HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 287

ensued, and the retreat went bravely on. As the night wore away the tide was turning and a northeast wind began to rise, yet a large proportion of the troops had not been transported over the river. Fearful of delay, Washington sent his aide-de-camp, Colonel Alexander Scammel, to hasten the troops who were on the march. Scammel, by mistake, communicated the order to General Mifflin, who, although somewhat surprised, obeyed, and evacuated the lines with his whole force. Their arrival at the ferry, where several regiments were already waiting to embark, created much alarm and confusion.1 Sharp words passed between Washington and Mifflin in the annoyance of the moment. “It’s a dreadful mistake,” said Washington, when he found out that it was Scammel’s blunder, “and unless the troops can regain their posts before their absence is discovered by the enemy, the most disastrous consequences are to be apprehended.” With heroic cheerfulness Mifflin’s troops immediately returned to the lines, and remained there for several hours, until a second order, when they “joyfully bid those trenches a long adieu.”2 Washington, who, since the morning of the 27th, had scarcely left the lines on Long Island, and for forty-eight hours preceding that had hardly been off his horse or closed his eyes, embarked with the last company.

1 It is related, on the authority of Col. Fish, one of Washington’s aide, Judge Daggett of New Haven, and others, that the crowd and confusion among the troops who were, at this juncture, huddled on the beach, was extreme, and bordered on a panic; and that Washington, annoyed and alarmed at its probable consequences, sprang to the side of a boat into which the men were crowding, and, holding aloft a large stone with both hands, ordered them, with an impassioned oath, to leave the boat instanter, or he would “sink it to hell.” It is needless to say that the towering figure and wrathful eye of their revered general restored the soared troops to their senses, and the embarkation proceeded With more order than before.

2 Colonel Hand’s Account of the Retreat: “In the evening of the 29th of August, 1776, with several other commanding officers of corps, I received orders to attend Major-General Mifflin. When assembled, General Mifflin informed us that, in conse quence of the determination of a board of general officers, the evacuation of Long Island, where we then were, was to be attempted that night; that the commander-in-chief had honored him with the command of the covering-party, and that our corps were to be employed in that service. He then assigned us our several stations which we were to occupy as soon as it was dark, and pointed out Brooklyn church as an alarmpost, to which the whole were to repair and unitedly oppose the enemy, in case they discovered our movement and made an attack in consequence. My regiment was posted in a redoubt on the left, and in the lines on the right of the great road below Brooklyn church. Captain Henry Miller commanded in the redoubt. Part of a regi-