watched the fighting
from Fort Lee, sent over Captain Gooch to tell Magaw to maintain
himself until night, when an effort would be made to withdraw the
garrison to New Jersey. The captain reached the fort, delivered his
message, and, running through the fire of the enemy, got to his boat
again and recrossed in safety.]

By this surrender the Americans lost in prisoners two thousand six
hundred and thirty-seven enlisted men and two hundred and twenty-one
officers,[220] the greater part from Pennsylvania, and nearly half of
them well-drilled troops. These were the men, with those taken on Long
Island and at Kip's Bay, for whose accommodation the Presbyterian and
Reformed churches in New York were turned into prisons, and who were
to perish by hundreds by slow starvation and loathsome disease, which
brutal keepers took little trouble to alleviate. The loss of the enemy
in killed and wounded was something over four hundred and fifty, about
two thirds of which fell upon the Hessians. The American casualties
were four officers and fifty privates killed, and not over one hundred
wounded.

[Footnote 220: Henshaw's copy of return of prisoners.--_Document No._
59.]

* * * * *

Upon whom the responsibility for the loss of this post should rest is
a question on which divided opinions have been expressed.[221] Greene
had urged the retention of the fort as necessary, both to command the
passage of the river, and because it would be a threatening obstacle
to the enemy's future operations. For them to advance into the country
with such a fortification in their rear would be a hazardous move.
These reasons were sound, and, as already stated, when the main army
evacuated Harlem Heights, Washington's council voted to retain Fort
Washington. But on the 7th of November, some British men-of-war again
passed the obstructions without difficulty, and Washington wrote to
Greene on the 8th from White Plains as follows:

"SIR: The late passage of the three vessels up the North
River (which we have just received advice of) is so plain a
proof of the inefficacy of all the obstructions we have
thrown into it, that I cannot but think it will fully
justify a change in the disposition which has been made. If
we cannot prevent vessels passing up, and the enemy are
possessed of the surrounding country, what valuable purpose
can it answer to attempt to hold a post from which the