he Hessians. Besides his position fully overlooked
Flatbush, and no reconnoissance was necessary. Miles states that the
general remained at the redoubt. The quotation above means no more
than that Sullivan went out from the Brooklyn lines, and afterwards
was surrounded and fought with four hundred of the guard who were
there at the Pass with him.]

[Footnote 146: _Document_ 19.]

* * * * *

But little did the Americans suspect that at the very moment their
defence seemed well arranged and their outguards vigilant they were
already in the web which the enemy had been silently weaving around
them during the night. That flanking column! Skilfully had it played
its part in the British plans, and with crushing weight was it now to
fall upon our outpost guards, who felt themselves secure along the
hills and in the woods. Cross again into the opposite camp and follow
the approach of this unlooked-for danger. First, Lord Howe withdrew
Cornwallis from Flatbush to Flatlands towards evening on the 26th,
and at nine o'clock at night set this flanking corps in motion. Sir
Henry Clinton commanded the van, which consisted of the light dragoons
and the brigade of light infantry. Cornwallis and the reserve
immediately followed; and after him marched the First Brigade and the
Seventy-first Regiment, with fourteen pieces of field artillery. These
troops formed the advance corps, and were followed at a proper
interval by Lord Percy and Howe himself, with the Second, Third, and
Fifth brigades, the guards, and ten guns. The Forty-ninth Regiment,
with four twelve-pounders, and the baggage with a separate guard,
brought up the rear. All told, this column was hardly less than ten
thousand strong. With three Flatbush Tories acting as guides, it took
up the march and headed, as Howe reports, "across the country through
the new lots" towards the Jamaica Pass, moving slowly and cautiously
along the road from Flatlands until it reached Shoemaker's Bridge,
which crossed a creek emptying into Jamaica Bay, when the column
struck over the fields to the Jamaica Road, where it came to a halt in
the open lots a short distance south-east of the pass, and directly in
front of Howard's Halfway House.[147]

[Footnote 147: Consult map of the battle-field, Part II.]

Here now occurred one of those incidents which, though insignificant
in themselves, sometimes become fatalities that turn the scale of
battle. The five American