noitering from the maintops, were hurriedly brought to a close, by the discovery that the rebels were preparing a hot reception for them, with two fire-ships. A sudden and rapid flight down the river, back to their anchoring ground, enabled them to escape the conflagration of the fire-ships, which floated harmlessly until they were consumed.1 The morning of the twenty-second of August dawned with tropical brilliancy, upon a scene of unequaled interest to the spectators of both armies. Long before the sun had risen, the British army had been under arms; and from the various camps the entire force was marching, with the loud strains of martial music, to the place of embarkation. The men-of-war had quit their anchorage, and were standing up the bay under easy sail, with open ports, and guns ready for action. At the landing on Staten Island, seventy-five fleet boats, attended by three bateaux and two galleys, received four thousand of the Hessian troops on board; and, at the firing of a signal gun, their thousand oars dipped almost simultaneously into the waters of the bay. Another corps, of five thousand men, was embarked upon the transports, which now took up their position under 'During the interval which had elapsed since his arrival, the spies of Gen. Howe had penetrated every camp of the Americans, and haunted every entrenchment. Gen. Greene reported on the 18th, "Our outguards suspect that there are spies about the camp. The sentries have fired half a dozen times a night the three preceding nights." This dangerous service was not undertaken alone by the loyalists. At the request of General Mercer, Captain John Meserole, of Bushwick, adventured upon the hazardous attempt to reconnoitre the British camp on Staten Island at night, for the purpose of gaining information that would enable the general to attack an isolated post under cover of the darkness of the next night. This perilous enterprise Capt. Meserole accomplished, aided by his intimate knowledge of the island and its secret paths.-See Gen. Mercer's Report, American Archives, 1, fifth series, 369. the guns of the men-of-war, attended by ten bateaux to aid in their landing. In another instant the surface of the bay between the two islands was covered with the flotilla, rowing swiftly towards the Long Island shore. In advance sailed the galleys and bateaux, over the shoal water where the great ships could not float, firing from their bow-guns as they approached the land. The scene was not less magnificent than appalling. The greatest naval and military force which had ever left the shores of England, was now assembled in the harbor of New York; for the mightiest power upon the globe had put forth its greatest strength to crush its rebellious colonies. Thirty-seven men-of-war guarded a transport fleet of four hundred vessels, freighted with enormous trains of artillery, and every conceivable munition of war; with troops of artillery and cavalry horses, and provisions for the sustenance of the thirty-five thousand soldiers and sailors who had been borne across the ocean in their hulls. Amid all the stirring scenes which ninety years past have witnessed in the great metropolis of the western world, nothing, which will compare in magnitude and grandeur with that upon which dawned the morning of the 22d of August, 1776, has human eye since beheld in America. 'One element of the invading army has escaped the notice of historians, who have not failed to comment upon its heterogeneous character. Orders had been issued that the old laws of England should be revived against Sorners, Egyptians, or Bohemians, as the people called Gipsies were termed ; and many of them were impressed into the ranks. These erratic people took the first occasion that offered to desert, and many of them never returned to England.- Simpson's History of the Gipsies. 2 Sir George Collier, who commanded the Rainbow, the leading vessel of the convoy, on the landing of the Hessians on the 22d of August, makes this statement in his narrative.-See Appendix 24. Almost a century has elapsed; and the gigantic schemes of commerce, and the awful energies of warfare, have alike failed to assemble a fleet so numerous, or an invading force so vast, upon the waters of the Western ocean. So thoroughly planned had been the movement, that, by eight o'clock, the flotilla was under way; and before mid-day fifteen thousand men, with forty pieces of artillery, and the horses of the regiment of light dragoons, had been landed at Denyse's point, then used as a ferry-landing from Staten Island. On the approach of the enemy, Col. Hand's riflemen had slowly withdrawn from the shore, only pausing to deliver a shot or two, at long range, on the advancing boats. In New York, the gloom which followed the announcement of the landing of the enemy, was only relieved by the bustle of the preparations for defense. Bodies of the militia, which could scarcely be dignified by the title of regiments, were hurried over the ferry to Brooklyn; apprehension, almost attaining to despair, filling their hearts with gloom and sadness. We have the records of numbers of these soldiers, unaccustomed to the presence of an angry foe, to testify to the awful dread which over-clouded every mind, at this fateful period. Nor is this a subject for surprise, to one who reflects upon the gigantic disparity of the forces soon to meet in the terrible onset of battle. To most of our countrymen, who crossed the East River on the morning of the 22d of August, it was a self-devotion almost equivalent to voluntary martyrdom. 1Capt. afterwards Lord Harris, declares the landing to have been made without opposition; but there is reason to believe that the flotilla was fired upon by a battery. Thronged as the day had been with portentous events, and shadowed by forebodings, it was not permitted to close without a war of the elements, which added to the horrors that already hung over the American camp in Brooklyn. A dark cloud rapidly gathered in the west, as the day waned, and in a few moments overspread the sky in that direction. It was evident that it was freighted with electrical bolts, that would soon burst, with all the violence of our summer thunder gusts, upon the devoted camp. In a few moments the roar of the artillery of heaven, and the flashes of the sheet lightning, were appalling to the stoutest warrior. For three hours the crash of thunder, following instantly the blinding glare of light, was almost incessant; and when morning dawned, the victims of elemental rage lay in more than one tent, never to be appalled with the sound of battle again. A captain and two lieutenants, of McDougall's regiment, were killed by one flash; and when the canvass of another fallen tent was raised, it disclosed the bodies of ten soldiers, who had in one moment been summoned to the presence of their Maker. It was under the influence of such an ominous event that the American army was to meet an enemy for the first time in the open field.1 For minute accounts of this terrible exhibition of electrical power, see Document 15. Also American Archives, Copied in Document 22. CHAPTER V. THE BATTLES OF FLATBUSH, GOWANUS, AND BROOKLYN. The landing of the British, at Denyse's ferry, decided the point of attack, uncertainty about which had filled the mind of the American commander with grave anxiety.' Preparations to receive the enemy on the wooded heights of Flatbush and Gowanus, were now hurriedly made; while Col. Hand's riflemen hung upon their front, to embarrass and check their progress as long as possible. The consternation which seized the minds of the inhabitants, impelled them to instant flight. Such fearful stories had been narrated of the barbarity of the Hessian invaders, that nothing was expected but indiscrimate massacre at their hands. Houses and lands, and personal effects, were abandoned by the farmers of Flatbush and New Utrecht, who fled to the Brooklyn lines, or to Connecticut, for safety. The cattle were driven from the farms by squads of American soldiers, or were left in the field or the stall by their owners. The food with which the tables had been spread was even left untasted, so absorbing was the fear of the approaching enemy.2 "Before the landing of the enemy on Long Island, the point of attack could not be known, or any satisfactory judgment formed of their intentions. It might be on Long Island, or Bergen, or directly upon the city."- Washington's letter to Congress, Sept. 8th, 1776. 2 An illustration of the mutual distrust with which the British and the residents of Long Island viewed each other, is afforded by an incident |