USA > New York > Kings County > Williamsburgh > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 28
USA > New York > Kings County > Bushwick > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 28
USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 28
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2 Gen. Robertson says: " The battalion of grenadiers, led by Col. Stuart, and 33d regi- ment, ran across a field beyond the Flatbush road towards the principal redoubt (Fort Putnam, now Fort Greene). Gen. Vaughan asked if he should attack the lines (which were semicircular and the parapets lined with spears and lances), but he was ordered back." The London Chronicle says: "Col. Monckton and Gen. Vaughan led the grenadiers and light infantry. They saw the advantage, and told Howe the rebels were shut up between the British and the sea. Vaughan stormed with rage at being stopped, and sent word to Howe that he could force the lines with inconsiderable loss."
It is further stated that the American cannon not being well pointed, a large num- ber of the shot overreached the British ; but some were killed and wounded by the fire of small-arms from the lines. It was stated by several of the militia that the bullets whistled over their heads as they stood in the ditch. Gen. Putnam rode along the lines, ordering them not to fire till they could see the whites of the enemy's eyes. A wounded British officer was brought into Boerum's bolt-house, which was used as a hospital, and where were several rows of beds occupied by the wounded .- See Onder- donk, Kings Co., sec. 805.
3 Ante, pp. 99, 100.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
about three hundred feet from the position of Colonel von Heer- ingen.1
Before midday the terrible struggle was over. The Hessian rifle- men were rapidly extending their skirmish lines over and through the hills towards Gowanus, the British right wing was now massed in force upon the scene of its victory, and Earl Cornwallis was pushing, with a heavy column, down the Port Road, upon the left and rear of Stirling, whose long thin line had been anxiously awaiting, since early dawn, the impending onset of actual battle.
While this was going on, a similar scene was enacting in the direction of Gowanus. It was at early dawn, as we have seen, that Washington and the inhabitants of the city were aroused by the rattle of musketry which announced the advance of Grant's division near Greenwood. In the city all was anxiety and trepidation, for the appearance and movements of the British fleet betokened the attack which had been so long anticipated. Washington was in the saddle by daybreak, and the drum-beat resounded from all the alarm-posts. But as the hours passed, and the vessels, with the exception of the Roebuck, remained quietly at anchor, Washing- ton, relieved of his anxiety as to the immediate danger of the city, hastened over to the lines at Brooklyn, where, from the eminence upon which Fort Putnam stood, he became the agonized witness of the rout and slaughter of Sullivan's command, to whom he could send no succor without unduly weakening the lines. As, with troubled spirit, he gazed upon the scene, he observed, emerging from the woods on his left, a heavy British column, which descended the hills in the direction of Stirling's division. It was Earl Corn- wallis, who had been detached, with the larger part of the right wing of the British army, to co-operate with General Grant in his movements on Gowanus Bay, by occupying the junction of the Port and Gowanus roads. Stirling, meanwhile, doubtless wonder- ing at Grant's forbearance, was totally unconscious of Cornwallis'
1 Heeringen, in his report, thus speaks of his prize : "John Sullivan is a lawyer, and had previously been a servant ; but he is a man of genius, whom the rebels will badly miss. He was brought before me. I ordered him to be searched, and found upon his person the original orders of General Washington, from which it was evident that he had the best troops under his command, that every thing depended upon the maintain- ing possession of the woods, and that he had 8,000 men."
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
movement upon his rear, until startled by the signal-guns with which the earl announced his approach to Grant. Then, as the truth burst upon him, he found that his retreat towards the lines at Brooklyn was intercepted, and that he was fairly trapped between two superior forces of the enemy. At the same time came tidings of the defeat of Sullivan upon his left. Grant, largely re-enforced,' was now in full motion, and pressing fiercely on his front. Colonel Atlee and his corps were made prisoners, after a series of spirited and desperate skirmishes ; General Parsons' command, on the ex- treme left, had mostly been taken prisoners ;2 and Stirling, finding that he was fast being surrounded, saw that his only chance of escape was to drive Cornwallis, who then was occupying the " Cortel- you house" as a redoubt, up the Port Road towards Flatbush, and by getting between him and Fort Box, on the opposite side of the creek, to escape, under cover of its guns, across Brower's mill-dam.3 He knew that his attack upon the earl would, at all events, give time for escape to his countrymen, whom he saw struggling through the salt morasses and across the narrow causeway of Freeke's mill-pond.
