by Ron Carter
“Halt,” Miles ordered, and the Americans stopped in the trees, waiting, hoping the patrol would remain short of them and return to the road.
The young lieutenant in command of the patrol marched on, slowing, uncertain, peering into the filigree of light and shadow in the trees, waiting for movement. There was nothing, and he halted the squad. For half a minute he studied the woods before he raised his hand to signal the squad to return to the column, when his sergeant suddenly pointed. “There, sir. Someone tryin’ to ’ide with a musket.”
The young lieutenant hesitated, caught between whether to go into the woods or to send back for reinforcements. He turned to his corporal. “Go back and report something’s here. Tell them to send a large force.”
Miles was close enough to hear their voices but too far to hear their words. He watched the corporal trot back to the column, where a mounted officer reined in his horse to listen. The officer turned and gave orders, and an entire regiment followed him from the road towards the trees.
Miles gave hushed orders and his men cocked their muskets.
Ten minutes later five hundred British regulars moved into the trees cautiously, watching, muskets at the ready. Five hundred more formed a line twenty yards from the trees and went to one knee, ready.
Inside the woods, a red-coated private nearly stepped on one of Miles’s men crouched in the heavy foliage, and the American stood up, facing the regular not three feet away. The startled regular jerked back and stumbled and went down and his musket fired, and one second later muskets on both sides were blasting all through the woods.
In the momentary lull while both sides were reloading Miles shouted, “Cease fire, cease fire!” Quickly he stripped his saber from his belt and sprinted to the edge of the woods, out into the sunlight, facing the long line of British infantry. He carried his saber in both hands, high over his head, shouting frantically. “We are your prisoners. Cease fire.”
With the sun climbing higher at his back, Eli left the Jamaica Road to cut south on the Flatbush Road, down towards the breastworks, listening to the sounds of a furious cannon-and-musket battle grow louder with each step. He crested the last low rise and stopped in his tracks, sweat running, fighting for wind, and a low moan escaped him.
The Hessians were no longer coming up the hill in a long blue line. They were coming in six long blue lines, thousands of them, marching into the American cannon and musket fire, bayonets glittering in the warm August morning. Half a dozen of their cannon were fifty yards north of the tree line, firing as fast as the cannoneers could reload, blasting cannister shot over the heads of their own infantry to burst all over the American lines. Behind them, from the trees, a dozen more cannon had the range and maintained an unending fire of solid thirty-two-pound cannonballs that were blowing the timbers and dirt of the great mound fifty feet in all directions with each hit. On both ends of the fortifications, Hessians had scaled the front and reached the top, only to be thrown back in desperate hand-to-hand fighting, leaving their dead and wounded on top of the breastworks, and a few on the American side.
Eli plunged on, eyes searching for Putnam or Sullivan, and he could see neither as he dodged and darted through the cannon shot and the dead and wounded and the confusion behind the lines. He reached the center where he had left Billy and the Boston regiment, and they were there, sweating, smoke-stained, white-faced as they mechanically fired and ducked behind the dirt mound to reload while cannister shot blasted downward from overhead to kick dirt all around them, and musket balls whirred past and cannonballs shook the front of the breastworks.
He crouched beside Billy, and Billy looked at him and his head sagged forward for a moment in relief. “You’re alive!”
“Where’s Putnam or Sullivan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Thompson?”
Billy pointed. “Over there somewhere a minute ago. Why? What’s happening?”
“They got the Jamaica Road.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing. “Ten thousand. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Billy froze and went wide-eyed. “What?”
“We’re flanked. Trapped. Help me find Putnam or Sullivan, or even Thompson.”
Billy stood and his eyes swept the lines and suddenly he pointed. “There!”
Eli lunged to his feet and sprinted to the west towards Putnam, still giving orders to load and fire. He stopped, panting, face-to-face with the startled old general, nearly shouting to be heard above the blasting guns. He pointed east. “We’re flanked. Howe is coming on the Jamaica Road with ten thousand troops. They’re less than ten minutes from us right now. We’re in a trap.”
