Now, bold as a Turk, I proceeded to York, Where, with Clinton and Howe, you may find me: I've the wind in my tail, And am hoisting my sail, To leave Sullivan's Island behind me. But, my lords, do not fear, For, before the next year, Although a small island should fret us, The continent, whole, We will take, by my soul, If the cowardly Yankees will let us. The victory at Charleston was the last success which American arms were to achieve for many months. The British had decided to capture and hold the line of the Hudson in order to cut the colonies in two. Howe, with a trained army of twenty-five thousand men, prepared to attack New York, while, to oppose him, Washington had only eighteen thousand undisciplined levies. Half this force was concentrated at Brooklyn Heights, which was strongly fortified, and here, on August 27, 1776, Howe delivered his attack. Overwhelming superiority of numbers enabled the British to press back their opponents to their works on the heights. Not daring to storm, the British prepared to lay siege to this position. Washington had no way to withstand a siege, which must have resulted in the loss of his whole army, and after nightfall of August 29, he succeeded in ferrying the entire force, with their cannon, arms, ammunition, horses, and larder, over to the New York side. THE MARYLAND BATTALION [August 27, 1776] Spruce Macaronis, and pretty to see, Tidy and dapper and gallant were we; Blooded fine gentlemen, proper and tall, Bold in a fox-hunt and gay at a ball; Prancing soldados, so martial and bluff, Billets for bullets, in scarlet and buff-- But our cockades were clasped with a mother's low prayer. And the sweethearts that braided the sword-knots were fair. There was grummer of drums humming hoarse in the hills, And the bugles sang fanfaron down by the mills, By Flatbush the bagpipes were droning amain, And keen cracked the rifles in Martense's lane; For the Hessians were flecking the hedges with red, And the Grenadiers' tramp marked the roll of the dead. Three to one, flank and rear, flashed the files of St. George, The fierce gleam of their steel as the glow of a forge. The brutal boom-boom of their swart cannoneers Was sweet music compared with the taunt of their cheers-- For the brunt of their onset, our crippled array, And the light of God's leading gone out in the fray! Oh, the rout on the left and the tug on the right! The mad plunge of the charge and the wreck of the flight! When the cohorts of Grant held stout Stirling at strain, And the mongrels of Hesse went tearing the slain; When at Freeke's Mill the flumes and the sluices ran red, And the dead choked the dyke and the marsh choked the dead!