d in his
remarkable series of flanking movements, by which he hoped to get in
the rear of the Americans, and, with his overwhelming force, "bottle
them up" and compel a general engagement. But, with a force far inferior
to the British, Washington not only succeeded in avoiding a pitched
battle (for which he was wholly unprepared), but finally extricated his
army from the net which his enemy had spread on two sides and was now
attempting to sweep around to cut off his retreat.

Sending several war-vessels up the North River, or Hudson (which had no
trouble in breaking through the barrier stretched across it), General
Howe embarked the main body of his troops in flatboats for Westchester,
landing at a point about nine miles above the Heights of Harlem. The
enemy's object was then apparent, and Washington set about defeating it
by one of the most complicated and ingenious military movements on
record.

Leaving General Greene in command of Fort Washington, on the Hudson, not
far from Kingsbridge and the Heights, Washington hastened northward
toward White Plains, seizing upon every naturally strong position by the
way, and establishing a chain of entrenchments on the hill-crests that
commanded all the roads leading from the North River to the Sound. The
last week in October the opposing forces came in collision at Chatterton
Hill, where was fought the so-called Battle of White Plains, at which,
wrote Rufus Putnam, who had planned the defensive works, "the wall and
stone fence behind which our troops were posted proved as fatal to the
British as the rail-fence with grass hung on it did at Charlestown, June
17, 1775."

General Putnam was ordered to reenforce General McDougall, who was in
command at the hill; but before he arrived the British had flanked the
Americans and driven them from their position. Putnam's men covered
their retreat by firing at the British and Hessians from behind fences
and trees, Indian and Ranger fashion, and that night Washington
practically began his famous retrograde movement to Fort Washington and
Manhattan Island. "By folding one brigade behind another," in rear of
those ridges he had fortified, he "brought off all his artillery,
stores, and sick, in the face of a superior foe." He took position,
first, at North Castle Heights, which he deemed impregnable; but after a
few days the British left for the Hudson, with the purpose (as was
afterward ascertained, and at the time divined by Washington