This completes the convocation of the Clintons in this engagement; Sir Henry Clinton, in command of the British forces, General James Clinton, in command of the two western forts; and Governor George Clinton, hastening to the aid of brother James at Fort Clinton. The approach of the British caused General Putnam to place his Continentals on the eastern shore behind Peekskill and to bring over from the western shore a large force to reinforce his own. The British galleys advanced far enough up the river to prevent communication between the two American bodies, and it then became plain that it had been the hope of the English commander to cause the Americans to divide their forces by making a feint at the eastern shore where Putnam supposed that the strength of the British would be. The Americans had played into his hands. On the morning of the 6th of October Sir Henry Clinton landed his main forces on the western shore, and by sending a detachment around Dunderberg Mountain managed to attack Forts Clinton and Montgomery from the rear while another force engaged them from the south. The result of this engagement was that while the Americans fought pluckily they were overcome by the British, with a loss of 250 killed, wounded and missing, as opposed to the British casualty list of 40 killed and 150 wounded, and that the two western forts fell into the hands of the English. The boom and chain across the river were destroyed, and the British fleet sailed up the river and attacked Fort Constitution on Constitution Island opposite West Point. Fort Constitution was hastily abandoned. Such a signal success on Sir Henry Clinton’s part should have caused him to push quickly on to effect a junction with Burgoyne, who had written him of his desperate straits at the northern end of the Hudson, but, having done this much, the English knight seemed to think that nothing more was expected of him, for, beyond sending a marauding expedition up the Hudson as far as Kingston, he made no further northern advance and retired to New York with his entire force. Had he joined Burgoyne in time to prevent the capitulation of the latter, it is probable that the whole history of this country would have been written in another fashion from that date.