270 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

western boundary of Greenwood Cemetery. Placing Atlee’s force in ambush as skirmishers, in an orchard1 on the south side of the Coast or Gowanus road, near its intersection with the present 18th street, Stirling, at the head of Hazlet’s and Smallwood’s regiments, took his position on the slopes of the hills, between 18th and 20th streets, a little to the northwest of “Battle Hill,” in Greenwood.2 A company of riflemen were posted, partly on the edge of the woods and partly along a hedge near the foot of the hill, and some of the Maryland regiment took position at a wooded hill on a curve of the road at the foot of the present 23d street, then called “Blokje’s

1 This was Wynant Bennett’s orchard, a few trees of which yet remain in the southwest part of Greenwood Cemetery.

2 Traditions current among the old inhabitants of the Gowanus neighborhood, and worthy of credit, especially mark “Battle Hill” as a place of historic interest. Here it is said a small body of riflemen bad been stationed, among the trees which then crowned that eminence; and when the right wing of the British army (under Cornwallis), unconscious of their presence, had approached within range, these unerring marksmen commenced their fire, each ball bringing down an officer. Unfortunately for them, the hill was surrounded before they could escape, and they were all shot down. “Here, too, in all probability, they were afterward interred; and thus enriched by the blood of patriots—thus mingling with their dust-we may safely suppose that this mount of burial received its first consecration.”

Furman, in his Notes on Brooklyn, written in 1824, when opportunities for learning authentic facts were good, relates the following: “In this battle, part of the British army marched down a lane or road (Port Road) leading from the Brush tavern (at Valley Grove) to Gowanus, pursuing the Americans. Several of the American riflemen, in order to be more secure, and, at the same time, more effectually to succeed in their dosigns, had posted themselves in the high trees near the road. One of them, whose name is now partially forgotten, shot the English Major Grant: in this fie passed unobserved. Again lie loaded his deadly rifle and fired: another English officer fell. He was then marked, and a platoon ordered to advance and fire into the tree; which order was immediately carried into execution, and the rifleman fell to the ground, dead. After the battle was over, the two British officers were buried in a field near where they fell, and their graves fenced in with some posts and rails, where their remains still rest. But, ‘for an example to the rebels,’ they refused to the American rifleman the rites of sepulchre; and his remains were exposed on the ground till the flesh was rotted and torn off his bones by the fowls of the air. After a considerable length of time, in a heavy gale of wind, a large tree was uprooted; in the cavity formed by which some friends to the Americans, notwithstanding the prohibition of the English, placed the brave soldier’s bones to mingle in peace with their kindred earth.”

Mr. H. E. Pierrepont, of this city, informs us that along the line of trees and hedge at the funeral entrance of Greenwood Cemetery, the American riflemen, as tradition relates, made a desperate stand. And old Mr. Garret Bergen used to relate, as a boyish recollection, that so deadly and determined was their fire, which seemed mainly directed at the officers, that a British officer came rushing into his father's house, and dropping into a chair, exclaimed that “he’d be d—d if he was going to expose himself to that fire; that the d—d rascals picked out all the officers”