Failure to hold the passes on Long Island caused the American defeat

Evidence

Of the eight in his unit, only he returned. Also escaping, Joseph Hodgkins wrote to his wife of soldiers “killed or Taken or Drowned for we had to Pass over a Creek amost up to my arm Pits.” Another New Englander reported on his unit and others crossing the creek after the tide rose. “Such as could swim got across; those that could not swim, and could not procure anything to buoy them up, sunk,” he wrote. Rather than surrender to the British, after fighting to the end, Stirling gave up to a Hessian officer. “Not occupying the passes on that Island sufficiently has been the sole and only cause of our subsequent Retreats,” Knox reported. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 244

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Washington underestimated the British forces massing against New York; Feints and misread signals determined the American defeat’s opening — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 242