However, the Redcoat scouts weren’t the only ones awake at eleven that night near the inn. Former British officer and Pennsylvanian physician Colonel Edward Hand had riflemen stationed as lookouts nearby. They fired a few rounds at the would-be thieves. With those shots, fired in the middle of a watermelon patch, the largest battle of the Revolution began.
The two Brits quickly retreated into the night unharmed, making their way back down the Gowanus Road until they linked up with the main British force commanded by General James Grant, a rotund, pompous, opinionated Scot who was a veteran of the French and Indian War. Grant was leading five thousand Redcoats toward the Marylanders and other American troops dug in on the Heights of Gowanus. He intended to pin down a large portion of the American army as part of General Henry Clinton’s grand plan, essentially a large-scale hammer-and-anvil maneuver. The part of the anvil would be played by Grant’s forces, which would attack the right side of the American line that included Marylander units deployed along the shore or Gowanus Road. A column of Hessians, under the command of General Leopold von Heister, would attack the center, located near today’s Prospect Park, in an area now known as Battle Pass. Their goal was to distract the Patriots and keep them stationary—neither advancing nor retreating—while the main body of the British forces executed a long, sweeping flanking maneuver, going through the Jamaica Pass around the American defenses on the Heights of Gowanus. This third group, led by Clinton and William Howe, would serve as the hammer, pounding the Americans from the left and the rear and cutting off escape.
Clinton’s plan went into motion around 9:00 p.m. on Monday, August 26. First to march were troops under the command of Howe and Clinton, a force of ten thousand men who were to circle around the Americans’ left flank. In an attempt to disguise their intentions, the British left their tents pitched and their fires burning in the field where they had been camped. British light infantry led the way, moving through the countryside as silently as possible and detaining any witnesses who happened to see the movement of the troops. By one account, they also forced Long Island residents to act as guides. Eighty-seven-year-old William Howard claimed that Clinton and two aides burst into his tavern around two in the morning “and asked for something to drink [and] conversed with him.” When the small talk was over, Clinton announced, “Now you are my prisoner, and must lead me across these hills out of the way of the enemy.” The octogenarian did as instructed, guiding Howe’s troops through the largely unguarded Jamaica Pass.
Grant’s forces marched out of camp an hour or two after the main force. Alerted by his scouts to the presence of the Pennsylvanians in the Red Lion, Grant waited for nearly three hours before marching on the inn. Around two o’clock in the morning, the guard at the inn changed, with untested militiamen replacing the veteran riflemen. Seizing the opportunity, Grant sent about three hundred men in for the attack. The terrified militia fled almost immediately. Grant’s force captured their commander, Major James Bond, and several others. Fortunately, the Americans managed to get a message about the attack through to General Israel Putnam. Although he had commanded brilliantly at the Battle of Bunker Hill, on this occasion Old Put misread the British intentions and took Howe’s bait. He rode down from one of the forts on Brooklyn Heights to the American camp, located next to the Vechte-Cortelyou farmhouse9 near the present-day junction of Fifth Avenue and Third Street, and woke Lord Stirling, who was the commander of the forces in the area.
9. The Vechte-Cortelyou house was named for its original owners, a wealthy Dutch family who farmed the area. A 1933 reconstruction of the building, which used the stones from the original structure, is now the Old Stone House Museum in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Thirty-three-year-old Major Mordecai Gist woke to the sound of signal guns, and the drummers beat a call to arms. He was in command of the battalion because Colonel William Smallwood was in Manhattan attending a court martial. It was his first day of battle and would prove to be one of the most harrowing and monumental days of his life. Gist organized his men, and under Lord Stirling’s command, they marched toward the Red Lion Inn to confront Grant.
