A bright autumnal "sun shed its full lustre on their polished arms; and " the rich array of dress and military equipage gave an " imposing grandeur to the scene, as they advanced, in " all the pomp and circumstances of War, to give us " battle;" ^ and, with the main bodies of thetwQ armies, each resting on its arms, anxious spectators of the scene,* the Battalion of Hessians which had been designated for the forlorn-hope, in the proposed assault, and the British Regiments who had been detached for its sujDport, moved, steadily, toward the Bronx, in front of the hill, on their mission of death.

It is probable that the little river, where the assaulting party attempted to pass it, was deeper than elsewhere, above or below that place, as it has been, during the entire period of our personal knowledge of the locality ; and the Hessian forlorn-hope, consequently, found "some difficulty in passing" the stream;* but it struggled successfully, and evidently reached the opposite bank without having sustained any loss, the Twenty-eighth and Thirty-fifth Regiments of British Foot, followed by the Fifth and Fortyninth Regiments of the same arm of the service, and, subsequently, by the Brigade of Hessians commanded by Colonel Donop,* finding " a place most practica- "ble" -- probably " the ford," where the fugitive New Englanders and their Hessian pursuers had passed the river, earlier in the morning, was the more practicable place referred to ' -- hastening forward, in the

8 Captain William Hull, quoted in The Revolutionary Services and Civit Life of General William Hull, by his daughter, 54.