We had several brushes with small parties of the enemy. Colonel
Burr was foremost and most active where there was danger, and his
conduct, without considering his extreme youth, was afterwards a
constant subject of praise, and admiration, and gratitude. This affair
was much talked of in the army after the surrender of Fort Washington,
in which a garrison of about 2500 men was left under circumstances
very similar to ours; this fort having no bomb-proof. That garrison
surrendered, as is well known, the very same day our army retreated;
and of those 2500 men, not 500 survived the imprisonment they received
from the British. I have, since then, heard it repeated hundreds of
times by the officers and men of Silliman's brigade, that our fate
would have been the same had it not been for Colonel Burr. I was a
sergeant-major in Chandler's regiment of Silliman's brigade at the
time of the retreat.
I am your very obedient servant,
NATHANIEL JUDSON
Footnotes:
1. Adjacent to what is now Grand-street.
CHAPTER VIII.
As early as the 10th of August, Burr, in a letter to his uncle
Edwards, [1] expressed apprehensions that the retreat of the American
army from Long Island might be cut off and then that the British
"would have their own fun." From that period until the retreat was
effected, on the night of the 27th, he continued to entertain the same
opinion as to the necessity of retreating. So, also, in relation to
the city of New-York.
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