The situation at the Brooklyn lines was relieved on the 29th by the famous retreat of our army to New York. If Howe had surprised us by an unexpected manoeuvre on the 27th, Washington was now to surprise the British with a different manoeuvre, conducted with greater skill. “A fine retreat,” says Jomini, “should meet with a reward equal to that given for a great victory.” History assigns such a reward to Washington at Long Island.

This success the extrication of the army from what was soon felt to be a dangerous position was not to be achieved without a previous two days’ experience of great hardship, trial, and despondency on the part of the troops; and unceasing anxiety and watchfulness on the part of the commander-in-chief. The night of the 27th had closed cheerlessly on the devoted Americans. The hills had been wrested from them; many of their best officers and soldiers were slain or prisoners; before them stood the whole British army, flushed with success, and liable at any hour to rush upon their works, and in their rear flowed a deep, wide river.

Washington realized the position the moment of the retreat from the passes, and immediately took measures to guard against further disaster. Satisfied that Howe had his whole force with him, and that an attack was not to be apprehended at any other point, he ordered forward more troops to replace his losses and strengthen the lines. Mifflin brought down from Harlem Heights the two well-drilled Pennsylvania regiments under Colonels Magaw and Shee, with some others; and Glover’s Massachusetts was sent on from Fellows’ brigade. These all crossed to Long Island early on the morning of the 28th. At the same time, the afternoon of the 27th, Washington sent word to General Mercer in New Jersey to march all the forces under his command “immediately to Powle’s Hook"; they might be needed in New York, they might be needed on Long Island. By the morning of the 28th, the commander-in-chief had drawn to the Brooklyn lines all the troops that could be spared from other points, and all with which he proposed to resist the British if they attempted to carry his position by storm. He had on that side the largest and best part of his army. The whole of Greene’s division was there, the whole of Spencer’s, half of Sullivan’s, one third of Putnam’s, and a part of Heath’s in all not less than thirty-five regiments or detachments, which numbered together something over nine thousand five hundred men fit for duty.

Had all things been relatively equal, the Americans within the lines, according to military experience, should have been well able to hold that front. But there was a total inequality of conditions. The enemy were thoroughly equipped, disciplined, and provided for. They were an army of professional soldiers, superior to any that could be brought against them the world over. Thus far they had carried everything before them, and were eager to achieve still greater victories. Behind the Brooklyn works stood a poorly armed, badly officered, and for the most part untrained mass of men, hurriedly gathered into the semblance of an army. The events of the previous day, moreover, had greatly depressed their spirits. Not a few of those who had been engaged in or witnessed the battle were badly demoralized. To make matters worse, the very elements seemed to combine against them. The two days they were still to remain on the island were days of “extraordinary wet.” It rained almost continuously, and much of the time heavily. No fact is better attested than this. August 28th, writes Colonel Little, “weather very rainy;” “29th, very rainy.” Major Tallmadge speaks of the fatigue as having been aggravated by the “heavy rain.” “The heavy rain which fell two days and nights without intermission, etc.,” said the council which voted to retreat. Pastor Shewkirk in his diary notes the weather particularly: “Wednesday 28th,” he writes, ... “in the afternoon we had extraordinary heavy rains and thunder.” The flashes of the cannons were intermixed with flashes of lightning. On the 29th, “in the afternoon, such heavy rain fell again as can hardly be remembered.” To all this deluge our soldiers were exposed with but little shelter. Necessity required that they should be at the lines, and constantly on the watch, ready to repel any attempt to storm them. When they lay down in the trenches at brief intervals for rest, they kept their arms from the wet as they could. Cooking was out of the question, and the men were compelled to take up with the unaccustomed fare of hard biscuits and raw pork. Their wretched plight is referred to in more than one of the letters of the day. Writes General Scott: “You may judge of our situation, subject to almost incessant rains, without baggage or tents, and almost without victuals or drink, and in some part of the lines the men were standing up to their middles in water.” Captain Olney puts it on record that “the rain fell in such torrents that the water was soon ankle deep in the fort. Yet with all these inconveniences, and a powerful enemy just without musket-shot, our men could not be kept awake.” Captain Graydon, of Shee’s Pennsylvanians, says in his well-known “Memoirs:” “We had no tents to screen us from the pitiless pelting, nor, if we had them, would it have comported with the incessant vigilance required to have availed ourselves of them, as, in fact, it might be said that we lay upon our arms during the whole of our stay upon the island. In the article of food we were little better off.” Under the circumstances could Washington’s force have withstood the shock of a determined assault by the enemy?

