Not till it was too late did the revolutionists discover that they had been made the victims of a mere feint,—one of the simplest tricks of war, though in this case shrewdly managed. It was true that the transports which were kept plying across the narrow waters of the Sound did, for an hour after daybreak, carry considerable reinforcements to the allied forces which were engaged in the attack on the Brooklyn intrenchments; but this was continued only until General von Blücken felt sure that he had enough men on Long Island completely to engross the enemy’s attention. During all the rest of the morning the transports, which seemed to be full of men on their southward passage and empty on their return, were really bringing back to the mainland more troops than they carried over. Each one, on its southward trip, was manned on the side towards the revolutionists’ lines with dummy figures, among whom a few men moved about to give them the appearance of life. On their return these figures were hidden below the bulwarks, and the wounded, after whom the transports were really sent, were taken below decks where they could not be seen. Several complete regiments, whose services were found to be unnecessary for the success of the feint, were brought back hidden in the same way, and rejoined their divisions before the northern forts.
About the middle of the afternoon the allies drew back from Brooklyn towards Great Neck, and the revolutionists recovered all the ground which had been wrested from them in the first surprise. But their assailants showed no signs of leaving the island, and were kept constantly marching and countermarching so as to produce the conviction that they were in greater numbers than was the fact. This belief, corroborated by the reports of the outposts north of the city as to the immense number of men who had been transported across the Sound, was still further strengthened in the minds of the revolutionists by a fierce attack which a small brigade made on them from the side towards Coney Island during the night. A regiment of German hussars actually dashed upon a camp of over ten thousand men on the extreme southern wing, sabred their way through it, and carried off several prisoners. The boldness of the affair convinced the revolutionists that a strong force had arrived on that side of them, ready to attack them there next morning while the army resting at Great Neck renewed the fight from the northward. The officers at the New York defences reported that only an occasional gun had been fired from the works of the allies there during the day, and that a sham attack had been made on a bastion about the centre of the line, but that very few men were to be seen.
All but about one hundred and fifty thousand of the revolutionary forces were sent to the Brooklyn side; and it was determined to take advantage of the earliest dawn to turn the tables on the foreigners by surprising them, without giving them the opportunity to repeat their tactics of the day before.
A greater surprise than anything they meditated awaited the revolutionists. General von Blücken had been busily, though secretly, at work all that day and night gathering forces at a point just above Mount Vernon and near the centre of the opposing line. Before midnight he had massed there more men than were behind the whole extent of the works in front of him. A show of activity and watchfulness was kept up in the allied camp on Long Island; but before daybreak all the troops sent there to join in the feint had been withdrawn again, except a couple of flying horse-batteries and a single squadron of cavalry, which were ordered to retire whenever attacked and keep out of range,—as they could easily do, owing to the almost total lack of cavalry among the revolutionists with which to pursue them. When the besieged “surprised” the besiegers’ camp, at daybreak the next morning, they found only empty tents and smouldering watch-fires which had been burning untended for several hours.
They were allowed scant time to reflect upon the probable meaning of this trick. Before they had really discovered what had happened, from the allied parallels beyond New Rochelle a single gun boomed forth in the clear morning air. It was Von Blücken’s signal for a general attack. A thousand cannon mouths answered its summons, and told the revolutionists on Long Island that deadly work was beginning for their friends in the weakened intrenchments above the city. They strove with desperate speed to return in time to be of assistance; but they were not able.
This attack was no feint. In overwhelming numbers the allies poured over the earthworks which confronted them. Redoubt after redoubt, breastwork after breastwork, fort after fort was carried at the point of the bayonet. The resistance made was desperate, and the retreat sullen and slow. But the attenuated line of defenders at no moment was able to stop or even delay the advance of the solid masses of men which were hurled against it, first at one point, then at another. The carnage was frightful. Whole regiments on both sides were literally swept out of existence. But not for an instant did the attacking columns waver. On and on they pressed: now charging with a rush like an avalanche upon some fortification in which a more than usually stubborn resistance was being offered them; now moving in compact and splendid order along the routes which, long before he had ordered the assault, had been marked down for them to follow by the brilliant strategist commanding them.
It was not yet noon when Von Blücken, coming up from the rear, found the enemy in flight from a redoubt near the centre of their last line of defence, and the flag of his own Fatherland waving above it. Riding to the fort, he ordered its guns to be instantly turned in either direction upon the works which still held out. The revolutionist forces from Brooklyn, hurrying pell-mell through the city, on their arrival at the front found the allies in full possession of a half-dozen portions of the last line of works, with guns already mounted in them which commanded the city itself. Nowhere was a tenable position left in their hands. Had the allies been desirous of doing so, they could at once have entered the city. There was no power which could prevent them from taking possession in the morning. It was seen that the city must be evacuated.
All night the ferry-boats, which offered the only means of escape to westward and southward, were kept hurrying back and forth between the city and the New Jersey shore, loaded with the retreat. Slowly the rear-guard of the revolutionists drew backward down the city as the troops below crossed the river. In almost every block from which they retreated they left “infernal machines” of more or less elaborate construction, calculated to explode after a set time and destroy everything about them, or to burst into flames after the same interval and fire the buildings in which they were placed. Some fires were set directly by impatient hands, and it was not long after midnight that the allied sentries reported the city in flames.