2 Battalions.
M.B. McKenzie. M.B. Smith.

SECOND LINE.

LIEUT GENLL. EARL PERCY.

M.G. Grant. B.G. Erskine. M.G. Jones.
17th, 46th, 55th, 40th. 71st Regiment. 37th, 52d, 38th, 10th.
4th Brigade. 3 Battalions. 3d Brigade.
M.B. Brown. M.B. Erskine. M.B. Baker.

CORPS DE RESERVE.

LIEUT GENLL EARL CORNWALLIS.

Major Genll Vaughan.

2 B. Grendrs 4th B. Grendrs 3 Batt. Grendrs 1st Battln Grendrs

42 Regmt. 33d Regt.

HESSIAN DIVISION.[104]

[Footnote 104: The arrangement of the Hessian troops, as here given,
is compiled from Von Elking's work, Baurmeister's Narrative, and the
Hessian map in vol. ii. of the Long Island Historical Society's
_Memoirs_.]

LIEUT-GENERAL DE HEISTER.

MIRBACH'S BRIGADE.

MAJOR GENERAL VON MIRBACH.

REGIMENTS.

Kniphausen. Rall. Lossberg.

STIRN'S BRIGADE.

MAJOR-GENERAL VON STIRN.

REGIMENTS.

Donop. Mirbach. Hereditary Prince.

DONOP'S BRIGADE.

COLONEL VON DONOP.

GRENADIERS.

Block. Minegerode. Lisingen.

YAGERS.

LOSSBERG'S BRIGADE.

COLONEL VON LOSSBERG.

REGIMENTS.

Von Ditfurth. Von Trumbach.

* * * * *

When and where, now, will these two armies meet? Or rather, the
question was narrowed down to this: When and where will the British
attack? With Washington there was no choice left but to maintain a
strictly defensive attitude. The command which the enemy had of the
waters was alone sufficient to make their encampment on Staten Island
perfectly secure. As to assuming the offensive, Washington wrote to
his brother, John Augustine, on July 22d: "Our situation at present,
both in regard to men and other matters, is such as not to make it
advisable to attempt any thing against them, surrounded as they are by
water and covered with ships, lest a miscarriage should be productive
of unhappy and fatal consequences. It is provoking, nevertheless, to
have them so near, without being able to give them any disturbance."
Earlier in the season an expedition had been organized under Mercer,
in which Knowlton was to take an active part, to attack the enemy's
outposts on Staten Island from the Jersey shore, but the weather twice
interfered with the plan. All that the Americans hoped to do was to
hold their own at and around New York. Washington tells us that he
fully expected to be able to defend the city.[105] Even the passage of
the Rose and Pho