IV

REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF FORT TRYON

In the battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776, the American troops on Fort Tryon Hill won the distinction of making the bravest resistance that was made that day to the assault on the American works, and this ground is ever to be remembered as the place where the Americans suffered their greatest loss in that battle. In order that the significance of what occurred at this point may be understood, the leading circumstances of the assault and capture of Fort Washington may be recalled.

The citadel or central work of Fort Washington was a fivebastioned earthwork occupying almost the highest elevation of Manhattan Island on the west side of what is now Fort Washington avenue on the line of 183d street if projected.* The approach from the south was covered by three lines of defense. The first and most southerly extended across the high ground between 145th and 147th streets. The second zigzagged across the island between 153d and 155th streets. The third was projected approximately along the line of 161st street. West of the fort, on the heights of Fort Washington Point, was a strong redoubt which is still extant and is marked by a boulder monument erected under the direction of the Fort Washington Chapter, D. A. R., and there was a lesser redoubt on the extremity of the point. To the eastward, at what is now called Fort George, were some unimportant intrenchments. North of Fort Washington on the same ridge, at a distance of six-tenths of a mile, was the redoubt subsequently named Fort Tryon. On the northern end

*

The exact location of this site was long unknown. The name "Fort Washington" for many years was spread on city maps over a territory of nearly two miles. In 1890, the writer of these pages set out with old maps and surveying instrument with the purpose of finding the site, and had the good fortune to find two bastions, the northwestern and southwestern, still recognizable. In 1901 he elicited from Mr. James Gordon Bennett, on whose property the fort stood, the generous gift by means of which the Fort Washington monument was erected by the Empire State Society, S. A. R., with the cooperation of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. The monument, on the west side of Fort Washington avenue, marks the site of the northeast bastion.

of Inwood Hill, then called Cox's Hill or Cock Hill, was the Cock Hill fort. While on Marble Hill at Kingsbridge, on Spuyten Duyvil Hill and the Heights of Fordham was a chain of several redoubts, the most considerable of which was Fort Independence.

The American we may call it

day's events, does

redoubt on Fort Tryon Hill or Forest Hill as

destined to play so important a part in the

destined to play

not appear to have been a work of any strength. On the Sauthier-Faden "plan of Fort Washington, now Fort Knyphausen," etc., surveyed soon after the capture of the fort, the redoubt is marked "Battery 2 guns." Doubtless it was reinforced on the downhill sides by lines of abattis and obstruetions of boulders at points of vantage. The work also appears

to have had no name at this time. But what it lacked in strength of construction it made up in the determination of the men who defended it. The troops stationed here were the Maryland and Virginia riflemen under command of Col. Moses Rawlings, than whom there were no better soldiers in the young American army, as was demonstrated less than three months earlier in the battle of Brooklyn; and a few artillerymen under command of Capt. Pierce. Among the latter was a cannoneer named John Corbin of York county, Penn., who was accompanied by his wife Margaret or Margery, who won distinction that day.

On all sides, the American troops numbered only about 2800 men and officers, while the total British forces numbered about 14,400.

The assault was made on all four sides. Gen. Knyphausen came down from Kingsbridge and led the attack with detachments of Hessians from his corps, the brigade of Rall and the regiment of Waldeckers. From the east came the 1st and 2d battalions of Light Infantry and two battalions of Guards under Brig. Gen. Matthews, the 1st and 2d Grenadiers and the 33d regiment under Lord Cornwallis, who crossed the Harlem river from University Heights at 200th street and attacked Laurel Hill. The 42d regiment, commanded by Lt. Col. Stirling, supported by two battalions of the 2d brigade, landed near High Bridge, also on the east. From Harlem on the south came one brigade of British and one of Hessians, commanded by Earl Percy. While the ship Pearl bombarded from the river on the west.

The attack from the north interests us particularly, because Forest Hill bore the brunt of it. After crossing to the island, Knyphausen's division was divided into two columns. The right, or western column, under Col. Rall, ascended Cock Hill (Inwood Hill), easily possessed it, and approached Forest Hill along the riverside. Knyphausen himself led the left column in a direct frontal attack on Forest Hill from the Dyckman street valley, a detachment, however, attacking the east slope of the hill.

The scene presented at this central point in the height of the battle must have been terrifying even to the stout hearts of the men who defended the hill. A concentrated cannonade from the frigate Pearl on the west, from the 12-pounders and howitzers which Col. Rall stationed on Cock Hill on the north and from the guns covering the British landing at 200th street on the east. filled the air with its thunderous roar, and plunging shot and shell crashed against the rocky crags, ploughed the shallow soil, and dealt death among the Marylanders and Virginians; while up the rocky slopes swarmed over four thousand mercenary troops, impressive looking in their picturesque uniforms of blue coats, yellow breeches, black top boots and high brass-mounted caps, uttering fierce oaths and charging with bayonetted muskets when firing was impossible Ensign Wiedeshalt described the cannonading as terrible.