Putnam blinked and slowly formed words. “Who are you? How do you know?”
“Eli Stroud, Boston regiment. I went to look.” Eli contained himself, waiting for understanding to show in Putnam’s face.
“Why hasn’t Miles sent word?”
“He sent an officer. He’s coming.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Behind me somewhere.”
Putnam studied Eli for long seconds. “I’ll wait for word from Miles.”
“That officer might not make it. What if he doesn’t?”
Putnam shrugged. “I’ll wait.”
Eli lost his patience, shouting, pointing. “General, in five minutes you’re going to have ten thousand British regulars right in here among your men, behind these breastworks, and you won’t have a chance. Everybody here could be dead in half an hour. Do something!”
Putnam stared, then turned to the nearest officer. “Have this man restrained.”
Eli groaned and spun on his heel, running, looking for Sullivan. He saw the back of a uniform with gold on the shoulders, on the lines, near the Boston regiment, and he angled towards the man and stopped, facing him.
Thompson!
“We’re flanked!” Eli shouted, pointing. “Howe took the Jamaica Road. He’s less than five minutes from here leading ten thousand redcoats. We’re trapped.”
Thompson’s face went white. “What?”
“They’re coming! We got less than five minutes.”
For five seconds Thompson stood stock-still, mind racing, groping. “Did you tell Putnam?”
“I did. He wants to wait for word from Miles. He was going to arrest me.”
“What happened to Miles?”
“He’s back there somewhere. He sent an officer to tell Putnam.”
“Where’s the officer?”
“I don’t know. I distanced him.”
“Did you tell Sullivan?”
“Can’t find him. I’m telling you.”
Thompson shook his head as if he were coming out of a dream and he barked, “Come on!”
He set out at a trot, working east, looking frantically for Sullivan’s uniform, Eli at his side. They had gone twenty yards when Eli grabbed his shoulder and pointed, excited. “There! There’s Miles’s officer.”
A blonde-haired uniformed man was staggering towards the east end of the lines, gasping, hat gone, musket gone, uniform dirty, sweat running. Eli sprinted, with Thompson following as fast as he could. Eli lifted the man’s arm over his shoulder and turned, starting back, as Thompson came to a stop.
“Captain,” Thompson shouted above the din, “where’s Miles?”
The man formed words between gasps. “Back there. I saw them. Ten thousand. I saw them.”
Thompson spun on his heel and started back west, looking for Putnam, Eli behind, half carrying the captain who was muttering, wide-eyed, half out of his mind. Eli shouted to Thompson, “Over there,” and Thompson veered towards Putnam, to stop in front of him.
“Sir, we have a messenger from Miles.” He pointed.
Putnam eyed Eli, then the captain, who stared back at him with blank eyes.
“Your name?”
“I saw them. So many.”
Putnam’s forehead wrinkled. “Who are you?”
The man swallowed and shook his head
and tried to take control. “Captain James Adamson, under the command of General Miles.”
“Where’s Miles?”
“East.”
“What’s the message?”
“Howe has taken the Jamaica Road. He’s coming here. Ten thousand regulars. Cannon.”
Putnam’s mouth sagged open for a split second. “How close?”
“Close. I don’t know.”
Putnam looked at Thompson. “Do you believe it?”
“I do. My man Eli Stroud got to me first. Said he told you.”
Putnam looked at Eli. “He did.” He turned back to Thompson. “Can you find Sullivan?”
“I can try.”
“If it’s true we’re flanked, we’ve got to send word immediately to Stirling and Parsons to fall back to the Brooklyn lines.”
“I agree.”
“I’ll start here. You get Sullivan and have him report to me. Then get your command under control and get ready for an orderly withdrawal back to Brooklyn.”
“Yes, sir.”
