Gen. Greene
commanded in the Action with about 15 to eighteen hundred
men."--_Stiles's MS. Diary._]

[Footnote 203: "A very smart action ensued in the true Bush-fighting
way in which our Troops behaved in a manner that does them the highest
honor."--_Letter from Col. Griffith, of Maryland._ Lossing's
_Historical Record_, vol. ii., p. 260.]

[Footnote 204: "The General fearing (as we afterwards found) that a
large body was coming up to support them, sent me over to bring our
men off. They gave a Hurra and left the field in good order."--_Tilghman's
Letters_, Doc. 29.

THE BATTLE-FIELD.--Recently gathered material seems to settle all
doubts as to the several points occupied by the British and Americans
during the action. Where did it begin and where did it end? As to the
first skirmish, it began near the British encampment at Bloomingdale.
Here was Howe's left, and, as Howe reports, Knowlton approached his
advanced posts under cover of the woods "by way of Vandewater's
Height." This was what we call Bloomingdale Heights. The original
proprietor of the greater part of this site was Thomas De Key. From
him all or a large part of it passed to Harman Vandewater and Adrian
Hogeland, as the deeds on record show. In 1784 the property was
purchased by Nicholas De Peyster. The position of Hogeland's and
Vandewater's houses as given on the accompanying map is taken from old
surveys which mark the location and give the names. The Bloomingdale
Road at that time stopped at these farms. That part of it above One
Hundred and Tenth Street, running through Manhattanville and
continuing until recently to the King's Bridge Road at One Hundred and
Forty-sixth Street, did not exist during the Revolution, but was
opened a few years later. (Hoffman's _Est. and Rights of the
Corporation of New York_, vol. ii.) A lane or road running from
Hogeland's by Vandewater's connected the Bloomingdale with the King's
Bridge road at One Hundred and Nineteenth Street. Washington himself
gives us the general line. Before the battle of Long Island he ordered
Heath to have troops ready to march to New York as soon as called for,
and he describes the proper route thus: "There is a road out of the
Haerlem flat lands that leads up to the hills, and continues down the
North River by Bloomingdale, Delancy's, &c., which road I would have
them march, as they will keep the river in sight, and pass a tolerable
landing-place for troops in the neighborhood of Bloomin