Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/79

 Rh these officers ascribe a great part of the credit of the victory to themselves, and that, in view of the well-known valor of the Hessian soldiery, they undoubtedly deserve it, but that some of them make too little of the resistance and military knowledge of the Americans, “so that the honor of having gained a victory over an enemy numbering only one third as many as themselves almost suffers.” The remark is certainly pertinent, and the odds do not appear to be overstated. Washington's army before the battle was occupying lines which extended from Kingsbridge to Flatbush. There were probably not more than eight thousand Americans on Long Island, while those actually engaged on the advanced lines numbered only four or five thousand, against twenty thousand Englishmen and Germans.

Sir William Howe, in his official report, sets the American loss in killed, wounded, prisoners and drowned, at three thousand three hundred men; but Bancroft believes this to be a gross exaggeration, and, relying on Washington's report and a careful inquiry, says that the total American loss did not exceed one thousand, of whom three quarters were taken prisoners. The English loss, according to Howe, was seventeen officers and three hundred and one non-commissioned officers and privates; the Hessians had two men killed, and two officers and twenty-three privates wounded.

“The enemy,” writes Colonel von Heeringen, commanding a Hessian regiment, “had almost impenetrable thickets, lines, abattis, and redoubts in front of them. The riflemen were mostly spitted to the trees with bayonets. These frightful people deserve pity