Two days after the battle, with Admiral Richard Howe’s
warships poised to attack up the river and a British land army organizing for a siege of Brooklyn
Heights, General Washington began a retreat on the night of August 29 as fog blanketed the
area. Colonel John Glover’s Marblehead Regiment and the 27th Massachusetts, comprised
of soldiers from Lynn, Salem and Danvers led by Israel Hutchinson, rowed a mile each
way from Brooklyn to Manhattan, some as many as eleven times, to ferry more than 9,000
soldiers, and their horses, cannon, and supplies across the East River, a feat acknowledged by
the admiring British to “hold a high place among military transactions.” General
Washington supervised the operations and was reportedly the last to depart. The British
arrived at 8:30 am on the morning of August 30 to find an empty camp. The evacuation
site had been a landing for ferries to Manhattan from the earliest days of the settlement
of Brooklyn and remained so until the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, which made them
unnecessary.
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