HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 277

about three hundred feet from the position of Colonel von Heeringen.1

Before midday the terrible struggle was over. The Hessian riflemen were rapidly extending their skirmish lines over and through the hills towards Gowanus, the British right wing was now massed in force upon the scene of its victory, and Earl Cornwallis was pushing, with a heavy column, down the Port Road, upon the left and rear of Stirling, whose long thin line had been anxiously awaiting, since early dawn, the impending onset of actual battle.

While this was going on, a similar scene was enacting in the direction of Gowanus. It was at early dawn, as we have seen, that Washington and the inhabitants of the city were aroused by the rattle of musketry which announced the advance of Grant's division near Greenwood. In the city all was anxiety and trepidation, for the appearance and movements of the British fleet betokened the attack which had been so long anticipated. Washington was in the saddle by daybreak, and the drum-beat resounded from all the alarm-posts. But as the hours passed, and the vessels, with the exception of the Roebuck, remained quietly at anchor, Washington, relieved of his anxiety as to the immediate danger of the city, hastened over to the lines at Brooklyn, where, from the eminence upon which Fort Putnam stood, he became the agonized witness of the rout and slaughter of Sullivan’s command, to whom he could send no succor without unduly weakening the lines. As, with troubled spirit, he gazed upon the scene, he observed, emerging from the woods on his left, a heavy British column, which descended the hills in the direction of Stirling’s division. It was Earl Cornwallis, who had been detached, with the larger part of the right wing of the British army, to co-operate with General Grant in his movements on Gowanus Bay, by occupying the junction of the Port and Gowanus roads. Stirling, meanwhile, doubtless wondermg at Grant's forbearance, was totally unconscious of Cornwallis’

1 Heeringen, in his report, thus speaks of his prize: “John Sullivan is a lawyer, and had previously been a servant; but he is a man of genius, whom the rebels will badly miss. He was brought before me. I ordered him to be searched, and found upon his person the original orders of General Washington, from which it was evident that he bad the best troops under his command, that every thing depended upon the maintaining possession of the woods, and that he had 8,000 men.”