Gowanus cove; they were defended by ditches and felled trees; the counterscarp and parapet were fraised with sharpened stakes. A fortress of seven guns crowned Brooklyn Heights. The entrance into the East river was guarded by a battery of five guns at Red Hook. Six incomplete continental regiments, with two of Long Island militia, constituted all the force with which Greene occupied this great extent of works.

British reinforcements arrived with Clinton and Cornwallis on the first of August, and eleven days later more than twenty-five hundred British troops from England, and more than eighty-six hundred Hessians. Sir Peter Parker brought Campbell and Dunmore, who, with Tryon and Martin, hoped from victory their restoration to their governments. On the fifteenth the Hessians, who were in excellent health after their long voyage, landed on Staten Island. Before a conflict, Lord Howe once more proposed the often rejected plan; and Washington, on the twentieth, announced to the army "that no offer of peace had been made, and that every man should prepare his mind and his arms for action." To congress he on the same day wrote frankly that it would not be possible to prevent the landing of the British on Long Island, saying: "We shall harass them as much as possible, which will be all that we can do." Just at this time Greene became ill of a raging fever. The loss of his service was irreparable, for the works in Brooklyn had been built under his eye, and he was familiar with the environs. His place was, on the twentieth, assigned to Sullivan.

About nine on the morning of the twenty-second the menof-war moved near the shore in Gravesend bay, to protect the landing of more than fifteen thousand men from Staten Island. The English and the Highlanders, with the artillery, consisting of forty cannon, were the first to disembark; last came Donop's brigade of grenadiers and yagers, in large flat-boats, standing, with their muskets in hand, in order of battle.

The British army spread itself out upon the plain which stretches from Gravesend bay toward the east; the camp was thronged by farmers of the neighborhood, wearing badges of loyalty and seeking protection, while the patriots took to

VOL. V.-4

flight, driving cattle before them and burning all kinds of forage. Cornwallis with the reserve, two battalions of infantry and the corps of Germans, advanced to Flatbush; Hand's Pennsylvania riflemen retired before him, burning stacks of wheat and hay on their march; the British artillery drove the Americans from their slight barrier within the village to the wooded heights beyond.

In the following days, during which Washington divided his time between Brooklyn and New York, the advanced parties of the two armies encountered each other, and the American riflemen proved their superiority as skirmishers.

On the twenty-fourth, Israel Putnam, in right of his rank as second to Washington, took the command on Long Island, but with explicit instructions to guard the passes through the woods; while the New York congress sent independent orders to Woodhull, a provincial brigadier, to drive off the horses, horned cattle, and sheep, and destroy the forage which would otherwise have fallen to the enemy.

On the twenty-fifth, two more brigades of Hessians with Heister came over, and on the next day reached Flatbush, increasing the rank and file with Howe on Long Island to "upward of twenty thousand";* supported in the bay by more than four hundred ships and transports, by ten ships of the line and twenty frigates, beside bomb-ketches and other small vessels. The Americans, after repeated reinforcements, were no more than eight thousand men,† most of whom were volun

* Correct Howe's Narrative, p. 45, where he said he had upon Long Island between fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand rank and file, and that his whole force consisted of twenty thousand one hundred and twenty-one (20,121) rank and file, of which sixteen hundred and seventy-seven (1,677) were sick. On August twenty-seventh, 1776, his rank and file amounted to twenty-four thousand two hundred and forty-seven (24,247), apart from the royalist force under Brigadier De Lancey. MS. returns of the army of Howe from the British state paper office. This is confirmed by Sir George Collier's report in Naval Chronicle, xxxii., 271.

This statement of the American force is made after an examination of all the returns which I could find. The rodomontade of Howe, Almon's Debates, xi., 349, is repeated by Stedman, i., 194. In 1779 Lord Cornwallis, answering before the British house of commons as a witness, says: "It was reported they (the Americans) had six or eight thousand men on Long Island," Almon's Debates, xiii., 9. General Robertson estimates them at seven thousand, Almon, xiii., 314. Montresor at eight to ten thousand, Almon, xiii., 54. Of these Cornwallis is the most trustworthy witness.

teers or militia, with not a platoon of cavalry. The armies were kept apart by the ridge which runs through Long Island to the south-west, and, at the distance of two miles from the American lines, throws out to the north and south a series of hills, as so many buttresses against the bay. Over these densely wooded heights, which were steep and broken, three obvious routes led from the British encampments to Brooklyn: the one which followed a lane through a gorge south of the present Greenwood cemetery to a coast-road from the bay to Brooklyn ferry was guarded by Pennsylvanian musketeers and riflemen under Atlee and Kichline; across the direct road to Brooklyn the regiments of Henshaw of Massachusetts and Johnston of New Jersey lay encamped, at the summit of the ridge on Prospect Hill overlooking Flatbush; while the "clove" road, which diverged from the second, and a little farther to the east descended into the village of Bedford, was guarded chiefly by Connecticut levies and infantry from Pennsylvania. The number of the Americans stationed on the coast-road and along the ridge as far as their posts extended was about twentyfive hundred.

