uns: "Eight hundred [men] properly officered to
relieve the troops on Bedford Road to-morrow morning, six field
officers to attend with this party. The same number to relieve those
on Bush [Flatbush] Road, and an equal number those stationed towards
the Narrows. A picket of three hundred men under the command of a
Field Officer, six Captains, twelve subalterns to be posted at the
wood on the west side of the creek every night till further orders."
(See also _Documents_ 5, 18, 19.) That Miles was on the extreme left,
we well know; that Wyllys was at the Bedford Pass, appears from both
Miles' and Brodhead's accounts; that Chester's regiment was with him,
appears from an extract quoted below--Chester's lieutenant-colonel
being Solomon Wills; that Johnston was at the Flatbush Pass, appears
from the same and other authorities; that Henshaw with Little's
regiment was there, he himself states; that Cornell was also there
with Hitchcock's Rhode Islanders, appears from Captain Olney's
narrative as given in _Mrs. Williams' Life of Olney_, and from the
lists of prisoners; that Hand was at the lower road, until relieved,
and Major Burd also, the major himself and Ewing's sketch both state;
the New York detachment there was probably a part of Lasher's
regiment. The extract referred to is from the _Connecticut Courant_,
containing a letter from an officer engaged in the battle, which says:
"The night before August 27th, on the west road, were posted Colonel
Hand's regiment, a detachment from Pennsylvania and New York; next
east were posted Colonel Johnson, of Jersey, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Henshaw, of Massachusetts; next east were posted Colonel Wyllys and
Lieutenant-Colonel Wills, of Connecticut. East of all these Colonel
Miles, of Pennsylvania, was posted towards Jamaica, to watch the
motion of the enemy and give intelligence."]

As far, then, to the left as Miles' position the hills were as well
guarded as seemed possible with the limited force that could be
spared, and at the passes themselves a stout resistance could have
been offered. But it was still an attenuated line, more than four
miles long, not parallel but oblique to the line of works at Brooklyn,
and distant from it not less than one and a half, and at the farthest
posts nearly three miles. Should the enemy pierce it at any one point,
an immediate retreat would have been necessary from every other. The
line could have been defended with confidence only on the suppositi