after we had surrounded them so they could not resist."--Sec Onderdonk's Revolutionary Incidents, ii., 138.

[[[Battle between Stirling and Cornwallis.--Retreat across the Gowanus.--Defeat and Capture of Stirling.]]]

{810}escaped to Fort Putnam, * while their less fortunate companions died upon the field or were made prisoners.

Among the latter were General Sullivan and several subordinate officers. Those who escaped were followed up to the verge of the American lines, and the pursuing grenadiers were with difficulty restrained from storming Fort Putnam. An easy victory would doubtless have been the result.

Stirling was not aware of the disasters on the left until Cornwallis had marched down the Port or Mill road (9), took position near the ancient dwelling known as "the Cortelyon House," near Gowanus, and fired two guns as a signal for Grant to press forward. That officer immediately attacked the Americans, and in the engagement Colonel Atlee was made a prisoner. Hemmed in by the foe, Stirling saw no opportunity for escape except across the Gowanus Creek, at the dam of the "Yellow Mill," and other places below Brower's Mill.

To effect this, it was necessary to attack Cornwallis, and while a few--a forlorn hope--should keep him at bay, a large part of the Americans might escape. No time was to be lost, for the tide was rising, and soon the creek would be impassable. Changing his front, and leaving his main body in conflict with Grant, Stirling, at the head of a part of Smallwood's battalion, commanded by Major (afterward General) Gist, fell upon Cornwallis, and blood flowed freely. For twenty minutes the conflict was terrible. Stirling endeavored to drive the earl up the Port road, get between him and Fort Box, and under cover of its guns escape across Brower's dam. He was successful, but while with his handful of brave young men he was keeping the invader in check, a large part of his companions in arms, consisting now chiefly of Haslet's Delawares and a part of Smallwood's Marylanders, reached the creek. Some passed it in safety, but many sunk into silence in the deep mud on its margin or beneath its turbid waters. Stirling was obliged to yield when despoiled of nearly all of his brave men. **** He became a prisoner, and was sent immediately on board the _Eagle_, Lord Howe's flag-ship. Thus ended the battle, when the sun was at meridian; when it disappeared behind the low hills of New Jersey, one third of the five thousand patriots who had contended for victory were lost to their country--dead, wounded, or prisoners. * Soon many of the latter were festering with

* The most sanguinary conflict occurred after the Americans had left the Flatbush pass, and attempted to retreat to the lines at Brooklyn. The place of severest contest, and where Sullivan and his men were made prisoners, was upon the slope between the Flatbush Avenue and the Long Island rail-way, between Bedford and Brooklyn, near "Baker's Tavern" (17), at a little east of the junction of these avenues. The preceding map, compiled from those of the English engineers for Marshall's Life of Washington, will assist the reader in obtaining a proper understanding of the movements of the two armies.

** This house, built of stone, with a brick gable from eaves to peak, is yet (1852) standing upon the eastern side of the road leading from Brooklyn to Gowanus. It was built by Nicholas Vechte in 1699, and was one of the first houses created between Brooklyn and New Utrecht.

*** This is a view of the old mill of the Revolution, as it appeared when I made the sketch in 1850, before it was destroyed. The view is from the west side of Gowanus Creek, looking southeast. In the extreme distance is seen the "Yellow Mill" between which and the one in the foreground so many of the patriots perished.

****Smallwood's regiment was composed chiefly of young men belonging to the most respectable and influential families in Maryland. Two hundred and fifty-nine of them perished in this conflict with Cornwallis's grenadiers near the "Cortelyon House."

* (v) Dispatches of Washington and General Howe; Letter of R. H. Harrison, quoted by Sparks, Washington's Writings, iv., 513; Letters of Haslet and Sullivan, 516, 517; Doer's Life of Lord Stirling, 163; Life and Correspondence of President Reed, i., 218--224; Gordon, ii., 96--101; Marshall, i., 87--91; Sted-man, i., 191-196; Onderdonk, ii.. 127-131. The loss of the Americans is not precisely known. Howe estimated it at 3300; it probably did not exceed 1650, of whom about 1100 were made prisoners. Howe stated his own loss at 367 killed, wounded, and made prisoners.

