[150] The supposition that Stirling commanded outside of the lines on Long Island is erroneous. He had command of the reserves in camp (Orders of August 25th), and was the proper officer to call upon to reinforce any part of the outer line in case of attack. Sullivan says, "Lord Stirling commanded the main body without the lines;" by which is meant that he was with the principal force that went out, as he was. Until the attack, the general officer of the day was in charge of the outposts. Sullivan governed himself according to circumstances. He was to be second in command under Putnam within the lines, he writes; but the situation soon required his presence outside, where he was also familiar with the dispositions.
[151] The Hessians are usually credited with taking a prominent part in this battle, whereas the day was practically decided before they came up. Necessarily our guards at the Flatbush Pass knew that the British were in their rear as soon or sooner than the Hessians knew it. They therefore turned to meet this unexpected enemy. What Olney and Henshaw say settles this point. Olney states that Cornell marched towards the lines on hearing firing in his rear, leaving Olney to reinforce his pickets in front of the Hessians. Henshaw writes that, finding the enemy between him and the lines, and knowing no orders could come to retreat, he marched for camp. Cornell and Henshaw were old officers, knew the ground thoroughly, and saw at once that they must retreat. No mention is made of the Hessians. Lieutenant Olney was in front of the latter some time before he followed after his regiment. Howe reports that it was the British who took our guns in that part of the field. If there was any such severe fighting at that pass, as Von Elking makes out, would the Hessians have lost but two men killed—all that they lost during the day? There are errors of fact in this writer's account. The most that the Hessians did was to chase, capture, and sometimes bayonet those of our soldiers whom the British had already routed. The real fighting of the day was done by Howe's English troops, and the very best he had, principally the light infantry, grenadiers, dragoons, and Highlanders.
[152] During this fighting by the British infantry, Cornwallis and the reserves moved straight down the Jamaica Road. The Thirty-third Regiment and the grenadiers in their pursuit of some of the American fugitives approached the fortified lines between Fort Greene and Fort Putnam, and showed such eagerness to storm them that, according to Howe's report, it required repeated orders to hold them back. On the part of the Americans, Little reports that the enemy "attempted to force our lines, but soon retreated, being met with a smart fire from our breastworks;" and Little, no doubt, was at Fort Greene, an eye-witness.
[153] The conduct of the Marylanders was soldierly beyond praise. But some accounts subject them to a singular martyrdom, killing every man of the two hundred and fifty-nine reported missing. As there was but one officer wounded, or at the most one killed and one wounded in the party, according to the official returns, the proportion of men killed was doubtless small. The letter in Force, 5th Series, vol. i., p. 1232, referring to this attack, bears every evidence of having been written by Gist himself, and it is quoted as his in the text. In this letter Gist speaks of being surrounded on all sides, and then adds: "The impracticability of forcing through such a formidable body of troops rendered it the height of rashness and imprudence to risk the lives of our remaining party in a third attempt, and it became necessary for us to endeavor to effect our escape in the best manner we possibly could." This shows that there were many left to disperse. Their prudence was equal to their courage.
[154] Before Stirling's fight with Cornwallis took place, the mill and little bridge at the further end of the mill-dam across Gowanus Creek were burned down. Colonel Smallwood charged "a certain Colonel Ward" with the act, and claimed that the destruction of the bridge prevented the escape of Stirling and the Marylanders with him. Mr. Bancroft and Mr. Field repeat the charge. But Smallwood is contradicted both by Stirling and Gist, the former stating that he could not get by the British on the road full half a mile beyond the bridge, and the latter adding that he was driven back into the woods. The charge had no foundation, the bridge not having been set on fire until after the enemy took possession of the road above (see Ewing's sketch). The "Colonel Ward" was Colonel Jonathan Ward, of Massachusetts; and the probability is that he and Colonel Tyler, both of whom lost some men during the day, had been sent out on the Port Road, but, finding Cornwallis there, retreated, burning mill and bridge to obstruct the latter's possible advance in that quarter.
[155] The reinforcements that came over during the forenoon, besides Douglas's regiment, were Sage's and Selden's, which, with Douglas, completed Wadsworth's brigade on that side; Charles Webb's, of McDougall's brigade; and Scott, with Malcom and Humphrey's men, or the rest of his brigade.
[156] "Colonel Huntington's and the Maryland regiment suffered the most. General Parsons says that some of our men fought through the enemy not less than 7 or 8 times that day. He lay out himself part of the night concealed in a swamp, from whence he made his escape with 7 men to our lines about break of day the next morning."—Letter from an Officer, Conn. Journal, September 18th, 1776. "I came in with 7 men yesterday morning, much fatigued."—General Parsons, August 29th, 1776.
[157] Responsibility for the Defeat.—According to some of our more recent versions of this battle, the disaster is to be referred to the wilful disobedience, criminal inattention, and total incapacity of General Putnam. Several writers make the charge so pointedly and upon such an array of fact, that the reader is left to wonder how all this should have escaped the notice of the commander-in-chief at the time, and why Putnam was not immediately court-martialled and dismissed the service, instead of being continued, as he was, in important commands. The charge is the more serious as it is advanced by so respectable an authority as Mr. Bancroft. Mr. Field, Mr. Dawson, and Dr. Stiles, following the latter, incline strongly in the same direction.
Mr. Bancroft first assails Putnam for sending Stirling out to the right when word came in that the enemy were advancing and our pickets flying. This is criticised as "a rash order," because it sent Stirling to a position which was "dangerous in the extreme," with the Gowanus marsh in his rear. But as to this, it only needs to be said that Putnam's written instructions from Washington were imperative to prevent the enemy from passing the hills and approaching the works. It would have been a clear disregard of Washington's intention had Putnam not sent Stirling out precisely as he did. The enemy were coming up from the Narrows and must be checked "at all hazards." Furthermore, the position Stirling took up at about Nineteenth Street was actually safer than any other on the outpost line. His right could not be turned, for it rested on the bay, and he could see every movement of the fleet. His left was well covered by Parsons, and no one could have imagined his rear in danger with the other outposts guarding it for more than three miles. As a matter of fact, Stirling was nearer the lines than either Miles or Wyllys.
Again, it is charged that when Putnam and Sullivan visited the extreme left on the 26th "the movements of the enemy plainly disclosed that it was their intention to get into the rear of the Americans by the Jamaica Road," yet nothing was done. The foundation of this is probably a statement of Brodhead's and another by Miles to the effect that these generals might have themselves observed that the enemy were preparing for the Jamaica move. But if the intentions of the latter were so obvious at that time, it is proper to ask why it was not equally obvious on the next morning that they were actually carrying out their intentions, and why Miles and Brodhead did not so report at an early hour. These officers were rightly impressed with the conviction that the enemy would come by way of Jamaica, but it is certain that the enemy made no observable move in that direction from Flatlands, where they had been for three days, until nine o'clock that night. So says Howe. It was clearly in the plan of the British to give our outposts no ground for suspecting a flanking manœuvre. Their movements were far from being "plainly disclosed." The quotation given by Mr. Bancroft in this connection, namely, that "Washington's order to secure the Jamaica Road was not obeyed," unfortunately appears as original in a "Review of the War" published in 1779 and written by some irresponsible individual in England, who could neither have known what Washington's orders were, nor whether any attempt was made to carry them out.