USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 12
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angle from the line of Fulton Avenue, at the very point where the Manhattan Beach Railroad crosses the avenue, in East New York. About the length of a block remains, showing its bend toward the pass of old. Thus the most interesting and historic portion of the road is still in existence. In 1885, it was still possible to follow the old road per carriage for most of the way to its junction with Ful- ton Avenue near Bedford; and where it was no longer open to travel, its course could be traced by lines of fences or trees.
At the break of day the whole of the British army engaged in this maneuver took up its march unmolested along the Jamaica Road, passed through Bedford, and formed a line along the highway, rest- ing its right on Baker's Tavern, near the junction with the Flatbush Road, now about where South Elliot Place meets Atlantic Avenue. They came to this position about half-past eight or nine o'clock. The work before them was perfectly easy, so they could afford to go about it leisurely; hence breakfast was served to the troops before action was begun. Any one at all familiar with Brooklyn, who has followed the description of the American disposition of forces given above, can appreciate at once that the British had gained the very rear of the patriots. They had both Sullivan at the center and Stirling at the right on Gowanus Road, between themselves and their forces at Flat- bush, and under Grant. No wonder these had showu apathy in action; they were waiting for Howe's signal guns to announce the success of a maneuver which none had dared to hope would be quite so successful as this. About nine o'clock in the forenoon the signal came, and now both De Heister and Grant made up for lost time, a simultaneous advance being made at Flatbush and Gowanus. At the sound of guns in his rear, Sullivan had marched with his four hundred to find out what was the matter. A similar curiosity had moved Colonel Miles to turn back toward the Jamaica Road from his station near Bedford Pass, when he saw to his dismay an army of nine thousand men deploying before him along that convenient thorough- fare. The Flatbush Pass (or Battle Pass), was quickly carried by the Hessians, weakened as the Americans were by the withdrawal of Sullivan's troops, and confused by the attack in the rear. Count Donop was ordered to charge the redoubt upon which he had been firing so long. The Germans stormed the heights and drove the pa- triots back upon the advancing columns of Clinton and Cornwallis. Sullivan and his men were caught between the two fires. Resistance such as was made was desultory and fruitless. Over the brow of the hills on the left of the Battle Pass the Hessians pursued the demoral- ized Americans, so that the thickest of the fray took place about where are the undulating meadows upon which Brooklyn's Sunday- schools enjoy their picnics, with merry-go-rounds and donkey rides. The business transacted here on this day was serious enough. The Hessians transfixed many a prisoner with their bayonets, fired to this
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unwarrantable cruelty by the false report spread by their English allies. Those who were not murdered or captured fled in wild haste to the entrenchments, about a mile or more to the rear of the place of action.
The signal guns led also to the renewal of activities on the Gowanus Road. Now pushing forward all the troops under his command, out- numbering his antagonists four to one, Grant gradually drove back the regiments who had so gallantly held their own against him. Dis- puting their ground inch by inch, Stirling's men had retreated about as far as Fifteenth Street, when they became aware of the movement in their rear. Cornwallis and his division had left the position on the Jamaica Road, and were marching down the Gowanus Road toward Stirling. The latter's situation was indeed desperate, far more so than Sullivan's, but thoughts of yielding were far from him. A New England regiment, in their mad flight from the Flatbush
SULLIVAN AT THE FLATBUSH PASS, OR VALLEY GROVE.
