Knowlton fell at a point which is now the corner of 153d street and the boulevard. Washington reinforced his gallant soldiers, about which he writes: "Finding they wanted a support I advanced part of Colonel Griffith's and Colonel Richardson's Maryland regiments, with some detachments from the eastern regiments who were nearest the place of action." Putnam, Reed and other prominent officers took command, charging upon the British with great intrepidity, and driving them through a piece of woods, where they fought desperately from behind trees and bushes, into a buckwheat field. By this time it was nearly noon.

The British officers at Bloomingdale Heights had meanwhile become very much distressed by the disappearance in the early morning of Leslie and his light infantry, and sent detachments to follow him and discover if he was in any trouble. The firing at Harlem Heights finally reached their

VOL. XXI.-No. 1.- 2

ears. Other reinforcements of Highlanders and Hessians were hurried on the double-quick to his relief. Lieutenant Harris, of the Fifth Regiment of Foot says: "The 16th of September we were ordered to stand to our arms at II A.M., and were instantly trotted about three miles (without a halt to draw breath) to support a battalion of light infantry, which had imprudently advanced so far without support as to be in great danger of being cut off."

Colonel von Donop, of the Hessian division, in his report to General von Heister, says: "But for my Yagers, two regiments of Highlanders and the British infantry would have all, perhaps, been captured, for they were attacked by a force four times their number: and General Leslie had made a great blunder in sending these brave fellows so far in advance into the woods without support." Major Baurmeister states in his report: “The English light infantry fell into an ambuscade of four thousand men, and if the Grenadiers and especially the Hessian Yagers had not arrived in time to help them no one of these brave light infantry would have escaped. They lost 70 dead and 200 wounded. The enemy must have lost very severely, because no Yager had any ammunition left, and all the Highlanders had fired their last shot." Stedman, the English historian, says: "The action was carried on by reinforcements on both sides, and became very warm. The enemy, however, possessed a great advantage from the circumstance of engaging within half a mile of their intrenched camp, whence they could be supplied with fresh troops as often as occasion required.'

It was a party of these reinforcing troops of the British, who climbed the elevation on which stands the Lawrence mansion, and encountered General Greene's forces. Other detachments proceeded further along the low shore before mounting the heights, and joined their comrades in the buckwheat field just as the sun crossed the meridian. The battle was here maintained for nearly two hours with an obstinacy rarely equaled in the history of modern warfare. The combatants were in scouts and squads, in battalions and in brigades. The battle raged between eleven A.M. and half-past two o'clock P.M., from about 155th street nearly to Manhattanville. Washington's army on Harlem Heights then numbered hardly 8,000, and yet 4,900 were engaged according to a careful estimate from reports of officers in each detachment. The British were superior in numbers, not less than five or six thousand of their choicest troops, with seven field pieces, being in the action. Their reinforcements plunged in wherever there was an opening. Large bodies could move considerable distances. without being seen. It was an irregular battle from the very character of the picturesque, undulating, leafy heights, with their rocky and almost

inaccessible sides-natural butresses, supporting plains, ridges, shaded ravines, and small hills upon hills. The British finally broke and ran down the steep hill-Breakneck hill as it was called, which made the old Kingsbridge road so formidable for several generations-the Americans chasing them mocking their bugles, above a mile and a half," wrote Reed, "nearly two miles" wrote Knox, taking shelter in an orchard, finally, near the eighth mile stone, when Washington prudently sent Tilgman to order the victorious soldiers back to the lines.

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Silliman's statement as to distance agrees with those of Reed and Knox. He says "the fire continued very heavy from the musketry and from field-pieces about two hours, in which time our people drove the regulars back from post to post about a mile and a half. Had the battle occurred south of Manhattanville, as some writers of eminence have believed, and stated, and the enemy's valiant troops been driven a mile and a half, the victorious American soldiers would have found themselves in the immediate vicinity of the Apthorpe house, and could have paid their respects to the British generals!

Rev. Dr. Maunsell Van Rensselaer writes to the author on this point: "Considering the number of the accounts of this affair, the different position of the writers on the ground, the various places in which the different

events occurred, the length of time occupied by them, the interests of the writers, and the character of the ground, the general agreement of the main facts is wonderful. They all group themselves around the terse and clear statement of Washington, describing, as became the commander-inchief, the beginning and the end, and his own part in it. His report is that of a calm eye-witness, and according to that, the second action began on the wooded knoll which is now Trinity Cemetery. This was on the western part of the farm of my great-grandfather, John Watkins, which reached from the south line of the Morris place-about 159th street-to the north line of the Bradhurst place, about 150th street. The remains of a hill on the east side of the Boulevard, south of 148th street, correspond exactly to the site of the famous buckwheat field' in General Clinton's statements.' Dr. Van Rensselaer refers above to a pen and ink sketch of the battlefield in the diary of Rev. Ezra Stiles, D.D., now in the library of Yale College. It accompanies the following entry: "Oct 18. 1776. When I was at Fairfield I saw Sloss Hobart Esqr. a sensible gent. and a member of the New York convention. He gave me the following draught of the action of 16th September, which began near the 10th mile stone and ended at the 8th mile stone." (The 10th mile stone was just above the Morris House, the 8th mile stone at 125th street.) From the General Clinton who was in the action Mr Hobart received the account. General Clinton

said he was ordered next day to bury the dead left on the field and buried 78 of the enemy, the most of which fell in the buckwheat field." Washington also in his dispatches refers to the burial of the enemy's dead, which would have been wholly impossible for the American soldiers to have done had the British troops fallen within their own lines on Bloomingdale Heights. The pen and ink sketch shows very clearly that the site of the battle-field was precisely where the cannon balls have come to light, as if to add their silent testimony to the settlement of an intensely interesting question.

The success of this day turned the current of American affairs. It was, considering all the circumstances, and its chain of results, one of the most brilliant and important battles of any fought during the Revolutionary War. The untrained American troops, with their first opportunity, had fought the enemy in open field, upon equal footing, and virtually defeated the entire plan of the British commanders with regard to northward and eastward conquest. The blunder of Leslie occasioned the succession of British failures, which inspired the Americans with confidence in themselves. General Howe was deeply mortified. His general orders next morning rebuked Leslie for imprudence. He did not care to talk about

From a recent photograph by Miss Catharine Weed Barnes.

the engagement. No detailed account of it was reported, he spoke of it as "an affair of outposts" while others called it a scrape. It was nevertheless a battle, and was so esteemed at the time by all parties concerned. And it was not only the first victory of the Americans in a well contested action with the flower of the British soldiery, coloring all the future of America, but it added materially to the caution which clogged Howe's subsequent movements. He regarded Harlem Heights henceforward as invulnerable. He wrote to the ministry, "the enemy is too strongly posted to be attacked in front, and innumerable difficulties are