In spite, however, of weather, hunger, and fatigue, there was many a brave man in the American camp who kept up heart and obeyed all orders with spirit. One thing is certain, the British were not permitted to suspect the distressed condition of our army. Our pickets and riflemen, thrown out in front of the works, put on a bold face. On the 28th there was skirmishing the greater part of the day, and in the evening, as Washington reports, “it was pretty smart.” Writing from the trenches on the 29th, Colonel Silliman says: “Our enemy have encamped in plain sight of our camp at the distance of about a mile and a half. We have had no general engagement yet, but no day passes without some smart and hot skirmishes between different parties, in which the success is sometimes one way and sometimes another. We are in constant expectation of a general battle; no one can be here long without getting pretty well acquainted with the whistling of cannon and musket shot.” Scarcely any particulars of these encounters are preserved, though one of them, at least, appears to have been quite an important affair. The enemy had determined to approach the lines by regular siege rather than hazard an assault, and late in the afternoon of the 28th they advanced in some force to break ground for the first parallel. The point selected was doubtless the high ground between Vanderbilt and Clinton avenues, on the line of De Kalb. As to what occurred we have but the briefest account, and that is from the pen of Colonel Little. “On the morning of the 28th,” he writes, “the enemy were encamped on the heights in front of our encampment. Firing was kept up on both sides from the right to the left. Firing on both sides in front of Fort Putnam. About sunset the enemy pushed to recover the ground we had taken (about 100 rods) in front of the fort. The fire was very hot; the enemy gave way, and our people recovered the ground. The firing ceased, and our people retired to the fort. The enemy took possession again, and on the morning of the 30th [29th] had a breastwork there 60 rods long and 150 rods distant from Fort Putnam.” It was this move of the British, more than any incident since the battle, that determined Washington’s future course.

During all these trying hours since the defeat on the 27th, the most conspicuous figure to be seen, now at one point and now at another of the threatened lines, was that of the commander-in-chief. Wherever his inspiring presence seemed necessary, there he was to be found. He cheered the troops night and day. All that the soldiers endured, he endured. For forty-eight hours, or the whole of the 28th and 29th, he took no rest whatever, and was hardly once off his horse. As he rode among the men in the storm he spoke to some in person, and everywhere he gave directions, while his aids were as tireless as their Chief in assisting him.

But circumstanced as the army was, it was inevitable that the question should come up: Can the defence of the Brooklyn front be continued without great hazard? It could not have escaped the notice of a single soldier on that side, that if, with the river in their rear, the enemy should succeed in penetrating the lines, or the fleet be able to command the crossing, they would all be lost. There was no safety but in retreat; and for twenty-four hours from the morning of the 29th, all the energies of the commander-in-chief were directed towards making the retreat successful.

To few incidents of the Revolution does greater interest attach than to this final scene in the operations on Long Island. The formal decision to abandon this point was made by a council of war, held late in the day of the 29th, at the house of Phillip Livingston, then absent as a member of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia. The mansion made historic by this event stood on the line of Hicks Street, just south of Joralemon. There were present at the council, the commander-in-chief, Major-Generals Putnam and Spencer, and Brigadier-Generals Mifflin, McDougall, Parsons, Scott, Wadsworth, and Fellows. As far as known, Scott alone of these generals has left us any thing in regard to what transpired on the occasion beyond the final result. He preserves the interesting fact that when the proposition to retreat was presented it took him by surprise and he as suddenly objected to it, “from an aversion to giving the enemy a single inch of ground.” It was the soil of his own State. As a member of the New York Convention and of the Committee of Safety, and now as a general officer, he had spent months in uninterrupted preparations to defend that soil, and on the first impulse of the moment the thought of yielding any more of it to the invaders was not to be entertained. But he was soon “convinced by unanswerable reasons,” and the vote of the council was unanimous for retreat. Eight separate reasons were embodied in the decision. First. A defeat had been sustained on the 27th, and the woods lost where it was proposed to make “a principal stand.” Second. The loss in officers and men had occasioned great confusion and discouragement among the troops. Third. The rain had injured the arms and much of the ammunition, and the soldiers were so worn out, that it was feared that they could not be kept at the lines by any order. Fourth. The enemy appeared to be endeavoring to get their ships into the East River to cut off communication with New York, but the wind as yet had not served them. Fifth. There were no obstructions sunk in the Channel between Long and Governor’s Island, and the council was assured by General McDougall, “from his own nautic experience,” that small ships could sail up by that channel; the hulks, also, sunk between Governor’s Island and the Battery were regarded as insufficient obstructions for that passage. Sixth. Though the lines were fortified by several strong redoubts, the breastworks were weak, being “abattised with brush” only in some places, and the enemy might break through them. Seventh. The divided state of the army made a defence precarious. Eighth. Several British men-of-war had worked their way into Flushing Bay from the Sound, and with their assistance the enemy could cross a force to the mainland in Westchester County, and gain the American rear in the vicinity of King’s Bridge. In view of these considerations a retreat was considered imperative.