Pass, had crossed the causeway and bridge of the Yellow Mill, and had recklessly burned the bridge in their rear, forgetting their com- rades further down the road. Putnam, who had now for some time known of the maneuver in the rear, and had seen Sullivan's plight, failed to send orders to Stirling to retreat before Cornwallis could get to him. Stirling fully realized his situation, and prepared to save as many of his men as he could. He tried to get between Cornwallis and Brouwer's Mill, and so escape to Fort Box. But it was too late. Corn- wallis had already arrived at the Cortelyou-Vechte-house, on the cor- ner of Gowanus Road and the Port Road leading directly from Flat- bush Pass (Fifth Avenue and Third Street, now, respectively), and of this substantial stone building he was making a redoubt, planting his
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canon there. Stirling then sent the Delaware regiment and a part of the Marylanders to cross the Gowanus Creek as best they could at the Yellow Mill. It was a difficult undertaking, for the bridge was gone. To facilitate the escape of these troops, the enemy must be held back. Therefore, with a self-devoting heroism of the highest quality, Stir- ling and five companies of the Maryland regiment hurled themselves against the compact mass of Cornwallis's advancing corps. Two or three times this handful of men drove the enemy from Fifteenth Street back to the Cortelyon honse, on Third Street. Washington witnessed their splendid bravery from the breastworks near by, and wrung his hands in agony at his impotence to help them, exclaiming: " Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose!" There could be but one issue to so unequal a struggle; the Marylanders were forced to surrender, and Stirling sought out the Hessian general De Heister, to whom to yield his sword. It was eminently fit that the Maryland Society of the Sons of the Revolution should rear a monument to the memory of the soldiers who performed so noble a deed on this day of disaster. On August 27, 1895, it was dedicated, and stands in Prospect Park on the slope of Lookout Hill, a little away from the site of the battle at the Flatbush Pass, and a considerable distance from the scene of this brave action. But the location is fine. a better one than the actual site of the struggle could have afforded. A lofty shaft of polished Scotch granite surmounts a square pedestal of veined marble, the inscription in front stating in whose honor the monument is reared, and at the back citing Washington's exclama- tion when he beheld their unselfish devotion.
It was noon of August 27, 1776, and all was over. The Battle of Long Island had been fought and lost. Howe's men, flushed by their easy victory, were hot for the assault upon the American works, and were with difficulty withdrawn by their too indolent commander-in- chief. Perhaps the attempt would have involved too great and need- less a loss. Perhaps the entrenched patriots could not have been dislodged even by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. But if they had been, the whole fight for independence might have been ended that day. With twenty thousand men in front of them and an invulnerable navy in their rear, the question of total sur- render would have settled itself. Howe was severely criticised for his excessive prudence. It was said that the reason he called off his soldiers and stopped hostilities was because it was now the hour for lunch, and he would not miss the pleasures of the table if he could possibly avoid it. The victory being assured beyond a peradventure, the generalissimo could not resist the temptation of turning aside to this pleasanter occupation. A different task occu- pied the American commander-in-chief. His men were disheartened by defeat, made ingloriously easy by the blunder of their generals in allowing the enemy to creep up behind them while they were mak-
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ing a brave stand in front. The whole army was now in danger of being captured. On the day after the battle General Mifflin arrived in the fortified camp with a thousand of the best troops, Glover's Massachusetts fishermen, and two Pennsylvania regiments. Their natty appearance and firm, confident tread was in such contrast to the prevailing depression that the dispirited men who had been in action cheered them to the echo. But with this accession to their number. there were only nine thousand men within the entrenchments of the Americans, while twenty thousand of the enemy were facing them, and preparing to take their works by regular siege. The whole is- land and its surrounding waters were in possession of the British; the Americans had but the narrow neck between Gowanus and Wall- about Bays. Into their rear a favorable breeze could send a mighty fleet, cutting off communication with the forces on Manhattan Island; while from Staten Island the enemy could convey five or ten thousand more troops at will. The problem was how to save the patriot army from utter destruction or complete surrender. Washington was pon- dering over that problem and acting at the same time. Early on the morning of the 29th of August he had sent word to various officers stationed about New York and Manhattan to collect every imagina- ble craft fit for transporting troops and artillery. Before nightfall these lay ready on the Manhattan shore directly opposite the Ameri- can encampment on Long Island. There was nothing suspicious about this, as any one would conclude that Washington content- plated the very natural movement of concentrating all