Stirling’s true name was William Alexander, but he was known as Lord Stirling because he claimed to be a Scottish earl (a claim the House of Lords did not recognize). Described as an “overweight, rheumatic, vain, pompous, gluttonous inebriate,” Stirling was chronically in debt before the war, as were many of the leading voices of the Revolution. Like Putnam, Stirling fell for Grant’s ruse. He later wrote, “I fully expected, as did most of my officers, that the strength of the British army was advancing in this quarter to our lines.” Stirling’s officers included Major Thomas McDonough, who took command of the Delaware Regiment while John Haslet was away serving court-martial duty. Commencing in Brooklyn and throughout most of the war, these two regiments would fight side by side.
Believing Grant’s men were the main prong of the British attack, Old Put sent over a thousand troops—including the Marylanders and the Delaware Regiment—to confront them. Gist recalled rousing the men early: “We began our march to the right at three o’clock in the morning, with about 1,300 men, and about sunrise, on our near approach to the ground, discovered the enemy making up to it, and in a few minutes our advanced parties began the attack.” As the first light of dawn came “with a Red and angry Glare,” Gist positioned his men to meet the oncoming British army and they “immediately advanced and took possession of the ground and formed a line of battle. In the meantime, [the British] began warm fire with their artillery and light infantry, from their left, while the main body was forming in columns to attack us in the front.” Clinton’s plan was working: Grant diverted the Americans’ attention from Howe’s and Clinton’s flanking action through the Jamaica Pass. Once through the pass, Howe and Clinton were to swing around and encircle the Marylanders and other Americans on Gowanus Heights.
After marching over a mile west to confront the British, Stirling deployed his men in an inverted V, something Frederick the Great of Prussia called the kettle. The arms of the V stretched outward in an attempt to envelop Grant’s force as it pushed ahead. Grant initially pelted the Americans with artillery. The Marylanders were on the right flank on top of a hill near what is now Green-Wood Cemetery.
On top of the small hill, several companies of Smallwood’s Marylanders successfully withstood the British cannonade—exactly as Grant had hoped. One participant wrote that Lord Stirling “immediately drew up in a line, and offered them battle in the true English taste.” The British advanced to within three hundred yards, and British ships in the bay bombarded the American line with cannon fire, leading former lawyer turned battle captain Nathaniel Ramsay to exclaim, “Both the balls and shells flew very fast, now and then taking off a head.” He added, “Our men stood it amazingly well, not even one showed a disposition to shrink. Our orders were not to fire till the enemy came within 50 yards of us: but when they perceived we stood their fire so coolly and resolutely, they declined coming any nearer, though treble our number.” Captain Enoch Anderson of the Delaware Regiment wrote, “We gave them a fair fire,—every man leveled well. I saw one man tumble from his horse,—never did I take better aim at a bird, —yet I know not that I killed any or touched any.”
To bolster the courage of the Americans, who were now vastly outnumbered, Stirling addressed his men. He spoke of Grant, who had little respect for the American troops facing him and had once boasted before the House of Commons that with five thousand men he could march from one end of the American continent to the other. Stirling shouted, “[Grant] may have 5,000 men with him now—we are not so many—but I think we are enough to prevent his advancing further on his march over the continent than that mill pond.”
As the battle wore on, the two lines of men remained in position without advancing from sunrise until late in the morning, when the true nature of the British plan began to reveal itself.
Gist, commanding Smallw
ood’s Battalion, then noticed a fateful pause: “Our men behaved well, and maintained their ground until ten o’clock, when the enemy [Grant’s men] retreated about 200 yards and halted, and the firing on each side ceased.”
The Marylanders realized to their horror that they were flanked. “We soon heard the fire on our left, and in a short time discovered part of our enemy in our rear.” Gist continued, “Surrounded, and [with] no probability of reinforcement, his Lordship [Stirling] ordered me to retreat with the remaining part of our men, and force our way through our camp.”
