supported by a brigade under General Leslie, and by the Hessian grenadiers under Count Donop, ordered hither from the right, and to attack the Americans in front.

An hour after noon, the head of the advancing column was on the eastern bank of the Bronx, swollen by recent rains, its bed filled with frequent wood drifts. The Hessians refused to wade the tangled stream, and a temporary bridge was begun.

McDougall saw the hesitation, and instantly Ritzema and Smallwood were ordered onward, and Hamilton to open his artillery upon them as they crossed. He forthwith descended the hill, planting his two field-pieces upon a ledge of rock bearing upon the bridge, and screened from the British guns by a covert of trees. Thence he poured his fire upon the bridge. The effect was instantaneous. The bridge was repeatedly struck. Several of the workmen killed, fell headlong into the rapid stream. The Hessians were in great disorder. Fearing the check, Leslie appealed to the loyalty of the British regiments to follow their commander. Leading them a short distance below, they crossed the little river by a ford, and, resolved to capture Hamilton's guns, rushed up the hill with bayonets fixed. Again and again Hamilton's pieces flashed, riving the ascending columns down to the river's edge, Smallwood discharging repeated rounds of musketry. Leslie's troops reeled, and fell back upon the soldiers moving to his support. The Hessian infantry and Donop's grenadiers now crossed the completed bridge, emulating the impetuous courage of the British troops. The enemy united, formed a line parallel with the Americans, and again rushed up the hill, checked by the warm combat in their determined progress. Rahl now appearing from his covered height, Brooks changed the front of his militia, faced, and threw a volley in upon him. They

reloaded and were about to repeat their fire, when Harcourt's light dragoons, with kettle drums beating and trumpets braying, came charging on. The militia, panicstricken by the novel sight, fled before the hurrying horse, except a few Massachusetts men, who formed in solid mass, and offering a vain resistance, were sabred or escaped.

A slight diversion was attempted upon the American centre, which ought to have been the point of attack, but a few shot dispersed the uncertain horse.

As soon as the militia were scattered by the British dragoons, a part of McDougall's brigade, most of the infantry, and Hamilton's artillery, were ordered to retire over the hill side towards the road leading in their rear. The hill top being meanwhile gained, the Delaware troops were attacked; a part were driven across the Bronx, the residue, placed by Haslet behind a fence, were firm. Twice the foremost chasseurs and light-infantry were repulsed, when the dragoons, returning from the chase of the flying men, mounted the hill and were again about to charge. Few in number, and despairing of the hill, the militia first, and then Haslet's remaining men retired, joining the troops of New York and Maryland who had formed near by.

Washington, seeing the fierce attack upon the hill, had ordered Putnam with Beall's brigade to the support of its defenders, but coming up too late, he took a position on the plain, the Bronx on his right, serving as a diversion while McDougall marched into the camp. The judicious choice of his position, the precision, rapidity and steadiness of Hamilton's fire, his cool courage in this, the first military action of his life, excited admiration towards a lad of only nineteen years. With the gallant Brooks a lasting friendship was formed, and McDougall, amid his own

well-earned laurels, triumphed in the young soldier for whom he had vouched, and not the less that Scotland was his fatherland.

The determined resistance upon this hill was felt by Howe. This contest, short as it was, had been attended with a loss on each side, of killed and wounded, of about three hundred men.

Howe's right and centre lay upon their arms during the night, the left holding the hill they had won. Washington spent the night throwing up redoubts, felling trees, forming abatis, fraising his breast works.

So formidable were the defences, Howe deferred his intended assault upon them, waiting the arrival of Lord Percy with his own brigade and part of another, raising in the mean time redoubts to command the American lines. Late on the thirtieth the reinforcements came up, and the next morning an assault was to be made. A storm arising, Howe postponed the attempt.

Washington, while preparing against a sudden onset, was removing his hospital and baggage to the eminences in his rear. The increased strength of the enemy showed no time was to be lost. Having fired several buildings containing forage and stores that could not be removed, he retired in the night of the thirty-first, leaving a rearguard on the hills and in the woods, and formed his new lines along a chain of rocky heights towards North Castle, facing south, on which, in anticipation of his purpose, earthworks were begun.

The next morning Howe awakened to learn his enemy had decamped. A reconnaissance was ordered, columns were advanced, and a canonnade was opened on the rearguard, who retired. Four days after, not caring to incur the loss and risk of an assault upon the Americans in their strongholds, on the fifth of November, he abandoned

"Chatterton's Hill," marched to Dobb's Ferry, and ere sunset of the sixth encamped on the elevated bank above, which overlooks the fluted palisades of the Hudson.*

After the retreat of Washington to North Castle, and the advance of Knyphausen to King's Bridge, it is stated that Hamilton was selected to cover a post in the vicinity of Fort Washington. This is believed to be an error, he was not detached.

Washington had formed an opinion which was announced to Congress, "of the absolute necessity † of two armies being organized, one to act in the States lying on the east, the other in those south of the Hudson, both to be raised on a general plan, and not to be confined to any place by the terms of enlistment." This probably was a concession to the obstinate jealousies of the recent colonists. Under this opinion, Howe being in motion towards New York, he left the eastern troops with Lee at North Castle, and retired to Peekskill. There, having posted a corps under the trusty Heath for the defence of the Highlands, on the twelfth of November, with his small force he crossed the Hudson at King's Ferry, this movement being sanctioned by Congress.

The body with him was composed of troops from States west of that river.

Believing that the enemy would move into the Jerseys, his plan now was, in order to check incursions, to quarter his men at a post opposite Fort Washington, and also at Newark, Elizabethtown, Amboy and New Brunswick, expecting the reinforcements promised by Congress.

At this moment he felt a heavy blow in the fall of Fort Washington with the loss of two thousand men, artillery and arms. His letters depict his discouragement

* Appendix D.

Col. Harrison to Congress, Oct. 25.-Washington's Writings, iv. 524.

and mortification. A British detachment crossing into Jersey, he retired first beyond the Hackensack, and thence to Newark. Here was held a council of war. By a force so unequal and insufficient, retreat was inevitable. The direction was differently viewed. By some of the members it was proposed to move to Morristown, there to form a junction with the troops who were expected to wind their way from New York along the mountains of Sussex. But Washington and Greene united in the more hazardous and intrepid determination, if possible, to make a stand at Brunswick; but, at all events, to dispute the passage of the Delaware.

After a short repose, with a body not exceeding three thousand men, half-clothed, many badly armed, without cavalry, debilitated by fatigue, Washington again retreated, closely pursued by eight thousand troops under the command of Lord Cornwallis.

This retreat was undisturbed until New Brunswick was approached. There, as the rear of the Americans crossed the Raritan, the van of the British came in sight. A "spirited cannonade," in which Hamilton took part, checked the advance of the enemy. On the morning of the second of December Howe entered New Brunswick, the Americans, only half their number, having reached Princeton.

"Well do I recollect the day," said a friend, "when Hamilton's company marched into Princeton. It was a model of discipline; at their head was a boy, and I wondered at his youth; but what was my surprise when struck with his slight figure, he was pointed out to me as that Hamilton of whom we had already heard so much." "I noticed," a veteran officer relates, "a youth, a mere stripling, small, slender, almost delicate in frame, marching beside a piece of artillery, with a cocked hat pulled