On this day 250 years ago on Long Island in New York, the British Army was encamped in an arc in front of the American forces entrenched on Brooklyn Heights preparing to assault the American lines. On that day General Washington had brought reinforcements from Manhattan so that there were 9500 men — more than half of the entire Continental Army in the New York area — in the Brooklyn Heights fortifications trapped by the East River in their rear. Fortunately for the Continental Army among the reinforcements Washington ordered to Brooklyn were the Marblehead Regiment commanded by Col. John Glover and another Massachusetts regiment commanded by Col. Israel Hutchinson; both regiments were filled with experienced seamen and fishermen.

There was some skirmishing between the lines of the Continental and British Armies. Some men from Col. William Douglas’s Connecticut regiment rowed across Gowanus Creek to gather grain from a field on the edge of the creek and had several men wounded when the British attacked. Teenage drummer Philip Follet of the Marblehead Regiment was captured because he could not run fast enough to get back to the American trenches with his drum strapped to his back in another skirmish on the north end of the American lines. But mostly the Americans remained in their trenches drenched by a downpour that lasted most of the day.

Late that the British began digging trenches to besiege the American fortification but they were also busy rounding up Continental Army soldiers and New York militia who had escaped the Battle of Brooklyn the day before but did not make it across Gowanus Creek to the protection of the American fortifications. One Hessian officer recorded in his journal that the British and Hessians captured 426 men on that day.

Most notably on that day 250 years ago in Jamaica (now part of Brooklyn), New York, Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Woodhull, President of the New York Provincial Congress and commander of the Long Island Militia was captured by the British in a farmhouse where he was sheltering during the storm, and almost 100 of his militia were also captured. According to a story that first surfaced 70 years later and is likely apocryphal, after surrendering his sword to a British officer, Woodhull was ordered to proclaim “God Save the King,” but he instead said, “God save us all” and his captors struck him on the arm and head with his own sword. Contemporary accounts confirm that after surrendering Woodhull was indeed struck on his head and arm by a sword, whether or not it was his own or a Loyalist officer’s sword. His wounds became infected and his arm was amputated as a result, but he would soon die from his wounds.

Sources: https://forgotten-ny.com/2023/07/return-to-queens-village-part-2/; Sag Harbor in the Revolution, ed. by Zachary N. Studenroth, Sag Harbor, New York: The Sag Harbor Historical Museum at 79; O’Donnell, Indispensables at 234-35; Boatner, Encyclopedia at 654; Schecter at 156-58; Revolution in America: Confidential Letters and Journals 1776-1784 of Adjutant General Major Baurmeister of the Hessian Forces, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press (1957) at p. 38 accessed at https://archive.org/details/revolutioninamer0000baur/page/38/mode/2up; https://www.founderoftheday.com/founder-of-the-day/nathaniel-woodhull; https://bklyner.com/the-legend-of-general-nathaniel-woodhull-held-prisoner-in-old-new-utrecht-bensonhurst/; Burrows, Edwin G., Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War, New York: Basic Books (2008) at p. 14

On this day 250 years ago the American trenches stretched from Wallabout Bay to Gowanus Creek and enclosed all of today’s Downtown Brooklyn. The fortifications incorporated six separate named forts. Only one site has been preserved but you can easily visit the sites of all six forts today. The Center for Brooklyn History in the heart of downtown Brooklyn is the best place to start your tour with its special exhibit on the Battle of Brooklyn. Nothing from the Revolutionary War remains, but you can find the locations of the sites of Fort Putnam (in present-day Fort Greene Park), the Ring Fort, the original Fort Greene, Cobble Hill Fort, Fort Stirling and Fort Defiance plus Washington’s headquarters at Four Chimneys using the Walking Guide to the Battle of Brooklyn published by the Old Stone House and available online at https://theoldstonehouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Battle-Brooklyn-walking-tour.pdf. All but the original Fort Greene have markers or plaques that you can see although Fort Greene Park (the site of Fort Putnam later reconstructed and renamed as Fort Greene) is the only location that reads like a fort today.

See also shttps://www.bklynlibrary.org/exhibitions/battle-brooklyn-fought; https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/exhibition-tour-battle-center-for-brooklyn-20260829-0200pm