Clinton’s flanking maneuver was unfolding like clockwork. Thanks to their hard marching and good reconnaissance, and to poor American positioning, Howe and Clinton had penetrated deep behind American lines. At 9:00 a.m., twelve hours after the attack commenced, two heavy cannon released massive blasts. This was the prearranged signal for Grant and the Hessians to unleash their assaults on the American right flank (Stirling) and the center (John Sullivan).
General Leopold von Heister and the Hessians approached the heart of the American lines on the Gowanus Heights under Sullivan’s command. To dislodge Sullivan’s men, the Germans assembled in an open field in front of the pass. The impressive show of force included three Hessian brigades that formed a line nearly a mile long. At the sound of Clinton’s guns, the German onslaught began “with colors flying, to the music of drums and hautboys as if they were marching across Friedrich’s Platz at Cassel. . . . They did not fire a shot, but pressed steadily forward until they could employ their bayonets.” Surging ahead, the Hessians broke through Sullivan’s men and ruthlessly butchered many of the hapless Americans. When they found groups of stragglers in the woods, they often circled around them, lowered their bayonets, and then slowly tightened the circle, often killing all those inside.
Less than a mile west of Sullivan’s position, Gist and his men desperately fought back toward the Patriot forts on Brooklyn Heights. A British sergeant and “ten or fifteen grenadiers” taken prisoner by Maryland scouts brought in the alarming news “that the left and the main body of the Americans had been Defeated, and that they, themselves, had been scouring the field for stragglers,” recalled Samuel Smith. This was their first real taste of close combat.
As the regiment broke down into files of men, it is very likely the companies became separated from the main body of the battalion. “When the regiment had mounted a hill, a British officer appeared as if alone, waved his hat, and it was supposed he meant to surrender. He clapped his hands three times, on which signal his company rose and gave a heavy discharge. The three companies in front broke. Captain Smith wheeled his company into [position], and was advancing, when he was ordered by Lord Stirling to form in line.”
Gist recalled the incident from a different vantage point: “We soon fell in with a party of the enemy, who clubbed their firelocks, and waved their hats to us, as if they meant to surrender as prisoners; but on our advancing within sixty yards, they presented their pieces and fired, which we returned with so much warmth that they soon quitted their post and retired to a large body that was lying in ambuscade.” One of the men from Ramsay’s company added, “They entirely overshot us, and killed some men away behind in our rear. I had the satisfaction of dropping one of them the first fire I made.”
With the enemy converging on all sides, Gist and about five companies of Marylanders pushed through their original bivouac area near today’s Fourth Avenue and Third Street.
Heavy enfilading fire, also known as flanking fire, pelted the Marylanders from both sides until the Americans “came to the marsh [and a stone house], where [the main force] were obliged to break their order, and escape as quick as they could to the edge of the creek, under a brisk fire.”
“During this interval,” recalled Gist, the main force “retreated from our left into a marsh.”
Stirling ordered the bulk of his men to plunge into the marsh at the present-day site of the Gowanus Canal and swim eighty yards across the swift current of Gowanus Creek to reach the relative safety of the American defenses on Brooklyn Heights. Compounding their difficulty, the Americans had destroyed the only other likely avenue for retreat—a bridge that crossed the marsh and creek—to prevent the British from using it. Another obstacle also stood in the way of the right wing of the American army’s retreat: a stone house and its grounds occupied by hundreds of British troops led by one of Britain’s greatest captains of battle, Charles Edward Cornwallis V (Earl, later Marquess, Cornwallis).