On the twenty-sixth, Washington remained on Long Island till the evening. Putnam and Sullivan visited the party that kept guard farthest to the left, and the movements of the enemy disclosed their intention to get into the rear of the Americans by the Jamaica road; but that road was neglected.

The plan of attack by General Howe was as elaborate as if he had had to encounter an equal army. A squadron of five ships under Sir Peter Parker was to menace New York and act against the right flank of the American defences; Grant, with two brigades, a regiment of Highlanders, and two companies of New York provincials, was to advance upon the coastroad toward Gowanus; the three German brigades and yagers, stationed half a mile in front of Flatbush, in a line of nearly a mile in length, were to force the direct road to Brooklyn, while at the evening gun Howe and much the larger part of the army, under Clinton, Cornwallis, and Percy, with eighteen field-pieces, leaving their tents and equipage behind, moved from Flatlands across the country through the New Lots, to turn the left of the American outposts.

At three in the morning of the twenty-seventh, Putnam was told that the picket which guarded the approach to the coast-road had been driven in; and, without further inquiry, he ordered Stirling, then a brigadier, with two regiments nearest at hand, "to advance beyond the lines and repulse the enemy." The two regiments were the large and well-equipped one of Delaware, and that of Maryland, which was composed of the sons of freeholders and men of property from Baltimore and its neighborhood. Of both, the colonels and lieutenant-colonels chanced to be absent on duty in New York city. They were followed by a regiment of two hundred and fifty men from Connecticut, under the lead of Parsons, a lawyer of that state, who eighteen days before had been raised from the bar to the rank of brigadier. Putnam's rash order directed Stirling to stop the approach of a detachment which might have been "ten times his number." The position to which he was sent was dangerous in the extreme. His course was oblique, inclining to the right; and this movement, relinquishing the direct communication with the camp, placed in his rear a marsh extending on both sides of Gowanus creek, which was scarcely fordable even at low tide, and was crossed by a bridge and a causeway that served as a dam for one of two tidemills; on his left he had no connecting support; in front he had to encounter Grant's division, which outnumbered him four to one; and on his right was the bay, commanded by the fleet of Lord Howe. About where now runs Nineteenth street in Brooklyn, he formed his line along a ridge from the left of the road to woods on a height now enclosed within a cemetery and known as Battle Hill. Two field-pieces, all that he had to oppose against ten, were placed on the side of the hill so as to command the road and the only approach for some hundred yards. He himself occupied the right, which was the point of greatest danger; Atlee and Kichline formed his centre; Parsons commanded the left.

Early in the morning Putnam was informed that infantry and cavalry were advancing on the Jamaica road. He gave Washington no notice of the danger, sent Stirling no order to retreat; but Sullivan went out with a small party, and took command of the regiments of Henshaw and Johnston.

The sun rose with an angry red glare, foreboding a change of weather; the first object seen from New York was the squadron of Sir Peter Parker attempting to sail up the bay as if to attack the town; but, the wind veering to the northward, it came to anchor at the change of tide, and the Roebuck was the only ship that fetched high enough to exchange shot with the battery at Red Hook. Relieved from apprehension of an attack on the city, Washington repaired to Long Island; but he rode through the lines only in time to witness disasters which were become inevitable.

The van of the British army under Clinton, guided by tory farmers of the neighborhood, having captured a patrol of American officers in the night, gained the heights on the first appearance of day. The force with Howe, after passing them without obstruction, and halting to give the soldiers time for refreshment, renewed its march. At half-past eight, or a little later, it reached Bedford, in the rear of the American left, and the signal was given for a general attack. At this moment about four thousand Americans were on the wooded passes in advance of the Brooklyn lines. They were attacked by the largest British army which appeared in the field during the war. Could the American parties have acted together, the disproportion would yet have been more than five to one; but, as they were routed in a succession of skirmishes, the disproportion was too great to be calculated. The regiments on the extreme left did not perceive their danger till the British had turned their flank; they were the first to fly, and they reached the lines, though not without grievous losses. The regiment of Ward of Connecticut, which made its way seasonably by the mill-pond, burned the bridge as it passed, unmindful of the comrades whom they left behind.

When the cannonading from the main army and the brigades under Grant was heard, the Hessians moved up the ridge, the yagers under Donop and some volunteers going in advance as flanking parties and clearing the way with their small cannon; the battalions followed, with a widely extended front, and in ranks but two deep, using only the bayonet. At first, Sullivan's party fired with nervous rapidity, and too high, doing little injury; then, becoming aware of the dan