Ban-ners and pennons scarcely moved in a breeze too gentle to float them out before the anxious beholders. The bands of twenty regiments sent forth strains of martial music, and loud war songs were sung by the grenadiers of Donop, as they moved from the extreme right, to join in the attack. But all these sounds were drowned at momentary intervals, in the thunders of the cannonade. The Americans, in general plainly clothed, and insufficiently armed, presented a striking contrast, to their royal antagonists, who were complete in ap-

BATTLE OF WHITEPLAINS, ETC. 49 pointments; and whose polished arms and superb equipments reflecting the rays of the midday sun, lighted up the south-eastern horizon with an effulgence that overpowered the sight. Near the Bronx, on the enemy's left, the approaching contest wore a more ominous aspect; for there, the smoke from the British artillery rose upward in lofty curls and hung over the field of battle, like the dark canopy of death. Before one o'clock in the afternoon, the head of the enemy's column of attack had reached the Bronx. The hostile point of approach was about a mile or more south from the main body of the American army. In consequence of recent rains the river was unusually high, and its passage was extremely difficult, its bed, at the foot of Chatterton Hill, being much obstructed by accumulated trunks of trees which had fallen in from time immemorial, and by remains of ancient beaver-dams. When they reached the banks of the stream, the Hessians loudly expressed their unwillingness to ford it. Preparations were thereupon immediately made, by arti-ficers and men for the construction of a temporary bridge, by felling trees, and collecting rails, and other materials near at hand. But McDougall and his officers were not inatten-tive to these proceedings.