"Having neglected when I left York to recommend a proper person for D.A. General [deputy adjutant-general] to the army under my command, I beg to mention Lieut Col: Robert Troup, and desire the Favor you will propose him to Congress for that office; my knowledge of his Honor, Merit, Integrity induces me apart from any personal regard, thus earnestly to wish his promotion."—MS. Letter.
After the war, Troup studied law in New York, became intimate with Hamilton and Burr, and was one of the very few who retained his friendship for the latter after the duel. Colonel Troup was appointed the first United States District Judge for New York.
Van Wagenen, Lieutenant Gerrit H.—Son of Huybert Van Wagenen and Angenietje Vredenburg, was born in New York at No. 5 Beekman Slip (now Fulton Street), 1753, January 21st. He went to Canada in August, 1775, as second lieutenant in the Eighth Company of the First Regiment of New York State troops under Colonel McDougall. Was at the storming of Quebec, in the columns of General Montgomery. In May, 1776, he was sent to New York, and then to Philadelphia, in charge of some prisoners. On returning to New York and finding that the British were landing on Long Island, he offered his services to General Sullivan, and was sent by him with four other officers to the Jamaica Pass, as described in the [chapter on the battle]. The party were all taken prisoners, and he continued a prisoner twenty-two months, when he was exchanged. He then received an appointment in the Commissary of Prisoners Department, and continued in that office about three years. (For a full account of his services, see the "Gen. and Biog. Record," vol. viii., page 44). In 1783, March 11th, he married Sarah, daughter of Derrick Brinckerhoff and Rachel Van Ranst. He now engaged in the hardware business with his father at No. 5 Beekman Slip, where the business had been carried on by his father since about 1760. The volume entitled "New York during the Revolution" says, under date of 1767, "In Beekman Slip, near Queen Street, was the extensive hardware store of Huybert Van Wagenen, whose sign of the golden broad axe was so often referred to in the annals of the period." He lived at Beekman Slip till 1811, when he removed to 69 Gold Street, near Beekman, and in 1821 removed with his family to Oxford, Chenango County, where he died, 1835, November 20th.
Webb, Lieutenant-Colonel S.B.—Born in Wethersfield, Conn., December, 1753. He went to Boston on the Lexington alarm, and was at Bunker Hill as Captain Chester's lieutenant. He became aid to General Putnam and then to Washington in 1776. In 1777 he raised a Continental regiment in Connecticut, and served as its colonel to the end of the war, though for two years he was a prisoner on parole. His lieutenant-colonel was Ebenezer Huntington, and major, John P. Wyllys, both young officers in this campaign. Colonel Webb resided in New York until 1789, and then removed to Claverack, where he died December 3d, 1807.
Woodhull, General.—There is a good sketch of General Woodhull in "Thompson's History of Long Island," vol. ii. In regard to his capture, Lieutenant Jabez Fitch, of Huntington's regiment, says in his narrative: "On ye 6th [of Sept.] Genll Woodhull, of ye Long Island malitia, was sent from ye Mentor to ye Hospital at Newatrect [New Utrecht]; he was an aged Gentleman, & was taken by a party of ye Enemy's light Horse at Jameca, & altho he was not taken in arms, yet those Bloodthirsty Savages cut & wounded him in ye head & other parts of ye body, with their Swords, in a most Inhuman manner of which wounds he Died at ye Hospital; and altho ye Director of their affairs took but little care to preserve his Life yet they were so generous to his Lady, as to endulge her with liberty to carry home ye General's corpse and bury it with Deacence."
THE MAPS.
[PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND AND THE BROOKLYN DEFENCES.]
The outlines and topography of this "Plan" have been compiled from Ratzer's and United States Coast Survey maps. Bernard Ratzer was a British Engineer, ranking as lieutenant in the Sixtieth Royal American Regiment of Foot in 1756. In 1767-8, he made an official survey of New York and part of Long Island with many details, the accuracy of which is beyond question. There is an advertisement in the Connecticut Gazette for October 25th, 1776, in which Samuel Loudon (late printer and bookseller in New York, but now in Norwich) offers for sale "Ratzer's elegant map of New York and its Invirons from Actual Surveys, showing the present unhappy seat of War." This survey on Long Island extends nearly to the line of the hills. All beyond is reproduced from maps of the coast survey, farm lines, and Brooklyn maps. The whole represents the ground almost exactly as it lay in 1776. One correction should be made at the Jamaica Pass. The name belongs to the dotted roundabout line which represents the original pass, the straight road having been cut afterwards.