For two hours the little handful of Americans withstood this terrible onslaught, the riflemen aiming with deliberation and picking off their men with cool determination to stem the tide if possible. Under their practiced marksmanship, Captain Medern of the Wutgenau regiment and his Lieutenant von Lowenfeld; Colonel von Bork, Captain Barkhausen and Lieutenant Briede of Knyphausen's; and Captain Walther of Rall's regiment, and many others of the enemy fell. John Reuber of Rall's regiment wrote: "We were obliged to creep along up the rocks, one falling down alive, another shot dead. We were obliged to drag ourselves by the birch tree bushes up the height where we really could not stand."

The little two-gun battery of the Americans was also handled bravely, but the small complement of artillerymen was soon depleted by casualties, and in the emergency, Margaret Corbin.

took a man's part and assisted in cleaning and loading her husband's cannon. When, at length, John Corbin fell at her feet with a Hessian bullet in his heart, she took his place and loaded and fired the gun herself, until three grape-shot struck her and wounded her in a terrible manner.

But, as Hohenstein, a Hessian company commander, declared, "The Hessians made impossibilities possible," and the Americans were at length overcome. Col. Rawlings, the American commander on Forest Hill, was wounded in the thigh; his Major was struck down; many of his men had fallen; the two cannon could no longer be served; and the rising tide could no longer be stayed. Up the hillsides the enemy swarmed. and pausing a moment on the crest, blew their bugles. Then one of the commanders shouted "Forward, all that are my grenadiers," and with cries of "Hoch! they overran the earthworks. Now there was a confused and tumultous mingling of Americans and Hessians and a desperate hand to hand struggle in which many Americans were bayonetted, the Hessians steadily forcing the obstinate Americans back toward Fort Washington. It was probably the slaughter on Forest Hill that Washington witnessed from the heights of the Palisades across the river and that drew tears to his eyes, according to the accounts of the time.

Gen. William Heath, in his Memoirs, says of the operations at Forest Hill:

"The Americans made a noble opposition. and, for a considerable time, kept them from ascending the hill, making a terrible slaughter among them. But the great superiority of the assailants, with an unabating firmness, finally prevailed; their loss was greater here than at any other place."

It is generally conceded that Rawlings and his little band on Forest Hill made the best resistance of the day.

The Americans were also crushed in by overpowering numbers by the divisions under Cornwallis from the east and Earl Percy from the south, and at about 4 P. M., Col. Magaw, commanding Fort Washington, was forced to capitulate, and the whole surviving American force became prisoners of war.

In honor of the leading part which Gen. Knyphausen took in the conquest, Fort Washington was renamed by the British Fort Knyphausen.

Concerning Margaret Corbin, the heroine of Forest Hill who was the prototype of Molly Pitcher of later Monmouth fame and the first woman pensioner of the United States, we repeat the following from the 20th Annual Report of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society for 1915:

·Margaret Corbin was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, November 12, 1751. She was the only daughter of Robert Cochran who was killed by the Indians in 1756, and whose wife (Margaret's mother) was taken into captivity by the Indians at the same time. Margaret at the time was only five years of age. The reason she escaped was that she and her brother were at the time visiting an uncle, brother of her mother. This uncle raised Margaret, who in 1772 married a Virginian by the name of John Corbin. John Corbin enlisted in the First Company Pennsylvania Artillery under Captain Francis Proctor. His wife Margaret, having no children or other home ties, did what many other noble women of that day did, followed her husband to war and offered her services as a nurse and aid in camp life. John Corbin was killed at the battle of Fort Washington, November 16, 1776, and when he fell Margaret took his place at his gun and served it with great credit till struck down with three grape shot which nearly severed her arm and a part of her breast. At the surrender she was paroled to Gen. Greene across the river at Fort Lee and was carried with other sick and wounded to Philadelphia. Here later she was formally enrolled as a member of the Invalid Regiment,' the history of which is most interesting but which space will not permit giving here. An interesting item in this connection is that Mary Ludwig was also a Pennsylvania woman and married John Hays who also joined the same regiment as a gunner. Hays was wounded in 1778 at the battle of Monmouth at which place his wife Molly Pitcher' as she was called by members of her regiment, performed the act of carrying water in a pitcher to the soldiers under fire, and took active part in the work of the battery, inspired, perhaps, by the earlier acts of Margaret Corbin in 1776, with whom she no doubt was acquainted, and which placed her name also in the book of immortals.

6

"So grievous were the wounds received by Margaret Corbin at Fort Washington, and which were ultimately the cause of her