The Only Woman in the Town, and Other Tales of the American Revolution

by Sarah J. Prichard

Finding that it was bound to New York, David Bushnell took passage in it the same night.

Two days later, with a letter from Governor Trumbull to General Washington as his introduction, the young man, by command of the latter, 109 sought out General Parsons, and “requested him to furnish him with two or three men to learn the navigation of his new machine. General Parsons immediately sent for Ezra Lee, then a sergeant, and two others, who had offered their services to go on board a fireship; and, on Bushnell’s request being made known to them, they enlisted themselves under him for this novel piece of service.”

Returning to Poquahaug (the Indian name of Charles Island), the American Turtle was found safe and sound. Here the little party spent many days in experimenting with it in the waters about the island; and in the Housatonic River.

During this time the enemy had got possession of a portion of Long Island, and of Governor’s Island in the harbor—thus preventing the approach to New York by the East River.

When the appalling news of the battle of Long Island reached David Bushnell, he resolved, cost what it might of danger to himself, or hazard to the Turtle, to get it to New York with all speed.

To that end he had it conveyed by water to New Rochelle, there landed and carried across the country to the Hudson River, and presently we hear of it as being on a certain night, late in August, ready to start on its perilous enterprise.

If you will go to-day and stand where the Turtle floated that night (for the land has since that time grown outward into the sea), on your right hand across the Hudson River, you will see New 110 Jersey. At your left, across the East River, Long Island begins, with the beautiful Governor’s Island in the bay just before you, and, looking to the southward, in the distance, you will discern Staten Island.

Let us go back to that day and hour.

The precise date of the Turtle’s voyage down the bay is not given, but the time must have been on the night of either the thirtieth or thirty-first of August. We will choose the thirtieth, and imagine ourselves standing in the crowd by the side of Generals Washington and Putnam, to see the machine start.

Remember, now, where we stand. It is only last night that our army, defeated, dispirited, exhausted by battle, lay across the river on Brooklyn Heights. Behind it, busy with pickaxe and shovel, the victorious troops of Mother England were making ready to “finish” the Americans on the morrow.