aken prisoner at Kip's Bay. Alexander Hamilton and Brigade-Major
Fish, of New York, who were swept along in this retreat, also figured
prominently at Yorktown. Two young ensigns in the Connecticut
"levies," Stephen Betts and James Morris, were captains of Light
Infantry in that affair. Lieutenant Stephen Olney, of Rhode Island,
who barely escaped capture on Long Island by Cornwallis's grenadiers,
led Gimat's battalion as captain, and was severely wounded while
clambering into the redoubt; and there were probably a considerable
number of others, officers and men, who were chased by this British
general in the present campaign, who finally had the satisfaction of
cornering him in Virginia in 1781. Scammell, Huntington, Tilghman,
Humphreys, and others, could be named.]

* * * * *

When Washington found that the enemy had made their principal landing
at Thirty-fourth Street, and that a retreat was necessary, he sent
back word to have Harlem Heights well secured by the troops there,
while at the same time a considerable force under Mifflin marched
down to the strong ground near McGowan's to cover the escape of troops
that might take the King's Bridge road. Chester and Sargent evacuated
Horn's Hook and came in with Mifflin. Upon the landing of more troops
at Kip's Bay, Howe sent a column towards McGowan's, and in the evening
the Light Infantry reached Apthorpe's just after Silliman's retreat.
Washington had waited on the Bloomingdale Road until the last, and
retired from the Apthorpe Mansion but a short time before the British
occupied it. Here at Bloomingdale the enemy encamped their left wing
for the night, while their right occupied Horn's Hook, their outposts
not being advanced on the left beyond One Hundredth Street. The
Americans slept on Harlem Heights, not quite a mile and a half above
them.

"That night," says Humphreys, "our soldiers, excessively fatigued by
the sultry march of the day, their clothes wet by a severe shower of
rain that succeeded towards the evening, their blood chilled by the
cold wind that produced a sudden change in the temperature of the air,
and their hearts sunk within them by the loss of baggage, artillery,
and works, in which they had been taught to put great confidence, lay
upon their arms, covered only by the clouds of an uncomfortable
sky."[192]

[Footnote 192: The American loss in prisoners in the Kip's Bay affair
was seventeen officers and about three