On the left of the line of march of the Royal Army and on the western bank of the Bronx-river, which flowed through a marshy valley of some extent, at its base, arose the bold and rocky height which was known , then, and is still known, as " Chatterton's-hill." It is one of the range of high grounds, on the western side of the Bronx, on which the line of entrenched encampments had been thrown up by detachments from the American Army, the latter then occupying the Heights of Harlem, for the purpose of preventing the enemy from crossing the Bronx and closing the line of communication between the Army and the country -- the same line of defensive works, indeed, which subsequently covered the retreat of the Army, from Harlem Heights to the White Plains -- audit extended, northwardly, to within a short distance from the American lines -- the latter on the opposite side of the little stream and of the marshy intervale -- and really, to some extent, it commanded the right and centre of them. 6 It had been occupied, and an earthwork of small pretensions had been thrown up, on it, probably by the Regiment of Massachusetts Militia, commanded by Colonel John Brooks, then of General Lincoln's Division and subsequently Governor of Massachusetts ; ' and, on the morning of Monday, the

6 Memoir of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, prepared by himself, 14.

6 Our personal knowledge of the ground is our authority for this description of it.