The skirmish on the following day was nothing remarkable in its way.
It was just such brushes as the men engaged in that Washington, on
Graydon's authority, encouraged. The regiment displayed no particular
rashness on the 28th, nor any cowardice on the 27th--that is, if
Martin is to be credited.]

During all these trying hours since the defeat on the 27th, the most
conspicuous figure to be seen, now at one point and now at another of
the threatened lines, was that of the commander-in-chief. Wherever his
inspiring presence seemed necessary, there he was to be found. He
cheered the troops night and day. All that the soldiers endured, he
endured. For forty-eight hours, or the whole of the 28th and 29th, he
took no rest whatever, and was hardly once off his horse. As he rode
among the men in the storm he spoke to some in person, and everywhere
he gave directions, while his aids were as tireless as their Chief in
assisting him.

But circumstanced as the army was, it was inevitable that the question
should come up: Can the defence of the Brooklyn front be continued
without great hazard? It could not have escaped the notice of a single
soldier on that side, that if, with the river in their rear, the enemy
should succeed in penetrating the lines, or the fleet be able to
command the crossing, they would all be lost. There was no safety but
in retreat; and for twenty-four hours from the morning of the 29th,
all the energies of the commander-in-chief were directed towards
making the retreat successful.

To few incidents of the Revolution does greater interest attach than
to this final scene in the operations on Long Island. The formal
decision to abandon this point was made by a council of war, held late
in the day of the 29th, at the house of Phillip Livingston, then
absent as a member of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia. The
mansion made historic by this event stood on the line of Hicks Street,
just south of Joralemon.[163] There were present at the council, the
commander-in-chief, Major-Generals Putnam and Spencer, and
Brigadier-Generals Mifflin, McDougall, Parsons, Scott, Wadsworth, and
Fellows. As far as known, Scott alone of these generals has left us
any thing in regard to what transpired on the occasion beyond the
final result. He preserves the interesting fact that when the
proposition to retreat was presented it took him by surprise and he as
suddenly objected to it, "from an aversion to giving the enemy a
si