his available troops to meet an enemy who so greatly outnumbered himself. His project was also accelerated by the report of one or two officers who had watched the enemy from the fort at Red Hook, and had noticed what looked like preparations among the ships for pushing up into the East River. This was an additional reason for getting away from a position where the American army could be attacked by the enemy's army and navy at once, each of which was greatly superior to the force now on the island. Accordingly, at a council of officers, held at the Cornell-Pierrepont mansion on Columbia Heights, the reluc- tance of some of the generals to abandon their ground was easily over- come by the argument of the obvious circumstances, and Washing- ton was authorized to withdraw the whole army from Long Island. Fortunately his measures for that difficult maneuver were already taken. The regiments were all ordered to be in readiness for march- ing at any hour in the night. After dark all the craft were brought over to the east shore of the river, and the embarkation began. Regi- ment after regiment in turn and without confusion marched down to the ferry. There Washington sat on horseback watching and directing every movement. As dawn approached there seemed to be no likeli- hood that all could be transported. Hence, Washington dispatched Aid-de-camp Scammel to urge the regiments already upon the march
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to quicken their steps. Scammel, however, exceeded his orders, and committed a blunder which had nearly proved fatal. The post of honor that night was that of the troops who should be removed last, for their turn might come too late, and then captivity would be their inevitable fate. To Mifflin's Pennsylvania regiments, one of whom was commanded by Colonel IIand, this honor was given. They were stationed at the extreme left of the lines, near the Wallabout and within Fort Putnam (now Greene). The siege approaches of the enemy were directed particularly toward this part of the works, and hence here they would be likely to be most on the alert. When Scamnel was sent out to hurry the regiments on the march, he under- stood that he must order all the troops to move, and he so inter- preted Washington's command to General Mifflin. Accordingly, Mifflin set his men in motion from the heights of Fort Putnam, and the trenches near the Wallabout, to- ward the Brooklyn Church, which had been made the rallying- point by Washington's orders in case of an alarm. Near the church Colonel Hand halted his men for a moment to collect some camp equi- page which he had left there on his way to take the position of danger on the lines. Although General Mifflin had questioned the GENERAL LORD STIRLING. (William Alexander.) correctness of Scammel's order, so contradictory to Washington's own, yet, now that he was on the march, he resented even so brief a halt, and sharply ordered Colonel Hand to leave his pots and kettles alone and go on. He did so, his men in the van, when once more a halt oc- curred at the front, as they were passing the church. Riding up to in- quire the reason of this new delay, Colonel Hand found that it was caused by no less a personage than the commander-in-chief himself. He expressed his surprise that a man of Colonel Hand's approved val- or, of all persons, should have left his post of honor without orders. Hand replied that he had orders from General Mifflin. The latter, coming up by this time, corroborated Hand's statement, and said that his orders were based on those of his excellency. It then appeared that Scammel had mistaken Washington's directions regarding the troops stationed as a covering party. Washington declared that the whole maneuver would come to naught and the army be ruined, un- less Mifflin marched his men back to their post of danger and kept them there till they were sent for. That perilous alternative was
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accepted, and it is well to weigh the full significance of that heroic act. Brave were the Maryland men who had faced overwhelming odds on the Gowanus Road, but no less bravery did it require to turn back at the dead of night when all the rest of the army were hurrying to safety on Manhattan, to occupy again a post where twenty thousand men might bear down upon them, in case it should prove too late for them to return to the place of embarkation. The order to face abont, echoed by the walls of the Brooklyn Church. the sturdy turn of the men at the order in the shadow of that sacred structure, the cheerful march back to alnost certain disaster and death,-worse than that of the battlefield,-were evidences of Amer- ican manhood and soldierly qualities, such as should fire our hearts with a grateful and honest pride. Few of the thonsands who throng that neighborhood now, in the prosaic pursuit of millinery and dry- goods, reflect that it witnessed one of the finest exhibitions of heroism of those heroic days. We know now that these brave fellows, too, were conveyed to New York in safety. As dawn arrived, and would have revealed the movements of the Americans, a heavy fog settled over shore and river and bay. There were still several troops to be transported, but the fog served their purpose so completely that the very last boat, containing Washington himself, had disappeared be- hind the veil of mist, before the British found ont that the patriots had slipped from their grasp. Striking as was the intervention of the fog, still another circumstance seems to indicate that an overruling Providence had determined that the American