HARLEM HEIGHTS
BY
THOMAS ADDIS EMMET, M.D.
[Illustration]
REPRINTED FROM
THE MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
WITH NOTES AND QUERIES
_September, 1906_
THE BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS
[Dr. Emmet’s article was written in reply to the following article
which appeared some time ago in the New York _Evening Post_. The
whereabouts of the Richards letter, quoted from, we have been unable
to ascertain.—ED].
Since the publication of Prof. H. P. Johnston’s monograph on the battle
of Harlem Heights, not more than one or two letters or documents have
come to light to be added to the very complete list of authorities
given in the appendix. One of these which has recently been brought
to notice is interesting and important as confirming certain views
advanced by Professor Johnston respecting the location of the
battlefield and other particulars of the action. It is in the form of
an extract from the diary of a Revolutionary officer, Lieut. Samuel
Richards of a Connecticut regiment, who, after describing the retreat
from Long Island in August, 1776, continues his narrative as follows:
We then marched and took possession of the heights of Harlem and
immediately flung up lines for our defence.... We were employed
the succeeding night (September 15, 1776) in throwing up a slight
entrenchment on the brow of the hill at Harlem Heights in full
expectation of being attacked by the enemy in the morning. When the
sun arose I saw the enemy in the plain below us, at the distance of
about a mile, forming in a line. By accounts afterwards, their number
was said to exceed twenty thousand, and they indeed made a brilliant
display by the reflection of the sun’s rays on their arms.
The sharp action which took place that day under Col. Knowlton is
so well detailed by the historian, I need not repeat it. The enemy
sent a detachment of about five thousand along the bank of the North
River, which our people attacked with spirit and about an equal
number, and drove them back to their main body. The loss on our side
was about thirty killed and sixty or seventy wounded. The loss to the
enemy must have been more than that, as we repulsed them after a warm
fire of three-quarters of an hour. Here I first saw Lieut. Munro; he
had volunteered to go to the attack on our right under the command of
Col. Knowlton.
The next day I had a mournful duty assigned to me—the command of a
covering party over the fatigue men who buried the dead which had
fallen in the action the previous day. I placed myself and party
on a small eminence so as to see the men at their work, and to
discover the enemy should they approach to interrupt them. There
were thirty-three bodies found on the field; they were drawn to a
large hole which was prepared for the purpose and buried together.
One body of a fine-limbed young man had been brought into the camp
with a bullet hole in the breast near the heart. I was struck with
reflections on the force of habit to see those fatigue men performing
this duty with as little apparent concern as they would have
performed any duty.
The diary, though written some years after the close of the war,
furnishes a narrative which is apparently based upon an accurate
recollection of the events described. Lieut. Richards supports
Professor Johnston’s assertion, already corroborated by a mass of
evidence, that the battle was fought on the western side and slope of
Morningside Heights. These authorities, and the maps published in the
history, trace the advance of the British from what is now One Hundred
and Seventh Street along the bank of the North River to the “buckwheat
field” lying between Broadway and Riverside Drive, One Hundred and
Sixteenth Street and One Hundred and Twentieth Street, as they now
exist, where they were met by Col. Knowlton’s Rangers and where the
battle occurred.
The statement of Lieut. Richards that the American loss was about
thirty killed confirms the estimate made by Professor Johnston,
while the third statement as to the burial of those killed furnishes
a new item to be added to the account of the battle, and lends
increased interest to an historic site. The plan of the battle and
Lieut. Richards’s description when studied in connection with the
natural topography of the Heights leave no doubt that either upon or
immediately to the west of the Columbia University grounds lies the
burial place of the men who fell “in the first battle of the Revolution
in which the American troops faced and routed the British.”