The son of an earl, Cornwallis was born in London and had a very aristocratic upbringing, including schooling at Eton and Cambridge. When he was eighteen, he became a member of the prestigious Grenadier Guards and found that he loved the army. While still a young man, he also became a member of the House of Lords, through which he gained connections that furthered his military career. His physical appearance was considered fairly unattractive. Thanks to a sports injury, one of his eyes looked unusual, and he was, by his own description, “rather corpulent” with a double chin. By contrast, his wife, whom he loved dearly, was known for her beauty. Eager for battle, he volunteered to serve in the Seven Years’ War, in which he served with distinction and was noted for his gallantry in battle. He also volunteered for service in putting down the American uprising, even though he was one of only six lords in Parliament who voted against the Stamp Act. A soldier’s soldier, Cornwallis led from the front and on several occasions had his horse shot out from under him. Almost recklessly brave, the earl was the perfect embodiment of his regiment’s motto, Virtutis fortuna comes (“Fortune is the companion of courage”). Yet he saw to his men’s needs, often generously paying for their equipment and provisions out of his own pocket. After the American Revolution, he led British forces in India to defeat Tipu Sultan. As a reward, he received a staggering fortune of tens of thousands of pounds sterling, which he gave to his men.
Howe had placed Cornwallis in command of the light infantry that had spearheaded the flanking maneuver. Knowing that Cornwallis and his men were positioned in the stone house, Stirling ordered a suicidal preemptive strike to buy time for the right wing of the American army to escape. “I found it absolutely necessary to attack a body of troops commanded by Lord Cornwallis, posted at the [Vechte-Cortelyou] house near the Upper Mills,” Stirling recounted to Washington, “This I instantly did, with about half of Smallwood’s [Battalion], first ordering all the other troops to make the best of their way through the creek.” Gist recalled, “We were then left with only five companies of our battalion.”
A single structure and the full weight of an entire dug-in British division separated the right wing of the American army from the fortifications at Brooklyn Heights.
Cornwallis’s men trained their muskets and a light cannon on the advancing Marylanders.
“Fire!”
The fusillade dropped many of the men in their tracks, severing limbs and heads, killing several instantly. Undeterred, the men of Gist’s companies formed into lines and charged into the hail of fire coming from the British soldiers in the Vechte-Cortelyou house.
That scene repeated itself several times as the Marylanders battled to allow their retreating countrymen to escape. “We continued the attack a considerable time,” recalled Stirling, “the men having been rallied and the attack renewed . . . several times.”
Gist noted that after the first attack “our little line became disordered we were under the necessity of retreating to a piece of woods on our right, where we formed and made a second attack.” Keeping many of these men togther were the NCOs, such as towering Sergeant Gassaway Watkins. The Marylanders fearlessly surged again into a rain of deadly lead. Nathaniel Ramsay noted, “Our men fought with more than Roman valor.”
During the battle, Stirling brazenly “encouraged and animated our young soldiers with almost invincible resolution,” recalled Gist. The self-styled earl was buoyant, believing he and his men were on the point of driving Lord C
ornwallis from the house, when heavy British reinforcements arrived. After the Hessians broke through Sullivan’s defenses, they attacked the Marylanders. They linked up with Cornwallis’s Highlanders and assaulted the Marylanders from the rear, while Grant’s forces pushed in the front. Gist reflected, “Surrounded on all sides by at least 20,000 men, we were drove with precipitation and confusion.”10 Gist, Smith, Jack Steward, and Ramsay, best friends, found themselves in the fight of their lives, eerily living out Agamemnon’s prophetic letter to the Independent Company of February 1775. Maryland’s finest—rich and poor alike—lay dead and dying all around.
10. Gist’s estimate of the enemy’s strength is obviously too high. Written immediately after the battle, Gist’s words are an artifact that conveys his sense of the overwhelming odds he faced. One of the Redcoats added, “The Americans fought bravely, and (to do them justice) could not be broken till they were greatly outnumbered and taken in flank, front, and rear.”
In their triumph, the British showed no mercy, taking few prisoners. One Redcoat officer noted, “The Hessians and our brave Highlanders gave no quarters; 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. We took care to tell the Hessians that the rebels had resolved to give no quarter—to them in particular,—which made them fight desperately, and to put to death all that came into their hands.” Another of the Redcoats added, “We were greatly shocked at the massacre made by the Hessians and Highlanders after victory was decided.”
Washington's Immortals Page 7