army, and, therefore, the American cause, should be saved that day. We have seen that John Rapalje, the Tory, lived on the corner of the present Front and Fulton streets, the garden reaching back to the water's edge. When the boats and barges and scows and schooners were brought over from the Manhattan shore to that of Long Island, con- centrating about the ferry landing, and touching the beach in the rear of the garden, it was found that they discharged no cargoes of soldiers, but, on the contrary, were being filled with soldiers on this side till they sank into the water to within an inch of the gunwales. The purpose of the patriots was now clear. Hence the Tory's wife dispatched one of her negroes to inform the British of what was going on. He got easily clear of the American lines, and, taking the road to Flatbush. fell in with a picket of Hessian soldiers. He attempted to tell them his mistress's message, but as neither of the two lan- gnages which he commanded was understood by his German captors, they were none the wiser for his pains. He was detained all that night, and in the morning was conveyed to the quarters of an officer who understood English. His message was startling, and in all haste troops were dispatched to reconnoiter. They dashed over the de- serted breastworks, hurried down to the ferry, only to capture a boat- ful of stragglers or camp thieves. The American army had flown;
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the information, so deftly provided by the Tory's wife, which, if con- veyed immediately, would have frustrated the maneuver, was, for- tunately, delayed till it was rendered nugatory. With this happy escape, the Battle of Long Island passes into history as a defeat indeed, but as a defeat of most salutary consequences to the American arms. Had the day been one of victory, Washing- ton could never have persuaded his generals to let him extricate the army from its perilous position. They would have awaited the assault of the twenty or thirty thousand British, with their invincible navy in the rear, and the surrender of the whole American force, commander-in-chief and all, would have been the inevitable result. The defeat made possible the withdrawal, and thus the pres- ervation of the American army. And in its remoter consequences the results proved more than a blessing in disguise. They showed a most obvious and patent benefit. The loss of New York followed, as a matter of course; but Washington holding New York (if he could have held it at all), would have had his hands full warding off navies and armies without end; or else the British could have gone about the country at will and reduced it in detail. Free of the care of New York, with the British cooped up in it, Washington had full range over the rest of the country, the island city always requiring a large force of troops to ward off possible attacks from so many directions. Even the last masterstroke at Yorktown was made possible by the enemy's situation here. When Washington had brought all his own and the French forces as far down as Philadelphia, it still looked as if he had his mind on New York, via the Raritan Bay and Staten Island, so that Clinton could not afford to send reinforcements to Cornwallis. The events on Long Island being therefore so beneficial in their near as in their remote consequences, it is interesting to observe by what remarkable coincidences they were shaped and de- termined to occur as they did. If Greene had been in command, no such bhinder as that at the Jamaica Pass would have been possible; or a less decisive defeat would not have so conclusively pointed to the wisdom of retreat. A fine clear morning or a moonlit night would have made retreat impossible, or but partially successful; and Eng- lish pickets on the Flatbush Road would have had the secret of Wash- ington in their possession before many men had left the Long Island shore.
It has been our endeavor in treating the Battle of Long Island to deal with it principally as a matter of local interest. It touches Brooklyn at so many points that some partial historians insist on calling it the Battle of Brooklyn. But, as has been seen, every one of the component towns had a share in the movements which con- stituted the battle. At New Utrecht beach in Gravesend Bay the British landed, through that town and Gravesend and Flatbush and Flatlands they marched to their offensive positions. Even Bushwick
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was made to bear a part in the maneuver, for the detour of the recon- noitering party led by Howard to ascertain if the Jamaica Pass were occupied, passed over a small portion of its soil in one extreme corner of it. Now, indeed, all these towns are a part of Brooklyn, and on that basis the name of the battle might properly be changed. But as this became a fact only within the present decade, we prefer to recognize the aptness of the name selected by our forefathers, who regarded the share of the outside towns in the event, and could not well find a better general designation than Long Island, unless Kings County had been chosen, of which certainly we could not have ap- proved. Excessive attention to local interest has gone so far in the case of an estimable local historian as to consent to the designation of neither Long Island nor Brooklyn. It was the " Battle of Flat- bush " to this point of view. Eliminating, therefore, the element of local pride from the discussion, it seems wiser to preserve the old title, whereby it has come down the years. and will live permanently in the his- tory of the republic.