[[[Capture, Treatment, and Death of General Woodhull.--Preparations to Besiege the Works at Brooklyn.]]]

{811}disease in the loathsome prisons in New York, or in the more loathsome prison-ships at the Wallabout. * General Woodhull was made a prisoner at Jamaica the next day, ** and at the close of summer no man was in arms against the crown in Kings, Queens, and Richmond counties.

The victors encamped in front of the patriot lines, and reposed until the morning of the twenty-eighth,[[August, 1778]] when they broke ground within six hundred yards of Fort Putnam, cast up a redoubt (18), and cannonaded the American works. Washington was there, and joyfully perceived the design of Howe to commence regular approaches instead of rapid assaults. This fact was a ray of light in the midst of surrounding gloom. The

* An account of the New York prisons and prison-ships may be found in the Supplement to this work.

** Nathaniel Woodhull was born at Mastic, Long Island, December 30, 1722. Agriculture was the chief pursuit of his life. He was a major, under Abercrombie, in the attack upon Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and afterward accompanied Bradstreet against Fort Frontenac. He was a colonel, under Amherst, in 1760, and at the close of the campaign he returned home and married Ruth Floyd, He espoused the popular side in the Stamp Act movements, and, possessing the esteem of the people, he was elected, with William Nicoll, a representative of Suffolk county, in the Colonial Assembly in 1769. He represented Suffolk in the first Provincial Congress in 1775, and was elected president of that body.

** He was appointed a brigadier of militia in August of that year, and in July, 1776, he was summoned home to embody the militia of Suffolk and Queens, to assist in repelling invasion. He was engaged in this serviee when he was made a prisoner,* cruelly wounded by a British officer, and died of his injuries three weeks afterward at New Utrecht. His wife, who was with him in his last moments, conveyed his body to Mastic, and there, in a secluded family cemetery, a short distance from his residence, his remains rest. A marble slab marks his grave, and bears the following inscription:

** "In memory of General Nathaniel Woodhull, who, wounded and a prisoner, died on the twentieth of September, 1776, in the fifty-fourth year of his age; regretted by all who knew how to value his many private virtues, and that pure zeal for the rights of his country to which he perished. Woodhull's Grave." The mansion of General Woodhull was burned in 1783, and in 1784, the present dwelling on the homestead farm was erected near the spot. It is now (1852) owned by Henry Nicoll, Esq., a great-grandson of General Woodhull.

* In consequence of the tardy movements of others, on whom devolved the duty of furnishing him with a proper force to perform the labors assigned him, General Woodhull (Udell in many old accounts) did not participate in the battle on the twenty-seventh of August He made his head-quarters at Jamaica, and with his inadequate force he scoured the country for miles around, watching the movements of the enemy, and driving large numbers of cattle to Hempstead plains. When he perceived the position of Clinton, near the Jamaica pass, on the morning of the twenty-seventh, he sent urgent messages to the Provincial Congress asking for re-enforcements. It was now too late, for the regiments of Smith and Remsen, of Kings and Queens counties, could not be spared from the lines at Brooklyn.