At that moment the four men involuntarily ducked as a cannonball whistled ten feet over their heads to plow into the ground eighty feet west of them and explode, throwing dirt and debris, and knock two running soldiers rolling, and then the boom of the cannon came rolling in from the east.
Instantly all four men pivoted, and for a moment they stood stock-still, gaping. Five hundred yards to the east were six mounted British officers, and behind them was an ocean of red coats with crossed white belts as far as they could see. For a moment they stood in shock, minds numb as the sick truth tore their hearts. Miles and his command were gone. Every American patrol to the east was gone, and the village of Bedford was overrun and lost.
They did not move, and white smoke rolled from three more cannon and an instant later the cannonballs whistled overhead to rip trenches five feet long in the earth before they exploded, and all four officers ducked and flinched as grains of sand and dirt pelted their backs and stung their necks and the sounds of the blasts rolled past.
Putnam straightened and knew he should give a command, but he could not force his mind to invent one. Sullivan stammered but could not form a coherent sentence, and he simply raised an arm to point. Eli spun on his heel and sprinted for the center of the line where he had left Billy and what was left of the Boston regiment. Thompson waited three more seconds for orders from either of his commanding officers and realized they were not capable of giving one, and he turned and ran after Eli in the desperate hope he might save some of his command.
At that moment every British regular behind Howe raised his voice in a sustained battle cry, knowing they had sprung the trap to perfection and that the core of the Continental army would be dead or captured before midafternoon. Their voices became a crescendo that rose above the sounds of battle, and the Americans at the breastworks all turned their heads to look. For an instant they did not move, eyes wide and mouths fallen open in unbelief that turned to stark horror.
Frantically they looked for their officers and they saw none, and in an instant they broke from the breastworks in wild chaos, running any direction their instincts took them, a terrified mob without leadership, without direction, without thought. The leading British regiment streamed straight on through, led by Cornwallis, and continued west to the Gowanus Road, where Cornwallis led them south. His orders were to proceed with all haste to trap and crush Stirling’s command, which was being held in position by Grant.
Immediately south of the breastworks, von Heister heard the cannon from the east and then the oncoming shouting, and turned to von Donop, his second in command. “Howe is in behind them. Now is the time we storm the breastworks. When we have reached the other side, immediately send two regiments to the Gowanus Road with orders to move south with Cornwallis, where they will find Stirling and trap him against Grant’s forces.” He shrugged indifferently. “Kill or capture all of Stirling’s forces.” He paused to be sure he had given the correct order, and concluded. “That is all. Give the orders.”
“Ja, Herr General,” von Donop said in clipped German. Three minutes later the Hessians surged over the breastworks, nearly six thousand strong, into the wildest melee any of them had ever seen. It seemed the world was filled with men running and dodging in every direction, alone, in twos and threes, shouting, while British regulars held their lines, running west, closing off the escape routes into the woods or north to Brooklyn. They did not stop to reload their muskets. Five thousand bayonets were doing their work.
H H H
To the west, on Manhattan Island, at his headquarters in New York City, General George Washington paced in his private quarters, waiting, tenuously maintaining an appearance of controlled calm. He started at the rap on the door. “Enter.”
Colonel Joseph Reed opened the door instantly. “Sir, we’ve received word there is heavy fighting at our lines on Long Island.”
Washington’s eyes flashed as he instantly asked, “Have the British sent any ships up either the Hudson or the East River? Are they preparing to attack us here at New York?”
“No, sir.”
Washington swept up his hat and cape. “Saddle my horse.”
“She’s saddled, sir, and the staff is waiting.”
Ten minutes later Washington reined in his winded mare on the flagstones surrounding the Fort George Battery on the water’s edge at the south end of town. He leaped from the saddle, jerked his telescope full length, and held his breath as he swept the Brooklyn Peninsula, while his staff dismounted and waited.