New Utrecht comes to the fore- ground again in the story of the death of Gen. Nathaniel Woodhull. We have already noted his promi- nence in the counsels of the patriots of New York, having been twice elected President of the Provincial Congress. Again as Brigadier-Gen- eral of the Militia of Queens and GENERAL WILLIAM HOWE. Suffolk Counties, we saw him busy collecting cattle and driving them away before the approach of the enemy. After accomplishing this feat he was left with but a hundred men at Jamaica, and sent for orders both to Washington and the Provincial Congress as to what he should do next. Washington could not spare any men to re-en- force him. and the Congress failed to say anything about leaving his post. The result of the Battle of Long Island left him, there- fore, in an unpleasant predicament. The enemy was now master of the island, and their outposts inconveniently near his own. He, therefore, on August 28, sent his men to a place four miles east of Jamaica. In the evening he proceeded to follow them with but one or two companions; a storm coming up, he took refuge at a tavern about two miles east. Here he was surprised by a detach- ment of British under Colonel Oliver DeLancey, who figures in our former volume as a rather rough and ready personage, and who was now as violent a Tory as he had been an opponent of Royal Governor Clinton. There was nothing to do for General Woodhull but to sur-
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render, but he had no sooner yielded up his sword than a shameful outrage was perpetrated upon him. The major of the troops struck him a savage blow upon the head and a second blow of the sword glanced down his arm, and severing the flesh from the bone, cut deep into the elbow joint. Delancey commanded his subordinate to cease the unwarranted butchery; but he did not relieve the scoundrelism of the act any further by seeing to it that the unfortunate prisoner was well cared for. He was hurried to Jamaica and left to spend the night unattended in the bare church. He was next removed to a ship lying off New Utrecht, which had been used as a cattle transport for the British army. Here his pitiable case moved a kind-hearted offi- cer to apply for permission to remove him to a more comfortable place on shore, where too he could obtain surgical aid. He was car- ried first to the New Utrecht Church, standing then in the graveyard on the corner of the King's Highway and the present Sixteenth Ave- nue. It was found necessary to amputate the arm, as mortification had set in, but the operation was bunglingly performed, or was too late to stop the spread of the gangrene. He was then removed to the de Sille house, next door to the church. and allowed to send for his wife. who nursed him tenderly through the intervening weeks. Having bidden her bring with her as much money as she could. borrow- ing some if necessary, he generously distributed this among his fellow-prisoners, whose dreadful plight he had witnessed, and whose miseries could only obtain relief from the sordid British officers by the offer of payment for the commonest services of humanity. General Woodhull's sufferings were ended by death on September 20, more than three weeks after his capture. This is an incident not usually receiving notice in general histories, although Ban- croft devotes a brief paragraph to it. But it is important as serving to illustrate the spirit of the British soldiers in dealing with their antagonists. The rules of civilized warfare seemed to be repudiated in dealing with Americans. It also lends a sad interest to the ancient house of which we have so often taken note before for the sake of its original occupant. It stood until 1850; but a young lady artist made a water color picture of it just before it was demolished, which is still preserved by the same New Utrecht family who so carefully cherish the tile from the roof. General Woodhull was buried at his home, St. George's Manor, Mastic, near Moriches, L. I., where a monument to- day marks his grave, with the appropriate inscription : " 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 a victim."
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