* With a soldier's impatience he was obliged to listen to the distant roar of battle, for with a soldier's strict discipline he would not move without orders. When apprised of the disasters of the day, he ordered his little band to fall hack four miles beyond Jamaica, on the morning of the twenty-eighth, while he awaited orders from camp. In the afternoon, he left Jamaica with two companions, to join his soldiers, and while taking refuge from a thunder-storm in the inn of Increase Carpenter, two miles east of Jamaica village, he was made a prisoner by a party of British, under Captain Sir James Baird (whom we met at Savannah, page 732), piloted by some Tories. Tradition says that Baird ordered Woodhull to shout "God save the King!" and because instead he cried "God save us all!" he smote him with his broadsword, and would have killed him on the spot, if Major Delancey, who accompanied Baird, had not interfered. The blow badly wounded the head of the general, and mangled his left arm the whole length. He and his companions were taken to Jamaica, confined until the next morning in the Presbyterian stone church (which stood in the middle of the present Fulton Street, at the head of Union Hall Street. It was demolished in 1832), then taken to the British camp at Brooklyn, and conveyed to a loathsome cattle transport in Gravesend Bay. A Church at Jamaica, humane British officer procured his removal to a house in the village of New Utrecht, where his arm was amputated at the elbow. Woodhull sent for his wife, with a request that she should bring; with her all the money in her possession, and all she could borrow. This was distributed among his fellow-prisoners. His wife arrived in time to attend him in his last moments, for the unskillful amputation resulted in mortification, and he died in the fifty fourth year of his age. I am indebted to Mr. Onderdonk for the sketch of the old Jamaica church. With him 1 visited New Utrecht (1850) to make a drawing of the house wherein General Woodhull died. It had just been demolished, and a modern house placed on its site by the owner, Mr. Barent Wyckoff. To the patriotism and artistic skill of Miss C. Lott, living near, I am indebted for the sketch of that venerated edifice, probably the first house erected in that town. It was of stone, covered with red tiles, and answered the description of a dwelling erected in 1658, by De Sille, the attorney general of the province.--See Doc. Hist, of New York, i., 634. The New House in which Woodhull died. Utrecht church, which stood near, was of octagon form like one at Jamaica. The weather cock from its steeple now graces the barn of Mr. Lott, and the gilt dove from the pulpit sounding-board is perched upon the roof of his well.

[[[Situation of the Two Armies.--Council of War.--Retreat of the Americans to New York.]]]

{812}chief had crossed from New York early in the morning, and had witnessed the destruction of some of his finest troops, without ability to send them aid except at the peril of the safety of the camp or of the city, and his whole army. Ignorant of his real strength, Howe dared not attempt an assault, and Washington had time to conceive and execute measures for the safety of his troops.

The morning of the twenty-eighth[[August 1776]] dawned drearily. Heavy masses of vapor rolled up from the sea, and at ten o'clock, when the British cannonade commenced, a fine mist was falling. Although half dead with fatigue, the Americans had slumbered little, for it was a night of fearful anxiety to them. At five in the morning, General Mifflin, who had come down from King's Bridge and Fort Washington with the regiments of Shee, Magaw, and Glover, a thousand strong, in obedience to an order sent the day before, crossed the East River, and took post at the Wallabout. The outposts of the patriots were immediately strengthened, and during the rainy day which succeeded there were frequent skirmishes. Rain fell copiously during the afternoon, and that night the Americans, possessing neither tents nor barracks, suffered dreadfully. A heavy fog fell upon the hostile camps at midnight, and all the next day[[August 29]] it hung like a funeral pall over that sanguinary battle-field. Toward evening, while Adjutant-general Reed, accompanied by Mifflin and Colonel Grayson, were reconnoitering near Red Hook, a light breeze arose and gently lifted the fog from Staten Island. There they beheld the British fleet lying within the Narrows, and boats passing rapidly from ship to ship, in evident preparation for a movement toward the city. Reed hastened to the camp with the information, and at five o'clock that evening the commander-in-chief held a council of war. * An evacuation of Long Island, and a retreat to New York, was the unanimous resolve of the council. Colonel Glover, whose regiment was composed chiefly of sailors and fishermen from Marblehead and vicinity, ** was ordered to collect and man boats for the purpose, and General M'Dougal was directed to superintend the embarkation. The fog still rested heavily upon the island, the harbor, and the adjacent city, like a shield of the Almighty to cover the patriots from the peril of discovery. Although lying within a few hundred yards of the American lines, the enemy had no suspicion of the movement. ***

