To those who fell in the engagement we may render here a grateful tribute, though something more than this is due. Their services and sacrifices are deserving of remembrance rather by a lasting memorial; for men died here who showed not less of individual worth and heroism than others who are immortalized on victorious fields. Thus at the Flatbush Road we find Philip Johnston, colonel of the Jersey battalion, which formed part of the guard there during the night. He was the son of the worthy Judge Samuel Johnston, of the town of Sidney in Hunterdon County. In his youth he had been a student at Princeton, but, dropping his books, he took up the sword for the colonies in the French war, from which he returned with honor. The troubles with Great Britain found him ready again to fight in defence of common rights and his native soil. Parting from his wife and child with touching affection, he took the field with his regiment, and when attacked on Long Island he showed all the qualities which mark the true soldier. A gentleman of high principle, an officer of fine presence, one of the strongest men in the army, he fought near Sullivan with the greatest bravery until he fell mortally wounded. That August 27th was his thirty-fifth birthday.
Equally glorious and regretted was the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Caleb Parry, of Atlee's regiment, which occurred, as already noticed, at an earlier hour and in another part of the field. He too was in the prime of life, and eager to render the country some good service. A representative colonist, descended from an ancient and honorable family long seated in North Wales, and a man of polish and culture, he stood ready for any sacrifice demanded of him at this crisis. Parry came from Chester County, Pennsylvania, leaving a wife and five children, and crossed with his regiment to Long Island four days before the battle. Under what circumstances he fell has been told. As they crossed the line of Greenwood Cemetery to take position at or near "Battle Hill," the little command was greeted with a sudden though harmless volley from the enemy. The men shrunk and fell back, but Atlee rallied and Parry cheered them on, and they gained the hill. It was here, while engaged in an officer's highest duty, turning men to the enemy by his own example, that the fatal bullet pierced his brow. When some future monument rises from Greenwood to commemorate the struggle of this day, it can bear no more fitting line among its inscriptions than this tribute of Brodhead's, "Parry died like a hero."
Captain Edward Veazey, of the Marylanders, belonged to the family of Veazeys who settled in Cecil County, on the eastern shore of that State, and who traced their lineage back to the Norman De Veazies of the eleventh century. The captain was fifty-five years of age, took up the colonial cause at the start, raised the Seventh Independent Company of Maryland troops, and was among the earliest to fall in Stirling's line.
Captain Joseph Jewett, of Huntington's Continentals, perhaps defending himself to the last, even when escape was impossible, was three times stabbed with British bayonets after surrendering his sword. Cared for by a humane surgeon, but still lingering in pain, he died on the morning of the 29th, and was buried in the Bennett orchard, near Twenty-second Street and Third Avenue. He left a family at Lyme, on the Connecticut, where he lived, and from where he went to join the army on the Lexington alarm. A soldier who fought on Long Island remembers him as "an officer much respected and beloved, of elegant and commanding appearance, and of unquestionable bravery."
The officers and men of the artillery, who fought the six pieces we had in the action, covered themselves with honor. They were "the flower" of Knox's regiment, picked for a field fight. Captain Carpenter, of Providence, fell in Stirling's command, leaving a widow to mourn him. Captain John Johnston, of Boston, was desperately wounded, but recovered under the care of Surgeon Eustis. The record which John Callender, of the same place, made for himself is a familiar story. To wipe out the stain of an undeserved sentence passed upon him after Bunker Hill, by which he was cashiered, he rejoined the artillery as a private soldier, and then, as a "cadet," fought his piece on Long Island until the enemy's bayonets were at his breast. Upon his exchange as prisoner a year later, Washington restored him to his rank as captain-lieutenant, and he served honorably to the end of the war. Harmanus Rutgers, one of the patriotic Rutgers brothers in New York, serving, it would seem, as a gunner, was struck in the breast by a cannon-shot, and fell dead at his post. The tradition preserved in his family is that he was the first man killed in the battle. Knox, hearing how well his men had done, wrote to his wife: "I have met with some loss in my regiment. They fought like heroes and are gone to glory."
Of three others known to have been killed during the day, and who probably complete the list of officers, we have no more than the fact that they fell. They were Lieutenant Joseph Jacquet, of Miles' first battalion, and Lieutenants David Sloan and Charles Taylor, of the second battalion—all apparently from Chester County, Pennsylvania. Hardly more than three or four names of the private soldiers who were killed have been preserved, owing doubtless to the fact that, if they were ever known, it was not until long after, when no rolls would show their fate.
To the roll of the dead must be added also the honored name of General Nathaniel Woodhull, of Long Island. On the day after the battle, a party of British light horse, under Oliver De Lancey, rode out on the Jamaica Road and surprised the general at an inn, where without provocation he was cruelly hacked in the head and arm, and carried off a prisoner. He survived until the 20th, when he died at New Utrecht. His loss was greatly regretted, for he was a man of energy and ability, and had the success of the Revolutionary cause most fervently at heart.[159]
This battle was regarded at the time as one of very great importance, and the result created a deep impression on both sides of the water. In England they had long been waiting for the news, and the king became depressed at the British delay in moving; in addition, the first reports, coming by way of France, were unfavorable. But at last, at three o'clock on the morning of October 10th, Major Cuyler, of Howe's staff, reached the government with the official accounts of the victory. Immediately, as Walpole tells us, the Court was filled with "an extravagance of joy." The relief was so great that it was displayed with "the utmost ostentation." The king at once determined to send Howe "a red riband;" and Lord Mansfield, who had thrown the weight of his great legal abilities against America, was created an earl. The Mayor and Corporation of York voted an address to his Majesty "on the victory at Long Island;" at Leeds they rang the bells, lighted windows, fired cannon, and started a huge bonfire which made the town "quite luminous;" and at Halifax, Colne, Huddersfield, and many other places, similar rejoicings were held. At Limerick Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell ordered the garrison under arms, and fired three volleys "on account of the success of his Majesty's troops at Long Island;" and, for the same reason, in the evening "a number of ladies and gentlemen were elegantly entertained at dinner by the bishop." From Paris Silas Deane wrote to Congress: "The want of instructions or intelligence or remittances, with the late check on Long Island, has sunk our credit to nothing." In Amsterdam, the centre of exchange for all Europe, English stocks rose; but the Dutch, with characteristic shrewdness, failed to accept "our misfortune" as final, and took the opportunity to sell out. In London Tory circles they considered the American war as practically over, and some began to talk of new schemes of colonial government.
As for America, the defeat, coupled with the subsequent retreat, everywhere carried alarm and keen disappointment. Greene speaks of the "panic" in the county. But at the same time many brave voices were raised to counteract despondency. Parsons, in the army, wrote: "I think the trial of that day far from being any discouragement, but in general our men behaved with firmness." Bartlett, in Congress, sent word home to New Hampshire that he hoped the event would only make our generals more careful in their future operations. "We have lost a battle and a small island," said Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, in one of the sessions a few days later, "but we have not lost a State. Why then should we be discouraged? Or why should we be discouraged even if we had lost a State? If there were but one State left, still that one should peril all for independence." "The panic may seize whom it will," wrote John Adams; "it shall not seize me." But the grandest words inspired by the pervading anxiety were those penned by Abigail Adams, the noble wife of the Massachusetts delegate. "We have had many stories," she wrote from Braintree, September 9th, "concerning engagements upon Long Island this week, of our lines being forced and of our troops returning to New York. Particulars we have not yet obtained. All we can learn is that we have been unsuccessful there; having many men as prisoners, among whom are Lord Stirling and General Sullivan. But if we should be defeated, I think we shall not be conquered. A people fired, like the Romans, with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But, like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible!"