On the east a fourth road led round the hills.
In the dark of the night of the 26th of August Howe set his army
in motion on all these roads, in order by daybreak to come to
close quarters with the Americans and drive them back to the
Heights. The movement succeeded perfectly. The British made
terrible use of the bayonet. By the evening of the twenty-seventh
the Americans, who fought well against overwhelming odds, had
lost nearly two thousand men in casualties and prisoners, six
field pieces, and twenty-six heavy guns. The two chief
commanders, Sullivan and Stirling, were among the prisoners, and
what was left of the army had been driven back to Brooklyn
Heights. Howe's critics said that had he pressed the attack
further he could have made certain the capture of the whole
American force on Long Island.
Criticism of what might have been is easy and usually futile. It
might be said of Washington, too, that he should not have kept an
army so far in front of his lines behind Brooklyn Heights facing
a superior enemy, and with, for a part of it, retreat possible
only by a single causeway across a marsh three miles long. When
he realized, on the 28th of August, what Howe had achieved, he
increased the defenders of Brooklyn Heights to ten thousand men,
more than half his army.
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