command was saved! They crossed the marsh and creek with a loss of but two or three killed and six or eight drowned. [Footnote 153: The conduct of the Marylanders was soldierly beyond praise. But some accounts subject them to a singular martyrdom, killing every man of the two hundred and fifty-nine reported missing. As there was but one officer wounded, or at the most one killed and one wounded in the party, according to the official returns, the proportion of men killed was doubtless small. The letter in _Force_, 5th Series, vol. i., p. 1232, referring to this attack, bears every evidence of having been written by Gist himself, and it is quoted as his in the text. In this letter Gist speaks of being surrounded on all sides, and then adds: "The impracticability of forcing through such a formidable body of troops rendered it the height of rashness and imprudence to risk the lives of our remaining party in a third attempt, and it became necessary for us to endeavor to effect our escape in the best manner we possibly could." This shows that there were many left to disperse. Their prudence was equal to their courage.] [Footnote 154: Before Stirling's fight with Cornwallis took place, the mill and little bridge at the further end of the mill-dam across Gowanus Creek were burned down. Colonel Smallwood charged "a certain Colonel Ward" with the act, and claimed that the destruction of the bridge prevented the escape of Stirling and the Marylanders with him. Mr. Bancroft and Mr. Field repeat the charge. But Smallwood is contradicted both by Stirling and Gist, the former stating that he could not get by the British on the road full half a mile beyond the bridge, and the latter adding that he was driven back into the woods. The charge had no foundation, the bridge not having been set on fire until after the enemy took possession of the road above (see Ewing's sketch). The "Colonel Ward" was Colonel Jonathan Ward, of Massachusetts; and the probability is that he and Colonel Tyler, both of whom lost some men during the day, had been sent out on the Port Road, but, finding Cornwallis there, retreated, burning mill and bridge to obstruct the latter's possible advance in that quarter.]