m, in the edge of the woods," but avoided an open fight in the
field with superior numbers.[110] Captain Hamilton and twenty men of
the battalion fell back on the road in advance, burning grain and
stacks of hay, and killing cattle, which, says Lieutenant-Colonel
Chambers, he did "very cleverly." Among the inhabitants along the
coast, confusion, excitement, and distress prevailed,[111] and many
moved off their goods in great haste to find refuge in the American
lines or farther east on the island; while others remained to welcome
the enemy, for whose success they had been secretly praying from the
outset.

[Footnote 110: "On the morning of the 22d of August there were nine
thousand British troops on New Utrecht plains. The guard alarmed our
small camp, and we assembled at the flagstaff. We marched our forces,
about two hundred in number, to New Utrecht, to watch the movements of
the enemy. When we came on the hill we discovered a party of them
advancing toward us. We prepared to give them a warm reception, when
an imprudent fellow fired, and they immediately halted and turned
toward Flatbush. The main body also moved along the great road toward
the same place."--Lieutenant-Colonel Chambers, of Hand's riflemen, to
his Wife, September 3d, 1776. _Chambersburg in the Colony and the
Revolution._]

[Footnote 111: _Strong's History of Flatbush._]

The section of Long Island which the enemy now occupied was a broad
low plain, stretching northward from the coast from four to six miles,
and eastward a still further distance. Scattered over its level
surface were four villages, surrounded with farms. Nearest to the
Narrows, and nearly a mile from the coast, stood New Utrecht; another
mile south-east of this was Gravesend; north-east from Gravesend,
nearly three miles, the road led through Flatlands, and directly north
from Flatlands, and about half-way to Brooklyn Church, lay Flatbush.
Between this plain and the Brooklyn lines ran a ridge of hills, which
extended from New York Bay midway through the island to its eastern
extremity. The ridge varied in height from one hundred to one hundred
and fifty feet above the sea, and from the plain it rose somewhat
abruptly from forty to eighty feet, but fell off more gradually in its
descent on the other side. Its entire surface was covered with a dense
growth of woods and thickets, and to an enemy advancing from below it
presented a continuous barrier, a huge natural abattis, impassable