1 This re-enforcement consisted of 2,000 men, who landed in boats, in Bennet's Cove, between ten and eleven o'clock A. M. See Colonel Smallwood's letter, Onderdonk, sec. 811, also sec. 810 and 813, and Bancroft, ix. 92, who says that Admiral Howe, "having learned that Grant's division, which halted at the edge of the woods, was in want of ammunition, went himself with a supply from his ship, sending his boat's crew with it on their backs up the hill, while further supplies followed from the storeships."
During this re-enforcement Lieut. Wragg and twenty of the British marines, mis- taking Colonel Hazlet's Delaware regiment, who had just been ordered up from the left to the front (ante, p. 272, note), received several fires from them without returning them, and, on advancing towards them to correct their supposed error, were captured and marched to the rear under the charge of Lieut. Popham, whose amusing account of the affair will be found in Onderdonk, sec. 818. Original MSS. in library of L. I. Historical Society. See also Onderdonk, sec. 806, 819; also, post, p. 281 of this work.
2 Parsons, it seems, had "left his men in quest of orders, was intercepted, concealed himself in a swamp, and came into camp the next morning by way of the East River." Bancroft, ix. 92 ; Penn. Journal, Sept. 11, '76.
3 " The lines between Box Fort and the creek were not completed the day before. There was an opening adjoining the creek which it was thought the enemy were acquainted with ; for when they came to it, and found the entrance closed with a breastwork and other defences, they appeared confounded."-Account in Independent (Boston) Chronicle, September 19, '76. Also, see Life of Stephen Olney of Rhode Island, p. 175 : " All that seemed to prevent the enemy from taking our main fort was a scarecrow row of palisades, from the fort to low-water in the cove, which Major Box had set up that morning."
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
The generous thought was followed by heroic action. Quickly changing his front, and leaving the main body in conflict with Gen- eral Grant, Stirling placed himself at the head of Smallwood's regi- ment, and forming hurriedly (in the vicinity of the present Fifth ave- nue and Tenth street), the column moved along the Gowanus road, in face of a storm of fire from cannon, musketry, and rifles. Driving the enemy's advance back upon the stone house, from the windows of which the bullets rattled mercilessly into their ranks, they pushed unfalteringly forward, until checked by a fire of canister and grape from a couple of guns which the British hurriedly wheeled into posi- tion near the building. Even then they closed up their wasted ranks and endeavored to face the storm, and again were repulsed. Thrice again these brave young Marylanders charged upon the house, once driving the gunners from their pieces within its shadow; but numbers overwhelmed them, and for twenty minutes the fight was terrible. Washington, Putnam, and the other general officers who witnessed it from the ramparts of Ponkiesbergh Fort, saw the over- whelming force with which their brave compatriots were contending, and held their breath in suspense and fear. As they saw the gal- lant Marylanders attempt to cut their way through the surrounding host, Washington wrung his hands, in the intensity of his emotion, and exclaimed, "Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose !" Driven back into a neighboring cornfield, some were cap- tured, some were bayoneted, while a few escaped across the Gow- anus marsh. While Stirling was thus keeping Cornwallis in check, a large portion of those whom he had left fighting with Grant had found safety by wading or swimming across Gowanus Creek, which they did with difficulty, it is true ; but they finally reached the lines, carrying with them the tattered colors of Smallwood's regiment and over twenty prisoners. A few were lost, either in the creek or on its marshy margin.1 Less fortunate than those whom his intrepidity had saved, Stirling found escape impossible. Deprived of nearly
1 The statement-founded partially on General Howe's official dispatches, and partly on the local traditions of the neighborhood-that large numbers were drowned in attempting to cross the marsh, is probably somewhat exaggerated. Colonel Hazlet, of the Delaware regiment, states that the retreat "was effected in good order, with the loss of one man drowned in passing." Colonel Smallwood, who covered the retreat, instances only seven, two of whom were Hessian prisoners.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
all his men-more than 250 of whom belonged to Smallwood's gal- lant Maryland regiment, the flower of the American army1-he fled over the hills, until unable to elude pursuit ; but disdaining to yield to a British subject, he sought out and surrendered himself to De Heister, and was immediately sent on board the British flagship Eagle, where he found Sullivan and others fellow-prisoners of war.
Thus ended the battle at high noon. Ere evening drew its pall around the battle-field, fully one-half of the five thousand patriot army, which had that morning gone forth to battle for their country, were dead, wounded, or imprisoned.
