[Footnote 147: Consult map of the battle-field, Part II.]
Here now occurred one of those incidents which, though insignificant in themselves, sometimes become fatalities that turn the scale of battle. The five American officers whom General Sullivan had sent out the evening before to patrol this pass had stationed themselves at this time, now between two and three o'clock on the morning of the 27th, a short distance east of Howard's house, apparently waiting for sounds of the enemy on the line of the road. Evidently they had no thought of his approach "across lots" from the direction of Flatlands, or they could not have left the pass unwatched by one or more of the party. For most of them, this was the first tour of military duty of so responsible a nature, and whatever mistakes they made may be referred to their inexperience or ignorance of the relative situation of the roads in that vicinity. Who had charge of the party does not appear. So far as known, only one of them, Lieutenant Van Wagenen, had seen any considerable service; but although something of a veteran, having entered the army in 1775 and charged with Montgomery upon Quebec, he could have known nothing of the country he was now patrolling. Lieutenants Troup and Dunscomb were young Columbia College graduates of two years' standing, who had eagerly taken up the cause of the colonists in the midst of adverse associations. Gilliland may have once been an officer in McDougall's regiment, and Hoogland was adjutant of Colonel Lasher's battalion. Had these officers, who without doubt were all mounted, been patrolling at the pass or nearer the lines, the events of the 27th might have worn a far different aspect. As it was, the British by coming into the road at Howard's had put themselves in the rear of the patrol, and its capture was quickly effected. Captain William Glanville Evelyn, "a gallant officer" of the Fourth Infantry, or King's Own, and a descendant of the eminent John Evelyn, of England, led the British advance this night, and it fell to his fortune to surround and capture all five American officers and send them immediately to Clinton, who commanded the leading column. Here was a blow inflicted upon us by the British, the real importance of which they themselves even were ignorant of, for they had made prisoners of the only patrol that was watching the Jamaica route from the pass down to the very lines themselves!