When near the upper border of Trinity Cemetery (One hundred and Fifty-fifth Street), he was attacked on the flank by Colonel Stirling, who was pressing aeross the island to intercept him. ** He continued the retreat, and reached the fort, after losing a few killed, and about thirty made prisoners. On the border of the cemetery, and near the fort, severe skirmishes took place, and many of the Hessian pursuers were slain. The defense was gallant; but pike, ball, and bayonet, used by five thousand men, overpowered the weakened patriots, and at meridian they were nearly all gathered within the ramparts of the fort. General Howe now sent another summons to surrender. Perceiving further resistance to be vain, Magaw complied, *** and at half past one o'clockNov. 16, 1776 the British flag was waving where the Union banner was unfurled defiantly in the morning. The garrison, amounting to more than two thousand men, were made prisoners of war, **** and with these the jails of New York were speedily gorged. It was a terrible disaster for the little Republican army. Of all the gallant men who battled there on that day, not one is known among the living. Probably the last survivor of them all, and the last living relic of the British army in America, was the venerable John Battin, who died at his residence in Greenwich Street, in the city of New York, on the twenty-ninth of June, 1852, at the age of one hundred years and four months. His body is entombed in Trinity Cemetery, upon the very ground where he fought for his king seventy-six years before. (v)
Washington, standing upon Fort Lee with his general officers, and the author of "Common Sense," (Thomas Paine) saw some of the slaughter near the doomed fortress, and
* Stirling's landing-plaee was at about the foot of One hundred and Fifty-second Street, at the head of the Eighth Avenue, three fourths of a mile below the High Bridge, "within the third line of defense whieh crossed the island."—Marshall, i., 117. The road up which he passed is still there, and, as mentioned in the note on page 816, the lines of the redoubt on the "wooded promontory' (Stedman, i., 218) are quite visible.
** It was at this stage of affairs that Washington, with Putnam, Greene, and Mercer, crossed the Hudson, ascended the heights, and from Morris's house surveyed the scene of operations. Within fifteen minutes after they had left that mansion, Stirling and his victorious troops approached and took possession of it. It was a narrow eseape for the chief commanders.
*** At this moment Captain Gooch came over from Fort Lee with a note from Washington, assuring Magaw that if he could hold on till night the garrison should be brought off. It was too late.
**** The number of regulars was about two thousand. There were six or seven hundred militia, volunteers, and stragglers, all of whom were probably included in Howe's report of "two thousand six hundred prisoners." The loss of the Americans, in killed and wounded, did not exceed one hundred; that of the royal army was almost one thousand. The Hessians, as usual, suffered most severely. Washington was blamed for yielding to the opinions of Greene in endeavoring to hold this fort. Lee, who was opposed to it from the beginning, wrote to Washington, "O! general, why would you be overpersuaded by men of inferior judgment to your own? It was a cursed affair."
* (v) Mr. Battin came to America with the British army in 1776, and was engaged in the battles near Brooklyn, at White Plains, and Fort Washington. After the British went into winter quarters in New York, and Cornwallis's division (to which he was attached), returned from Trenton and Princeton, he took lessons in horsemanship in the Middle Dutch church (now the city post-office), then converted into a circus for a riding-school. He then joined the cavalry regiment of Colonel Bird, in which he held the offices of orderly sergeant and cornet. He was in New York during the "hard winter" of 1779-80, and assisted in dragging British cannons over the frozen bay from Fort George to Staten Island. He was always averse to fighting the Americans, yet, as in duty bound', he was faithful to his king. While Prince William Henry, afterward William the Fourth, was here, he was one of his body-guard. Twice he was sent to England by Sir Henry Clinton with dispatches, and being one of the most active men in the corps, he was frequently employed by the commander-in-chief in important services. With hundreds more, he remained in New York when the British army departed in 1783, resolved to make America his future home. He married soon after the war, and at the time of his death had lived with his wife (now aged eighty-three) sixty-five years. For more than fifty years, he walked every morning upon first the old, and then the new, or present Battery, unmindful of inclement weather. He always enjoyed remarkable health. He continued exercise in the street near his dwelling until within a few days of his death, though with increasing feebleness of step. The gay young men of half a century ago (now gray-haired old men) remember his well-conducted house of refreshment, corner of John and Nassau Streets, where they enjoyed oyster suppers and good liquors. The preceding sketch of his person is from a daguerreotype by Insley, made a few months before his departure.
Washington's Disappointment.—Wayne's Expedition near Bull's Ferry.—Lee's Attack on Paulus's Hook.