HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 273

four hundred riflemen, on a reconnoissance along the slope of the bills in part of his lines, and to the eastward of his centre, being all this time utterly ignorant of the fact that Clinton bad gained his rear. De Heister, however, did not advance, but continued to blaze away at the redoubt, in order to keep the attention of the Americans in that direction, until late in the forenoon, when signal-guns from the northward assured him that Clinton had gained the American rear. Then, ordering Count Donop to charge the redoubt, he followed with the remainder of his division. The redoubt was quickly carried, and the impetuous Hessian yagers eagerly pressed forward into the woods south of the Port Road, driving the American riflemen before them, and taking possession of the coverts and lurking places from which they dislodged them; so that, in a brief space of time, the latter found themselves more than matched by their German foes. The grenadiers followed the yagers into the woods, admirably preserving their lines , and slowly but surely pressing back the Americans at the point of the bayonet upon the main body, now fatally weakened by the withdrawal of four hundred men, which formed Sullivan's reconnoissance. That general, alarmed by Clinton's cannon, which revealed to him the fact that his flank had been turned, and fully alive to the danger of his position, was now in full retreat for the American lines. But, as his imperilled troops hurried down the rough and densely wooded slope of Mount Prospect, they were met on the open plain of Bedford by the British light infantry and dragoons and hurled back again upon the Hessian bayonets, which bristled along the woods. Meanwhile, a heavy force from Clinton and Cornwallis’ left, near Bedford, had cut the American lines at the “Clove Road,” and Col. Miles’ panic-stricken troops were flying for their lives. Parties of Americans, also, retreating from the onset of the Hessians towards the Bedford road,

wing, it will thus be seen, occupied a long, irregular line, in which were breaks of fearful length, which the Hessians, later in the day, took fatal advantage of. In consequence of the peculiar formation of the line, the extreme left wing was much nearer the extreme right than the centre, and when called into action to re-enforce the front, actually exchanged positions. From this circumstance, the accounts of the Gowanus battle have been found so conflicting as to be almost incomprehensible, and its varying phases can only be thus explained. It was thus that a portion of the Delaware regiment met and repulsed the advanced squads of the Second British Grenadiers on the extreme left, near Tenth street and Fifth avenue.”