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Archiver > NYBROOKLYN > 2000-03 > 0951944164
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Subject: [NYBROOKLYN] The Battle of Brooklyn Part 3
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 15:56:04 EST
Two smaller forces now swung into action. At the Flatbush Pass in the center
of the American line, five thousand Hessians attacked eight hundred Americans
under General Sullivan, Realizing from the signal gun that Howe has somehow
worked his way around him, Sullivan tried to fall back but couldn't. Trapped
between Howe's light infantry coming down from Bedford and bayonet-wielding
Hessians pouring up from Flatbush, his men broke and were slaughtered. "the
greater of the rifleman," reported one German officer, "were pierced with the
bayonet to trees"" A jubilant British officer glosted: " It was a fine sight
to see with what alacrity they dispatched the Rebels with their bayonets
after we had surrounded them so they could not resist." Hundreds of
Americans threw down their weapons and raced to reach safety behind the
lines in Brooklyn Heights. Sullivan himself was captured in a cornfield near
what is now Battle Pass in Prospect Park. It was over before noon. Although
most of the American dead were buried on the grounds of the Flatbush Reformed
Dutch Church, area farmers were still turning up bones in their fields well
into the next century.
At Gowanus, on the far right of the American line, General James Grant
had meanwhile thrown several thousand redcoats and two thousand Roya;
Marines, supported by two companies of Long Island Tories, against two
thousand troops from Maryland Pennsylvania, and Delaware commanded by General
Alexander. Alexander's men fought gamely to keep control of the high
ground--now called Battle Hill in Greenwood Cemetery--until the collapse of
the American center at Flatbush made their position hopeless. Redcoats from
Bedford were closing in behind them, while Hessians were crashing through the
woods on their left. To give the rest of his force time to escape across the
tidal flats along Goeanus Creek, Alexander counterattacked with barley four
hundred Maryland Troops.
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