He saw the pall of white smoke hanging low over the American lines, and then he saw flashes of blue, and then red, and he sucked air. He paused and by force of will slowly glassed the coast once again, and then he cocked his head to listen to the sustained sounds of cannon and musketry and rifles and, most of all, the throaty roar of soldiers in the full flush of victory.
He rammed the telescope closed, jammed it into its scarred leather case, and turned to Reed. “We’re going over.”
Reed recoiled. “You’re going over there, sir? Dare you risk it?”
Washington swung up onto his mare, who stuttered her feet and shied, and Washington took a tight rein and spoke back to Reed. “Dare I not?”
Forty minutes later Washington hauled his mare to a stiff-legged halt at the crest of Cobble Hill, near the west end of the American lines, and again extended his telescope to study the action to the south, while his staff caught up, winded, on horses that showed sweat where the bridle straps had worked. One of them drew a pocket watch to check the time. It was half past eleven o’clock. The sun had not yet reached its zenith.
Washington sat his horse like a statue, face set, as he studied the movements of Stirling’s command, and then he lowered the telescope and picked up the red-coated regulars moving south on the Gowanus Road under Cornwallis, and coming in right behind Cornwallis, the blue coats of the Hessians.
Washington inwardly groaned at the realization that Stirling was trapped.
To the south, General Lord Stirling gritted his teeth and turned to his nearest officers. “We’re under orders to hold this road, and by heaven, we’re going to do it! Order your lines in towards the road. Regroup. Time your fire. Don’t waste cartridges. Keep up your spirits. We’ve held so far, and we can hold through the day.”
The officers barked orders and the outer reaches of the lines moved in towards the Gowanus Road, moving slowly but surely, firing, reloading as they walked, controlled, taking the enemy fire cooly, keeping their heads.
Then from the north came the sounds of a great body of advancing troops, and Stirling’s men turned and their breath came short. Half a mile up the road, moving south at a trot, were a thousand British redcoats, followed by the hated blue coats of the Hessians. Stirling’s officers instantly turned to him, silently waiting for orders that surely must come.
For ten seconds Stirling stared while his mind accepted it, and then he made his decision. “My orders were to hold here,
but if the British and Hessians are coming behind us, that means they’ve overrun the breastworks. I’m exercising my rights to initiate my own orders.” He stared long and hard at the great expanse of the Gowanus marsh, spread out to his left and slightly ahead of him. In the history of Long Island, no one had ever tried to cross the muck and quicksand and stench of the great, dead swamp.
Stirling sucked air and turned to the officer in command of his Maryland regiment and gave the orders that would forever shine in the annals of brave men doing brave deeds. “Major Gist, you and I and half of your Marylanders are going to attack the British and the Hessians to the north. When we do, all the rest of this command is going to cross that swamp.” He pointed to his left, and his officers looked and their eyes dropped and they said nothing as he spoke loudly. “When you’re past the swamp, move on north to the lines at Brooklyn. Reform there and await orders.”
Every man in the command knew that Stirling was committing his own life and those of Major Gist and a small group of men to a fight they could not win and from which too many of them would not return.
Gist turned and gave terse orders. A section of his Marylanders fell out of their regiment and formed behind him, heads high, ready. Not a man among them flinched.
Stirling faced the remainder of his command. “When we start north, the rest of you wait until we engage the column coming down, and then move into the swamp, and don’t stop.” He wanted to say more but could think of nothing, and he quietly said, “God bless you all.”
He turned back to Gist and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes were bright, his face clear. “All right. Follow me.” Stirling drew his saber and took a deep breath and started up the road at a trot. Gist was right behind, and following Gist was the small group of Marylanders, matching their leaders step for step, not one man wavering.
Four hundred yards from the oncoming British, Stirling slowed and raised his telescope. “Cornwallis! We’re facing Cornwallis!” He continued forward at a trot, and at two hundred yards suddenly veered off the road into the brush and trees, and with hand signals spread his small command along the road.