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 ; 5 but it struggled successfully, and evidently reached the opposite bank without having sustained any loss, the Twenty-eighth and Thirty-fifth Begiments of British Foot, followed by the Fifth and Fortyninth Begiments of the same arm of the service, and, subsequently, by the Brigade of Hessians commanded by Colonel Donop, 6 finding " a place most practicable"-- 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

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

Concerning the same subject, General Heath, who was on the oppositeextremity of the line of the main body, wrote, ( Memoirs, 78,) "The sun "shone bright; their arms glittered; and, perhaps, troops were never " shown to more advantage, than these now appeared."

« General Howe to Lord George Germaine, "New- York, 30 November, "1776; " [Hall's] History of the Civil War in America, i., 208, 209 ; Gordon's History of the American Revolution, ii., 341 ; Stedman's History of the American War, i., 215 ; etc.