At eight o'clock in the evening the patriot regiments were silently paraded, the soldiers ignorant of the intent; but, owing to delay on account of unfavorable wind, and some confusion in orders, it was near midnight when the embarkation commenced at the Ferry Stairs, foot of Fulton Street, Brooklyn. For six hours those fishermen-soldiers plied their muffled oars; and boat after boat, filled with the champions of freedom, touched at the various wharves from Fulton Ferry to Whitehall, and left their precious burdens. At six in the morning, nine thousand men, with their baggage and munitions, except heavy artillery, had crossed. Mifflin, with his Pennsylvania battalions and the remains of the regiments of Smallwood and Haslet, formed the covering party, and Washington and his staff, who had been in the saddle all night, remained until the last company had embarked. **** At dawn

* The council was held in the stone Dutch church (20), which stood near the junction of the present Fulton and Flatbush Avenues. This church was designated in the order for the evening as an alarm post during the night, where they might rendezvous, in the event of the movement being discovered by the British. The officers present at the council were Washington, Putnam, Spencer, Miffin, M'Dougal, Parsons, John Morin Scott, Wadsworth, and Fellows.--See Life, &c., of President Reed, i., 417.

** The uniform of these men, until they were attached to the Continental line, consisted of blue round jackets and trowsers, trimmed with leather buttons. They were about five hundred in number.

*** A late English author complains bitterly of the apathy of the British general on this occasion. He says, his troops "kept digging their trenches on one side, while Washington was smuggling his forces out on the other, and ferrying them over the East River to the city of New York.... The high-feeding English general slept on, and his brother the admiral (Lord Howe), though not so apt to doze, did not move a single ship or boat, and was to all appearance unconscious of what was going on."--Pict. Hist, of the Reign of George the Third, i., 273. Notwithstanding his want of energy on this occasion, General Howe received the honors of knighthood from his king for this victory. The ceremony was performed by Knyp-hansen, Clinton, and Robertson, in November, 1776.

**** In his dispatches to the president of Congress, Washington said that he had scarcely been out of the lines from the twenty-seventh till the morning of the evacuation, and forty-eight hours preceding that had hardly been off his horse and never closed his eyes. Yet a popular English author of our day (see Pict. Hist, of the Reign of George the Third, i., 273) mendaciously says, "Washington kept his person safe in New York."

[[[British first aware of the Retreat.--Condition of the Army.--Disposition of the British Army.]]]

{813}the fog lifted from the city, but remained dark and dreary upon the deserted camp and the serried ranks of the foe, until the last boat left the Long Island shore. Surely, if "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera," in the time of Deborah, the wings of the Cherubim of Mercy and Hope were over the Americans on this occasion.

Intelligence of this movement reached the British commander-in-chicf at half past four in the morning. Cautiously Captain Montressor and a small party climbed the embankments of Fort Putnam and were certified of the fact. * It was too late for successful pursuit, for when battalion after battalion were called to arms, and a troop of horsemen sped toward the East River, the last boat was beyond pistol shot; and as the fog rolled away and the sunlight burst upon the scene, the Union flag was waving over the motley host of Continentals and militia marching toward the hills of Rutgers' farm, beyond the present Catharine Street. ** Howe was greatly mortified by the event, for he felt certain that his prey could not escape his meshes.

Although the American army was safe in New York, yet sectional feelings, want of discipline, general insubordination of inferior officers and men, and prevailing immorality, appeared ominous of great evils. Never was the hopeful mind of Washington more clouded with doubts than when he wrote his dispatches to the president of Congress, in the month of September.[[1776]]

Those dispatches and the known perils which menaced the effort for independence led to the establishment of a permanent army. ***

On the evacuation of Long Island, the British took possession of the American works, and, leaving some English and Hessian troops to garrison them, Howe posted the remainder of his army at Bushwick, Newtown, Hell Gate, and Flushing.