The victorious Britons, as we have already seen, were with diffi- culty restrained from carrying the rebel lines by storm; and it is quite probable that, in the heat and flush of the moment, they would have succeeded. Yet the struggle would have been fearfully desperate, and the victory dearly bought. For behind those re- doubts were 3,000 determined troops, animated by the presence of Washington and Putnam, and rendered desperate by the rout and misfortunes of their brave compatriots under Sullivan and Stirling, to which they had just been witnesses. Ignorant of their real force, but knowing that desperation would nerve them with new strength, Howe, profiting by the wholesome experience which he had gained at Bunker Hill a short time before, wisely declined the attempt. His artillery was not up; he yet lacked fascines for filling the ditches, axes for cutting the abatis, and scaling-ladders to mount the parapets .? Preferring, therefore, to save the further loss of blood, and to secure his already certain victory by regular ap- proaches, he withdrew his troops to a hollow way in front of the
1 Composed chiefly of young men of the most prominent and influential families of Maryland. Two hundred and fifty-six of them were slain in the desperate struggle with Cornwallis' grenadiers, near the Cortelyou house. These noble martyrs of the Maryland and Delaware regiments were buried on a small island of dry ground, scarcely an acre in extent, which formerly rose out of the marshy salt-meadow on the farm of Adrian Van Brunt. This spot, then, and for some time afterwards, covered with trees and undergrowth, was carefully preserved intact from axe or plough during Mr. Van Brunt's lifetime ; but the remorseless surveyor's lines have passed over it, and its site is now far below the grade of surrounding streets. Third avenue intersects its west- erly end, and Seventh and Eighth streets indicate two of its sides.
(T. W. Field, the late T. G. Talmadge, and others.)
2 Testimony of Captain Montressor before a Parliamentary Committee in 1779.
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American lines, out of range of their musketry, and encamped for the night.1
The strength of the American force engaged in this memorable conflict was about 5,000, while that of the British was fully treble that number. The precise loss of the former, on this occasion, was never known, owing to the capture of Generals Sullivan and Stir- ling, and the consequent absence of reliable returns from their divisions .? It was estimated, in General Howe's official dispatches,
I " Reliable reports say that General Von Heister learned, from the troops who pur- sued the retreating Americans to their lines, that the left part of the camp of the enemy near the river was open for a distance of several hundred paces. Accordingly, when the wings had again united with the centre, he reported the fact to General Howe, and made a proposition to profit by the confusion of the enemy and the valor of the troops, to attack the camp forthwith, at this weak point ; but Howe manifested a number of scruples, and so missed the golden opportunity of completing his victory." -Von Elkin's Account.
2 The prisoners comprised three generals, Stirling, Sullivan, and Woodhull, three colonels, four lieutenant-colonels, three majors, eighteen captains, forty-three lieuten- ants, one aid, eleven ensigns, and 1,011 men. In addition to these were taken fif- teen cannon, one howitzer, some stands of colors, ammunition-wagons, pioneers' tools, etc. The Hessians alone took one stand of colors, five guns, and five hundred prisoners, among them General Sullivan and thirty-five officers .- Howe's Return of Prisoners ; Onderdonk, sec. 821 ; and Hessian account in Von Elkin's work, which furthermore says : " Amongst the prisoners are many, so-called, colonels, lieut .- colonels, and majors, and other officers, who have all previously been tailors, shoemakers, barbers, etc. Some of them have been badly beaten by our men, because the latter did not consider them real officers. I did not find among the captured officers a single one who had been in foreign service before. They are all rebels and settled citizens. My Lord Stirling is nothing but an 'echappé de famille.' He resembles my Lord Granby as one egg the other. General Putnam is a butcher by profession. The rebels desert frequently. It is not uncommon to see colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and majors coming into our lines with a number of men. The captured colors, made of red damask, with the motto ' Liberty,' came with sixty men to the regiment Rall ; they carried their muskets upside down, their hats under their arms, fell upon their knees, and begged for quarter. Not a single regiment is regularly uniformed or armed ; every one has his private musket, just as the Hessian citizens march out on Whitsuntide, except Stirling's regiment, which had a blue and red uniform, was three battalions strong, and consisted mostly of Germans enlisted in Pennsylvania. They were tall, fine men, and had very fine English mus- kets, with bayonets." It was this regiment which was mistaken by the second bat- talion of grenadiers as Hessians. (See ante, pp. 273, 278.) "The rebels' artillery is poor, their cannons being mostly of iron, and mounted on naval gun-carriages." Ban- croft, Hist. U. S., ix. 95, says : " The total loss of the Americans, including officers, was, after careful inquiry, found to be less than a thousand, of whom three-fourths were prisoners. This is the account always given by Washington, alike in his official report and in his most private letters. Its accuracy is confirmed by the special returns from those regiments which were the chief sufferers. More than half of this loss fell upon Stirling's command ; more than a fourth on the Maryland regiment alone." In
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
at 3,300; and the British loss, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, at 367.1
The night (27th) which followed the battle was one of great anxiety to Washington. His fatigued, wounded, and dispirited sol- diers were but poorly sheltered against the heavy storm which seemed to be gathering ; the enemy was encamped before the lines ; the morrow would probably bring a renewal of the conflict. But his energy again triumphed over his fears. The long hours of night-yet all too short for the work in hand-were occupied with efforts to strengthen his position; troops were ordered over from New York, from Fort Washington, and Kingsbridge ; nothing was left undone that human effort and foresight could accomplish.
