All night the ferry-boats, which offered the only means of escape to westward and southward, were kept hurrying back and forth between the city and the New Jersey shore, loaded with the retreat. Slowly the rear-guard of the revolutionists drew backward down the city as the troops below crossed the river. In almost every block from which they retreated they left “infernal machines” of more or less elaborate construction, calculated to explode after a set time and destroy everything about them, or to burst into flames after the same interval and fire the buildings in which they were placed. Some fires were set directly by impatient hands, and it was not long after midnight that the allied sentries reported the city in flames. General Wood, who had charge of the army during the night, was notified, and rode forward to an eminence from which he could see the city, by this time casting a brilliant light upon its own destruction. He saw that the fire was confined, thus far, to the upper portion, while the lower streets were still dark, and evidently held by the revolutionists. He surmised at once that they were retreating to Jersey City. Reports from the river bank soon verified this belief. But what were they going to do with the city? Were they simply burning the upper portion, so as to oppose a real wall of fire to the allied advance, till they could safely complete their retreat? Or were they determined to destroy the entire city rather than have it fall into the allies’ possession? If any attempt should be made to save it from destruction by sending soldiers to extinguish the flames already raging, was it not likely that they would run great risk of being destroyed by scores and hundreds in the explosion of the “infernal machines,” which were the favorite weapons of the revolutionists, and which they had no doubt scattered thickly along the route the troops would have to take? General Wood sat on his horse for some moments, watching the flames. Turning at last to a staff officer beside him, he remarked: “They are going to destroy behind them all of the place that will burn. I doubt if our men will find much shelter left them.” “The fire might possibly be checked if we should go at it now,” responded the officer. General Wood replied with abrupt decision: “That has been an Irish city for forty years. It has been worse than Dublin. It has been more dangerous to England than all Ireland itself, because it has been beyond our reach. For the last dozen or twenty years it has been the rottenest centre of socialism in the whole world. I would not risk the life of a single honest and decent soldier to save the whole Sodom from utter destruction!”