led by a detachment of about twenty Light Dragoons, capering and brandishing their sabres, who leaped the fence of a wheat-field, situated at the foot of the hill on which the Regiment commanded by Colonel Malcolm had been posted. 6 The horsemen evidently supposed the hill was unoccupied ; and, it is probable, they expected to turn the flank of the American lines, and to secure an easy victory ; but Lieutenant Fenno and his field-piece were also on " the South brow of " the hill ; " 7 and, when the horsemen approached, he gave them a shot which, " by striking in the midst " of them," killed one of them. 8 The troop was immediately " wheeled, short about, and galloped out of " the field as fast as they came in; rode behind a little " hill, in the road; and faced about ; " the other portions of the column, at the same time, as they successively came up, wheeling to the left, by platoons ; and, passing through a gateway or bars, directed their march, westward, to the place where the Left of the Army had been halted. 9 With that movement of the extreme Right of the Army, and with that of the Hessian and British troops, on the high grounds, on the western bank of the Bronx, on its extreme Left, already mentioned, the Royal Army closed the operations of the day.

It is undoubtedly true that the delay which was produced by the halt of the Royal Army, on the Plain, was the salvation of the American Army, within the lines ; since it afforded time for strengthening the works behind which the latter was, then, posted, and for preparing it for falling back, soon afterwards, and occupying another position, which would be more defensible and not so accessible to the King's troops.