The morning sky of the 28th was lowering and heavy, with masses of vapor which hung like a funeral-pall over sea and land. At four o'clock, and in the midst of a thick-falling mist, Washington visited every part of the works, encouraging his suffering soldiers with
the absence of authorities on which Mr. Bancroft bases his estimate, we must consider it as considerably underrated. The stress which he lays upon this being the "account always given by Washington," etc., is, in our opinion, of little importance. It was policy on the part of that general, in the peculiarly demoralized and critical condition of his army after its first pitched battle, to give the lowest reasonable estimate of losses sustained.
Dawson (Battles of the U. S., 148), usually accurate, gives the American loss, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, as between 1,100 and 1,200 men, more than a thousand of whom were prisoners. A thousand prisoners would leave only 200 men to be killed and wounded out of the whole 1,200, whereas the Maryland battalion alone lost two hundred und fifty-six men, without taking into account the number killed in other parts of the field.
In consequence of the large and rapid desertion which occurred after the battle; the demoralization of the troops ; the absence, as far as we can learn, of any full and accu- rate reports from regimental and other officers ; the capture of the three general officers (Sullivan, Stirling, and Woodhull) who were best fitted, by education and personal knowledge, to furnish reliable reports, etc., we find it impossible to arrive at any very decisive conclusion as to the actual losses of the Americans. Our own examination of the matter inclines us to accept the British and Hessian estimate as being most nearly correct. As masters of the field they had the best opportunity of knowing the facts, nor can we see that they have been guilty of much exaggeration.
1 Of the British, five officers and fifty-six subaltern officers and privates were killed, twelve officers and two hundred and forty-five subalterns and privates wounded, and one officer and twenty marines taken prisoners. The Hessian loss consisted of two privates killed, three officers (one of whom was Captain Donop) and twenty-three men wounded.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
words of hope, and carefully inspecting the state of the defences. By the gradually increasing light of morning was revealed the encampment of over 15,000 troops of Britain. It is no wonder that " there was gloom everywhere-in the sky, on the land, on the water, and over the spirits of the Republicans. They almost despaired, for the heavy rains had injured their arms and almost destroyed their ammunition; but when, at five o'clock, Mifflin crossed the East River with the choice regiments of Magaw and Shee, and Glover's battalion of Marblehead fishermen and sailors, in all more than a thousand strong, all fresh and cheerful, there was an outburst of joy, for they seemed like sunshine as they passed the lines of sufferers and took post on the extreme left, near the Walla- bout." Their arrival increased the American force to nine thousand. The British cannonade opened at ten o'clock upon the American lines, and was followed through the day by frequent skirmishes. The rain fell copiously, much to the discomfort of the Americans, who, in some parts of the trenches, stood up to their waists in water and mud. It served, however, to keep the British within their tents until near evening, when they broke ground within five hun- dred yards of the American lines, and commenced regular ap- proaches by trenches. This night, also, they threw up a redoubt east of Fort Putnam (now Fort Greene), on the land of George Powers, from which they opened a fire upon the fort.1 During this day, also, occurred the capture of General Woodhull, by a party of provincial loyalists under Captain De Lancey, about two miles beyond Jamaica. From wounds, barbarously inflicted upon him after his surrender, he died a few days later.