Howe made his head-quarters at a house in Newtown (yet standing), now the property of Augustus Bretonnier, and there, on the third of September, he wrote his dispatch, concerning the battle, to British ministry. On the thirtieth,[[August, 1776]] Admiral Howe sailed up the bay with his fleet and anchored near Governor's Island, within cannon-shot of the city. During the night, after the battle, a forty-gun ship had passed the batteries and anchored in Turtle Bay, somewhat damaged by round shot from Burnt Mill or Stuyvesant's Point, the site of the Novelty Iron-works. **** Other vessels went around Long Island, and passed into the East River from the Sound, and on the third of September the whole British land force was upon Long Island, except four thousand men left upon Staten Island to awe the patriots of New Jersey. A blow was evidently in preparation for the republican army in the city. Perceiving it, Washington made arrangements for evacuating New York, if necessary. (v)

* Onderdonk (ii., 131) says that a Mrs. Rapelye, living near the ferry, sent her servant to inform the British of the retreat. The negro was arrested by a Hessian guard, who could not understand a word that he uttered. He was detained until morning, when he was taken to head-quarters, and revealed the seeret, but too late.

** A cannonade was opened upon the pursuers from Waterbery's battery, where Catharine Market now stands.

*** See page 225. In his letter of the second of September, Washington evidently foresaw his inability to retain his position in the city of New York. He asked the question, "If we should be obliged to abandon the town, ought it to stand as winter quarters for the enemy?" and added, "If Congress, therefore, should resolve upon the destruction of it, the resolution should be a profound secret, as a knowledge of it will make a capital change in their plans." General Greene and other military men, and John Jay and several leading civilians, were in favor of destroying New York. But Congress, by resolution of the third of September, ordered otherwise, because they hoped to regain it if it should be lost.--See Journal, ii., 321.

**** Washington sent Major Crane of the artillery to annoy her. With two guns, upon the high bank at Forty-sixth Street, he cannonaded her until she was obliged to take shelter in the channel east of Blackwell's Island.

* (v) On the approach of the fleet, the little garrison on Governor's Island and at Red Hook withdrew to New York. One man at Governor's Island lost an arm by a ball from a British ship, just as he was embarking.*

[[[Howe's proposition for a Conference.--Meeting with a Committee of Congress.--Bushnell's "Marine Turtle" or Torpedo.]]]

{814}Lord Howe now offered the olive-branch as a commissioner to treat for peace, not doubting the result of the late battle to be favorable to success.

General Sullivan and Lord Stirling were both prisoners on board his flag-ship, the Eagle.

The former was paroled, * and sent with a verbal message from Howe to the Continental Congress, proposing an informal conference with persons whom that body might appoint. Impressed with the belief that Lord Howe possessed more ample powers than Parliament expressed in his appointment, Congress consented to a conference, after debating the subject four days. A committee, composed of three members of that body, was appointed, and the conference was held[[Sept. 11, 1776]] at the house of Captain Billop, formerly of the British navy, situated upon the high shore of Staten Island, opposite Perth Amboy. ** The event was barren of expected fruit, yet it convinced the Americans

* Both officers were exchanged soon afterward, Sullivan for General Prescott, captured nine months before (see vol. i., page 181), and Lord Stirling for Governor Brown, of Providence Island, who had been captured by Commodore Hopkins. Lord Stirling was exchanged within a month after he was made prisoner.

** The committee consisted of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge. When they reached Perth Amboy, they found the barge of Lord Howe in waiting for them, with a British officer who was left as a hostage! The meeting was friendly, and Lord Howe, who was personally acquainted with Franklin, freely expressed to that statesman his abhorrence of the war, and his sincere personal desire for peace. * The whole interview was distinguished by courtesy and good feeling. Howe informed the committee that he would not recognize them as members of Congress, but as private gentlemen, and that the independence of the colonies could not be considered for a moment They told him he might call them what he pleased, they were nevertheless representatives of a free and independent people, and would entertain no proposition which did not recognize the independence of the colonies. The gulf between them was evidently impassable, and the conference was soon terminated, for Howe had nothing acceptable to offer. He expressed his regret because of his obligation now to prosecute the war. Franklin assured him that the Americans would endeavor to lessen the pain he might feel on their account by taking good care of themselves. Thus ended the conference. * In the third volume of the collected Writings of John Adams may be found an interesting sketch from the pen of that patriot, describing the events of a night passed in bed with Dr. Franklin at New Brunswick, on the night preceding this conference.