280 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

all his men—more than 250 of whom belonged to Smallwood’s gallant Maryland regiment, the flower of the American army1—he fled over the hills, until unable to elude pursuit; but disdaining to yield to a British subject, he sought out and surrendered himself to De Heister, and was immediately sent on board the British flagship Eagle, where he found Sullivan and others fellow-prisoners of war.

Thus ended the battle at high noon. Ere evening drew its pall around the battle-field, fully one-half of the five thousand patriot army, which had that morning gone forth to battle for their country, were dead, wounded, or imprisoned.

The victorious Britons, as we have already seen, were with difficulty restrained from carrying the rebel lines by storm; and it is quite probable that, in the heat and flush of the moment, they would have succeeded. Yet the struggle would have been fearfully desperate, and the victory dearly bought. For behind those redoubts were 3,000 determined troops, animated by the presence of Washington and Putnam, and rendered desperate by the rout and misfortunes of their brave compatriots under Sullivan and Stirling, to which they had just been witnesses. Ignorant of their real force, but knowing that desperation would nerve them with new strength, Howe, profiting by the wholesome experience which be had gained at Bunker Hill a short time before, wisely declined the attempt. His artillery was not up; he yet lacked fascines for filling the ditches, axes for cutting the abatis, and scaling-ladders to mount the parapets.2 Preferring, therefore, to save the further loss of blood, and to secure his already certain victory by regular approaches, he withdrew his troops to a hollow way in front of the

1 Composed chiefly of young men of the most prominent and influential families of Maryland. Two hundred and fifty-six of them were slain in the desperate struggle with Cornwallis’ grenadiers, near the Cortelyou house. These noble martyrs of the Maryland and Delaware regiments were buried on a small island of dry ground, scarcely an acre in extent, which formerly rose out of the marshy salt-meadow on the farm of Adrian Van Brunt. This spot, then, and for some time afterwards, covered with trees and undergrowth, was carefully preserved Intact from axe or plough during Mr. Van Brunt's lifetime; but the remorseless surveyor’s lines have passed over it, and its site if; now far below the grade of surrounding streets. Third avenue intersects its westerly end, and Seventh and Eighth streets indicate two of its sides. (T.W. Field, the late T. 0. Talmadge, and others.)

2 Testimony of Captain Montressor before a Parliamentary Committee in 1779.