[768] Naval Chronicle, xxxii., 271. Field (p. 407) gives G. S. Rainer's account from the journals of Collier. Cf. Ithiel Town's Particular Services (N. Y., 1835).
[769] Evelyns in America, pp. 266, 325. Lushington's Lord Harris, cited by Field (p. 405). A letter of Earl Percy, Newtown, on Long Island, Sept. 1, in which he says that the English loss was 300, the American 3,000, with 1,500 privates, beside officers, taken prisoners, and "he flatters himself that this campaign will put a total end to the war" (MSS. in Boston Pub. Library). The Hist. MSS. Com., 2d Report, p. 48, shows a letter of Sir John Wrottesley to his wife, dated Long Island, Sept. 3.
[770] Eelking's Hülfstruppen, ch. 1; Lowell's Hessians, p. 58; and the appendix of Field. There is a French view in Hilliard d'Auberteuil's Essais, vol. ii.
[771] Bancroft made some adverse criticisms of Greene in his orig. ed., ix. ch. 4. George W. Greene replied in a pamphlet, which he has reprinted in his Life of Greene, vol. ii., in which (book ii. ch. 7) he gives his own version of the battle. Cf. Hist. Mag., Feb. and Aug., 1867.
[772] Respecting the retreat, Washington had ordered Heath (5 Force, i. 1211) to send down boats from up the Hudson, which he did (Heath, Memoirs, 57). Washington's reasons for a retreat are told in a letter of Joseph Reed, Aug. 30th, to Wm. Livingston, given in Sedgwick's Livingston, 201. (Cf. Sparks, Washington, iv. 81.) Johnston collates the authorities upon the reasons (p. 215), and thinks Gordon's account the most probable, that the American lines were unfit to stand siege operations, which Howe had begun. The proceedings of the council of war (Aug. 29th) which decided upon the retreat are in 5 Force, i. 1246, and in Onderdonk's Rev. incidents in Suffolk County, p. 161.
Bancroft (final revision, v. 38) and Wm. B. Reed (Life of Jos. Reed, i. 121-126) are at issue upon the point whether the lifting of the fog, which revealed the purpose of the English ships to get between Brooklyn and New York, took place before the retreat was ordered, or after it was nearly over. Bancroft's witnesses seem conclusive against the claim of W. B. Reed that such a revelation induced Joseph Reed to urge the retreat upon Washington (note in Bancroft, orig. ed., ix. 106; final revision, v. 38). Joseph Reed's own account is in Sedgwick's Livingston, 203. Cf. Johnston, ch. 5. Col. Tallmadge (Memoirs, p. 11) says that Washington never received the credit which was due to him for his wise and fortunate retreat from Long Island.
[773] Dawson (Westchester Co., 224) puts the British army at over forty thousand men when the campaign opened. Beatson's Naval and Mil. Memoirs, vi.; 5 Force, i.; Bancroft, orig. ed., ix. 85-90; final revision, v. 28; Johnston, 195-201, and Docs., p. 167, 176, 180; De Lancey in Jones's N. Y. during the Rev., 600. There is a MS. on the prisoners taken noted in the Bushnell Catal. (1883), no. 791. Lecky (England in the XVIIIth Century, iv. 2, N. Y. ed.) says: "The English and American authorities are hopelessly disagreed about the exact numbers engaged, and among the Americans themselves there are very great differences. Compare Ramsay, Bancroft, Stedman, and Stanhope, [Mahon]."
There has been a controversy over the death of Gen. Woodhull, who was captured a few days later, and killed, as was alleged, while trying to escape. Cf. 5 Force, ii., iii. (index); De Lancey in Jones, ii. chap. 20, and p. 593; Johnston's Observations on Jones, p. 73; Luther R. Marsh's Gen. Woodhull and his Monument (N. Y., 1848); Hist. Mag., v. 140, 172, 204, 229; Henry Onderdonk, Jr.'s Narrative of Woodhull's Capture and death (1848).
[774] Mercy Warren's Amer. Revolution; Bancroft, ix. ch. 4 and 5; final revision, v. ch. 2; Lossing's Field-Book, ii.; Gay's Pop. Hist. U. S., iii. ch. 20, etc.
[775] Lives of Washington by Marshall, ii. ch. 7; by Sparks, i. 190; by Irving, ii. ch. 31, 32; of Sullivan by Amory, p. 25; of Stirling by Duer; of Olney by Williams; of Burr by Parton, i. ch. 8, etc.