At midnight a dense fog arose, which remained motionless and impenetrable over the island during nearly the whole of the next
1 " A strong column menaced this on the 29th. The Americans were here prepared to receive them, and orders were issued to reserve their fire till they could see the whites of their eyes. A few British officers reconnoitred the American lines, when one, coming too near, was shot by Wm. Van Cott of Bushwick, who then put up his gun, and said he had done his part. Several of the men were killed, after which the British fell back to their first position. An American rifleman leaped over the lines and took the officer's sword, watch, hat, and cash. This afternoon Captain Rutgers was killed : few Americans fell within the lines."-Reported by Lt. Thos. Skillman, of Capt. John Titus' company in "76. (General Johnson, in Williamsburgh Gazette, April 3, 1839.)
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day. In the afternoon of the 29th, General Mifflin, Adjutant-General Reed, and Colonel Grayson reconnoitred at the outposts on the western extremity of the American lines, near the Red Hook. While there, a gentle shift of wind lifted the fog from Staten Island and revealed to them the British fleet in the Narrows, and boats passing to and from the admiral's ship and the other vessels. These signs of activity, together with a knowledge of the fact that a portion of the fleet had passed around the island and were anchored in Flushing Bay, betokened a movement upon the city, and the three officers lost no time in hastening back to camp.1 The news which they brought was probably not unexpected to Washington ; for, unknown to his aids, he had already made provision, earlier in the day, for the concentration in the East River, at New York, of every kind of sail or row boats, which were to be ready by dark ;? but he immediately convened a council of war at five o'clock the same evening,3 for the danger was indeed imminent. If the British should occupy the Hudson and the East River-as any moment, on a change of mind, they might do-they would, by securing the position of Kingsbridge, be able to cut off all communi- cation between Manhattan Island and the Westchester main ; thus
1 Reed's Reed, i. 225 ; Col. Graydon's Memoirs, 166, Littel's ed. ; Bancroft, Hist. U. S., ix. 105-107, note, in which much unnecessary space is given to a denial that Gen. Reed could have been enabled to see the British fleet, by a "lifting of the fog," and to an accumulation of evidence that " that fog did not rise till the morning of the thirtieth." Now, any one who has lived on the west end of Long Island, will readily understand that it is no unusual thing in summer for wet and rainy, " drizzly" days, such as the 28th and 29th had been, to be accompanied and followed by a misty vapor, or sea-fog, breaking away at times and again settling heavily down upon the horizon ; nor is it difficult to believe that a momentary lifting of such a fog permitted the three Ameri- can officers to catch a glimpse of the British fleet. This same heavy vapor, deepening with the approach of evening, easily settled down by midnight of the 29th into the fog which so favored the American retreat, and which, accumulating in density as the dawn of day approached, is naturally spoken of by witnesses as having risen on the "morning of the 30th."
2 Force's American Archives, fifth series, i. 1211 ; Heath's Memoirs, 57; Memorial of Hugh Hughes (acting Quartermaster-General in New York), 32.
3 The old Cornell house, afterwards known as the Pierrepont mansion, which for- merly stood on the line of the present Montague street, near the little iron foot-bridge which spans the carriage-way, was the headquarters of Washington during this im- portant contest. It was a spacious and costly house, having large chimneys, from which it was known as " the Four Chimnies," and upon its roof a telegraph was arranged, by which communication was held with New York city. It was here (and not at the old
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
imprisoning that portion of the American army in New York, and separating it from that on Long Island.
The deliberations of this council were brief, and their decision unanimous in favor of an evacuation of Long Island and a retreat to New York on that very night.1 To effect the withdrawal of some nine thousand men, with their arms and munitions of war, and that, too, in face of an enemy at work in their trenches, so near that the sound of their pickaxes and spades could be distinctly heard,-to march them a considerable distance to the river, and to transport them across its strong, broad current,-necessitated the greatest skill and secrecy. Orders were immediately issued to Colonel Glover to collect and man with his regiment of hardy mariners all the boats of every kind which could be found, and to be in readiness by midnight for the embarkation, which was to be superintended by General McDougal. In order to have the army in proper marching condition, without divulging the plan of retreat, the officers were directed to hold their men in readiness for an attack upon the enemy's lines that night. The order excited general surprise, but by eight o'clock the army was ready for move- ment. That the enemy's suspicions might not be excited, General Mifflin was to remain within the lines, and within 250 yards of the British advanced works, with Colonel Hand's rifle-corps and the battered remnants of the Delaware and Maryland regiments, who, with barely a respite from the terrible battle of the 27th, had now cheerfully consented to cover the retreat of their fresher but less experienced companions in arms.2 By nine o'clock the ebb-tide,
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