One of the Most Important Battles in American History Started in a Watermelon Patch

Never did it look more like there might not ever be a United States of America than on August 27, 1776 –Washington nearly captured, his army surrounded, a brave remnant decimated. The fate of the new nation dangled precariously during the savage fighting at the Battle of Brooklyn, and the conflict started in a watermelon patch the night before.

Late on August 26, just off the road approaching the Red Lion Inn in Brooklyn, at the gate of today’s Green-Wood Cemetery, something caught the attention of a group of British scouts. In the darkness, they could make out the unmistakable bulges of ripe watermelons amidst the tangle of green vines. The hungry scouts descended on the ripe red fruit.

The British weren’t the only ones patrolling the area, however. Clear-eyed, crack-shot American riflemen stationed as lookouts nearby saw the enemy scouts in the patch and discharged their dreaded widow-makers, Pennsylvania Long Rifles, in the early hours of August 27. Those shots from the snipers alerted the American forces to the British movement and ignited the largest battle of the Revolution up to that point.

In August 1776, America had just declared its independence a little more than a month prior. After successfully driving the British out of Boston, General George Washington had marched his army to New York, hoping to prevent the British from capturing the city. British General William Howe, however, brought in over 20,000 troops to seize Long Island, part of the largest invasion of North America in history, aimed at crushing the American rebellion. In a hammer-and-anvil maneuver, he had a portion of his men attack the American defenses head-on, pinning them in place while the largest part of his army—10,000 men—looped around to attack the Patriots from behind and prevent their retreat.

The previously untold story of the American riflemen in the Battle of Brooklyn and the war’s most important actions is revealed in my forthcoming book: Revolutionary Snipers: Washington’s Frontier Commandos Whose Marksmanship Forged A New Way of War and Helped Win the Revolution, the unknown story of the Continental Army’s first soldiers, snipers who were the precursors to U.S. Army Special Operators.

The British plan to flank Washington had been set into motion earlier that evening around 9:00 p.m. on August 26. Leaving their tents pitched and fires burning, 10,000 men including many of their elite units moved as silently as possible through the countryside, detaining any witnesses along the way, while the others remained to keep Washington’s army pinned down on the Heights of Gowanus.

Despite the sniper’s warning shots, within hours, the British had Washington’s army trapped, drawing it to the brink of destruction. Retreating from the heights of Gowanus, a portion of Washington army’s only route of escape was to cross Gowanus Creek via the gap in the British line held open by an indomitable group of Marylanders who would become known as the “Immortals” or the “Maryland 400” (in a classical reference to the 300 Spartan warriors who battled at Thermopylae). Few would survive.

A single structure, a stone house, and the full weight of thousands of British troops led by Lord Cornwallis separated the American army’s right-wing from the temporary safety of the fortifications at Brooklyn Heights. The Marylanders made a suicidal charge to free the right wing of the American army.

From the stone house, Cornwallis would train a light cannon and musket fire on their advance, but the brave men led by Major Mordecai Gist surged toward the Vechte-Cortelyou house, occupied by the British general and his Redcoats in their suicidal preemptive bayonet charge.

The fusillade dropped many of the men in their tracks, severing limbs and heads, killing several instantly.

“Close up! Close up!” the officers called.

Undeterred by the withering British fire, Gist’s companies formed into lines and charged into the hail of fire coming from the British soldiers in the stone house. The British “[continued] pouring the canister and grape upon the Americans like a shower of hail.” In the melee, “the flower of some of the finest families of the South [were] cut to atoms.” Defying the carnage unfolding around them, Gist’s men “closed their ranks over the bodies of their dead comrades, and still turned their faces to the foe.”

That scene repeated itself several times as the Marylanders battled to allow their retreating countrymen to escape. “We continued the attack a considerable time, the men having been rallied and the attack renewed . . . several times.” As the Marylanders surged forward, thousands of additional of the Crown’s and Hessian’s finest troops continued to surround their position.

Their sacrifice was not in vain. The Marylanders held off the British long enough to save a core of Washington’s troops and, arguably, the bulk of the nascent American army from destruction. The Marylanders’ stand chewed up daylight on the afternoon of August 27 and bought Washington time, preventing the British from uniting the various wings of their army to make a combined assault on the Brooklyn defenses during the day.  Had Howe had more time to press the attack on the forts that afternoon, his victory likely would have been total. The war might have ended that day. It was one of the few times in the Revolution when all the circumstances were aligned for a crushing British victory. The British would have captured the bulk of the American army, maybe even Washington himself.

Author photo of sign that started the author’s journey writing Wahington’s Immortals at the Michael A. Rawley Jr. American Legion Post in Brooklyn — near the suspected site of Washington’s Immortals mass grave(s).

The bravery and sacrifice of Washington’s Immortals created a crucial window of time, and, with their blood, they bought in the words of one American historian, “an hour, more precious to American liberty than any other in its history” only weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

One of the most enduring mysteries in American history, the mass grave(s) of the Marylanders, remains unknown but is suspected somewhere near the Michael A. Rawley Jr. American Legion Post.

Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling, critically acclaimed military historian and a leading authority on American elite and special operations units. The author of fourteen books, including Revolutionary Snipers: Washington’s Frontier Commandos Whose Marksmanship Forged a New Way of War and Helped Win the Revolution,  The Indispensables, and Washington’s Immortals, a trilogy on the elite units of the Revolutionary War, along with The Unvanquished, which are all featured at Barnes & Noble. He is a senior fellow at Mount Vernon, and his books have received numerous national awards. O’Donnell is a professional public speaker and will be presenting on Washington’s Immortals on the evening of August 26 at the Society of the Cincinnati, Anderson House, and will be presenting the keynote on the anniversary on the battle on August 27 at 5:30 p.m. near the suspected site of the Marylander’s mass grave, Michael A. Rawley Jr. American Legion Post 1636 in Brooklyn, a commemoration and BBQ hosted by the Brooklyn GOP to honor the Immortals.

www.patrickkodonnell.com

@combathistorian