nt to attack the
city) sail'd up the East River under a gentle Breeze towards
Hell-Gate, & kept up an incessant Fire assisted with the Cannon at
Governrs Island: The Batteries from the City return'd the Ships the
like Salutation: 3 Men agape, idle Spectators had the misfortune of
being killed by one Cannon-Ball, the other mischief suffered on our
Side was inconsiderable Saving the making a few Holes in some of the
Buildings; one shot struck within 6 Foot of Genl Washington, as He
was on Horseback riding into the Fort."--_MS. Letter in R.I. Public
Archives._ Also in _Force_.

Baurmeister preserves the incident that Washington was often to be
seen at the East River batteries in New York, and on one occasion
"provoked the Hessian artillery Captain Krug [on the Long Island side]
to fire off 2 Cannon at him and his suite." "A third shot too would
not have been wanting, if the horses of the enemy had been pleased to
stay," adds the major.]

Kip's Bay was the large cove which then set in from the East River at
about the foot of Thirty-fourth Street. It took its name from the old
Kip family, who owned the adjacent estate. From this point breastworks
had been thrown up along the river's bank, wherever a landing could be
made, down as far as Corlears Hook or Grand Street. Five brigades had
been distributed at this front to watch the enemy. Silliman's was in
the city; at Corlears Hook was Parsons' brigade, to which Prescott's
Massachusetts men had now been added; beyond, in the vicinity of
Fifteenth Street, on the Stuyvesant estate, Scott's New York brigade
took post; above him, at about Twenty-third Street, was Wadsworth's
command, consisting of Sage's, Selden's, and Gay's Connecticut levies;
and further along near Kip's Bay was Colonel Douglas, with his brigade
of three Connecticut militia regiments under Cooke, Pettibone, and
Talcott, and his own battalion of levies.[180] Up the river a chain of
sentinels communicated with the troops at Horn's Hook, and every half
hour they passed the watchword to each other, "All is well."

[Footnote 180: We know the position of the troops from the statements
of their officers. Douglas says: "I lay with my brigade a little below
Turtle [Kips] Bay where we hove up lines for more than one mile in
length. Gen'l Wadsworth managed the lines on the right and I on the
left." Brigade-Major Fish says of Scott's brigade that they were
"marched to the lines back of Stuyvesant's," about the foot of
Fi