This was the official record of the council’s action as afterwards transmitted to Congress. It is not to be inferred, however, that retreat was not thought of, or that nothing was done to effect it until the council met. That Washington had foreseen the necessity of the move, that he discussed it with others, and that he had already begun the necessary preparations, is obvious both from the record and from all that occurred during the day. The council did no more than to coincide in his views and confirm his judgment.

The first thing necessary was to provide all the transportation available in order to accomplish the retreat in the shortest time possible after beginning it. There were boats at the Brooklyn ferry and across at New York, but these were too few for the purpose. Accordingly, on the forenoon of the 29th, Washington sent an order through Mifflin to General Heath at King’s Bridge to the following effect:

LONG ISLAND, August 29th, 1776.

DEAR GENERAL We have many battalions from New Jersey which are coming over to relieve others here. You will please therefore to order every flat bottomed boat and other craft at your post, fit for transporting troops, down to New York as soon as possible. They must be manned by some of Colonel Hutchinson’s men and sent without the least delay. I write by order of the General. I am Affectionately Yours

MIFFLIN.

At about the same time, Colonel Trumbull, the commissary-general, was directed to carry a verbal order to Assistant Quartermaster Hughes at New York, “to impress every kind of water craft from Hell Gate on the Sound to Spuyten Duyvil Creek that could be kept afloat and that had either sails or oars, and have them all in the east harbor of the City by dark." These two orders were carried out with great energy, promptness, and secrecy by all who had any part in their execution. Heath “immediately complied” with what Mifflin had written, and sent down all his boats under Hutchinson’s men from Salem, who, like Glover’s from Marblehead, were, many of them, the best of sailors. He brooked the less delay, perhaps, because he saw at once that Washington’s “real intention” was, not to be reinforced from New Jersey, but to retreat from Long Island. Hughes, on his part, was untiring, and rendered the greatest service. He would have been mistaken this day rather for the master of a military school, than for what he had been the master of a classical one. For twenty-two hours, as his biographer tells us, he never dismounted from his horse, but superintended the collection of the vessels from all points, and at evening had them ready for their purpose.

The final withdrawal of the troops from the lines was effected under the cover of a plausible general order, which was the only one known to have been issued by the commander-in-chief while on Long Island. This order now comes to light for the first time, and is important as serving to correct the improbable though standard theory that the regiments were moved from their posts under the impression that they were to make a night attack upon the enemy. The order as actually given was far more rational, and less likely to excite suspicion as to its true intent. In the first place, the sick, “being an encumbrance to the army” were directed to be sent to the hospital, their arms and accoutrements taken with them, and from there to be conveyed across to New York and reported to Surgeon-General Morgan. In the next place, the order announced that troops under General Mercer were expected that afternoon from New Jersey, with whom it was proposed to relieve a proportionate number of the regiments on Long Island, and “make a change in the situation of them.” In view of the distressed condition of most of the troops at the lines, the propriety of such a “change” was obvious; and in all probability Washington did originally intend to make the relief. And last, as it was apparently undecided what regiments were to be relieved, they were all, or the greater part of them, directed “to parade with their arms, accoutrements, and knapsacks, at 7 o’clock, at the head of their encampments and there wait for orders.” On the evening of the 29th, accordingly, we find the troops ready at their camps and the lines to march off at a moment’s notice, and all prepared for a retreat by the most natural arrangement that could have been devised to conceal the real design.

