relief from his friends to
be afforded to him.

This was the first time in my life that I had witnessed the awful
scene of a battle, when man was engaged to destroy his fellow man. I
well remember my sensations on the occasion, for they were solemn
beyond description, and very hardly could I bring my mind to be
willing to attempt the life of a fellow-creature. Our army having
retired beyond their intrenchment, which extended from Vanbrunt's
Mills, on the West, to the East River, flanked occasionally by
redoubts, the British army took their position, in full array,
directly in front of our position. Our intrenchment was so weak, that
it is most wonderful the British General did not attempt to storm it
soon after the battle, in which his troops had been victorious. Gen.
Washington was so fully aware of the perilous situation of this
division of his army, that he immediately convened a council of war,
at which the propriety of retiring to New York was decided on. After
sustaining incessant fatigue and constant watchfulness for two days
and nights, attended by heavy rain, exposed every moment to an attack
from a vastly superior force in front, and to be cut off from the
possibility of retreat to New York, by the fleet, which might enter
the East River, on the night of the 29th of August, Gen. Washington
commenced recrossing his troops from Brooklyn to New York. To move so
large a body of troops, with all their necessary appendages, across a
river full a mile wide, with a rapid current, in face of a victorious,
well disciplined army, nearly three times as numerous as his own, and
a fleet capable of stopping the navigation, so that not one boat could
have passed over, seemed to present most formidable obstacles. But, in
the face of these difficulties, the Commander-in-Chief so arranged his
business, that on the evening of the 29th, by 10 o'clock, the
troops began to retire from the lines in such a manner that no chasm
was made in the lines, but as one regiment left their station on
guard, the remaining troops moved to the right and left and filled up
the vacancies, while Gen. Washington took his station at the ferry,
and superintended the embarkation of the troops. It was one of the
most anxious, busy nights that I ever recollect, and being the third
in which hardly any of us had closed our eyes to sleep, we were all
greatly fatigued. As the dawn of the next day approached, those of us
who remained in the trenches became ve