With the details of the battle of Long Island, which presently followed, our narrative is not concerned, and it is sufficient for the purpose of this History to briefly summarize its results. By noon on the 27th of August that disastrous battle ended in complete victory for the British, and Washington, having sustained a heavy loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, retired with his whole remaining force, which, as slightly re-enforced the next day, did not exceed nine t housand, behind his inner intrenchments, stretching, as already noticed, from the Gowanus to the Wallabout. Fronting him was an army of fully twenty thousand, and at any moment the whole tremendous British fleet might enter the East River and cut

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In such an eventuality his unoff his retreat to Manhattan Island. conditional surrender would be but a question of a brief time, and with it the cause of American independence would in all probability The sole problem for Washington to solve receive its deathblow. Without was therefore that of the most expeditious possible escape. of the evening the By arrangements. his make to began he delay 29th all the available craft in the surrounding waters had been colThe night was lected and brought to the Brooklyn end of the ferry. fortunately dark, and not a, ship of the enemy's had yet appeared in the vicinity, while Howe's army lay before our works in complete One by one the ignorance of the design of the American general. regiments left their posts and were safely transferred to the New At dawn the business was still unfinished, but, happily, York side. Nevertheless the last boata heavy fog obscured river and land. loads had scarcely left the Brooklyn shore when the British appeared on the scene, and, indeed, their arrival was in time to capIt was a narrow escape for the patriot ture some of the stragglers. army from the jaws of certain destruction, made possible only by a It is told combination of circumstances which seems providential.