At dark, the withdrawal began. As one regiment moved away towards the ferry another would have its situation “changed” to fill the gap, or extended from right to left. Every move at first was conducted busily, yet quietly and without confusion. Colonel Little, referring to his part this night, leaves the simple record that the general ordered each regiment to be paraded on their own parades at seven o’clock P.M., and wait for orders. “We received orders,” he says, “to strike our tents and march, with our baggage, to New York.” Colonel Douglas writes: “I received orders to call in my guard all, and march immediately with the utmost silence.” Hitchcock’s Rhode Islanders carried their baggage and camp equipage to the boats on their shoulders “through mud and mire and not a ray of light visible.” The embarkation was made from the ferry the present Fulton Ferry where General McDougall superintended the movements. Between seven and eight o’clock the boats were manned by Glover’s and Hutchinson’s men, and they went to work with sailor-like cheer and despatch. The militia and levies were the first to cross, though there was some vexing delay in getting them off. Unluckily, too, about nine o’clock the adverse wind and tide and pouring rain began to make the navigation of the river difficult. A north-easter sprang up, and Glover’s men could do nothing with the sloops and sail-boats. If the row-boats only were to be depended upon, all the troops could not be ferried over before morning. Discouraged at the prospect, McDougall sent Colonel Grayson, of Washington’s staff, to inform the general as to how matters stood, but unable to find him Grayson returned, and McDougall went on with the embarkation in spite of its difficulties. Most fortunately, however, at eleven o’clock there was another and a favorable change in the weather. The north-east wind died away, and soon after a gentle breeze set in from the south-west, of which the sailors took quick advantage, and the passage was now “direct, easy, and expeditious.” The troops were pushed across as fast as possible in every variety of craft row-boats, flat-boats, whale-boats, pettiaugers, sloops, and sail-boats some of which were loaded to within three inches of the water, which was “as smooth as glass.”

Meanwhile nearly a fatal blunder occurred at the lines. Early in the evening, a force had been selected, consisting of Hand’s, Smallwood’s, Haslet’s, Shee’s, Magaw’s, and Chester’s regiments, to remain at the works to the last and cover the retreat. General Mifflin commanded the party. Smallwood’s men were stationed in Fort Putnam, part of Hand’s under Captain Miller in the redoubt on the left, and the rest at the lines on the right of the main road; and the other regiments near them. Brooklyn Church was to be the alarm-post, where the covering party was to concentrate in case the enemy attacked during the night. About two o’clock in the morning, Major Scammell, one of Sullivan’s aids now serving with Washington, mistook his orders and started Mifflin’s entire command for the ferry. All the regiments had left the lines and were marching down the main road, when Washington, who seemed to be everywhere during the night, met them and exclaimed in astonishment that unless the lines were immediately re-manned “the most disagreeable consequences” might follow, as every thing then was in confusion at the ferry. Mifflin’s party promptly faced about and reoccupied their stations until dawn, when Providence again “interposed in favor of the retreating army.” To have attempted to withdraw in clear daylight would have been a hazardous experiment for these regiments, but just before dawn a heavy fog began to settle over Long Island, and the covering party was safe. So dense was this “heavenly messenger,” as Gordon happily describes it, that it effectually hid the American lines from the British pickets. When the final order, therefore, came about sunrise for Mifflin’s men to retire to the ferry, they were enabled to do so under cover of the fog without exciting any suspicion of their movements in the enemy’s camp. “We kept up fires, with outposts stationed,” says Lieutenant-Colonel Chambers, “until all the rest were over. We left the lines after it was fair day and then came off.” As our soldiers withdrew they distinctly heard the sound of pickaxe and shovel at the British works. Before seven o’clock the entire force had crossed to New York, and among the last to leave was the commander-in-chief. “General Washington,” adds Chambers, “saw the last over himself.”

By the army the retreat was welcomed as a great relief, a salvation from probable calamity. Not a few appreciated its completeness and success as a strictly military move. “This evacuation,” writes one, “is a masterpiece.” “That grand retreat from the Island which will ever reflect honour to our Generals,” says another. “Considering the difficulties,” is Greene’s criticism, “it was the best effected retreat I ever read or heard of.” “It was executed,” says Scott, “with unexpected success.” But in the country at large it was generally associated with the defeat of the 27th, and the skilfulness with which it was conducted little compensated for the fact that the retreat was forced upon us.