On May 22 General Wood was driven back to his original line of defences from Fort Totten to Valley Stream, where he now prepared to make a last stand to save Brooklyn, which stretched behind him with its peaceful spires and its miles of comfortable homes. Here the Americans were safe from the hideous pounding of the German fleet, and, although their losses in five days amounted to more than six thousand men, these had been replaced by reinforcements of militia from the West and South. There was still hope, especially as the Germans, once they advanced beyond Westbury and its famous polo fields, would come within range of the heavy mortars of Fort Totten and Fort Hamilton, which carried thirteen miles.
That night the German commander, General von Hindenburg, under a flag of truce, called upon the Americans to surrender in order to save the Borough of Brooklyn from destruction.
General Wood refused this demand; and on May 23, at dawn, under cover of his heavy siege-guns, von Hindenburg threw forward his veterans in terrific massed attack, striking simultaneously at three points with three army divisions--one in a drive to the right toward Fort Totten, one in a drive to the left toward Fort Hamilton, and one in a drive straight ahead against General Wood’s centre and the heart of Brooklyn.
All day the battle lasted--the battle of Brooklyn--with house-to-house fighting and repeated bayonet charges. And at night the invaders, outnumbering the American troops five to one, were everywhere victorious. The defender’s line broke first at Valley Stream, where the Germans, led by the famous Black Hussars, flung themselves furiously with cold steel upon the militiamen and put them to flight. By sundown the Uhlans were galloping, unopposed, along the broad sweep of the Eastern Parkway and parallel streets towards Prospect Park, where the high land offered an admirable site for the German artillery, since it commanded Fort Hamilton from the rear and the entire spread of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
It was now that Field Marshal von Hindenburg and his staff, speeding along the Parkway in dark grey military automobiles, witnessed a famous act of youthful heroism. As they swung across the Plaza to turn into Flatbush Avenue von Hindenburg ordered his chauffeur to slow up so that he might view the Memorial Arch and the MacMonnies statues of our Civil War heroes, and at this moment a sharp burst of rifle fire sounded across Prospect Park.