THE BATTLE FOR NEW YORK: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution,
by Barnet Schecter, is an excellent book. You can retrace the battlegrounds in Brooklyn:
The Battle of Brooklyn
Take the A or C train from the Broadway-East New York subway station six stops to Franklin Avenue. You are traveling in the same direction as General Howe's forces after they came through the Jamaica Pass, in a line just south of their actual route. When you get off at Franklin Avenue, notice on the subway map that the intersection of Bedford and Nostrand Avenues lies just to the north of you on the G train line. This was the village of Bedford, where Howe fired the signal guns that launched the battle in earnest. So far we have traced the British advance. Now let's visit the American positions at the center of the ridge where General Sullivan had decided to make a stand. From Franklin Avenue, take the S train, the shuttle, three stops to Prospect Park. Walk north to the Willink Entrance on Flatbush Avenue, just north of Empire Boulevard.
You are on the east side of the park (see the Brooklyn bus map), just south of the Carousel, the Zoo, and the Lefferts Homestead, a Dutch farmhouse that was burned before the battle by units of Pennsylvania riflemen sent out to harass the British. The reconstructed house is now a children's museum. Call (718) 965-6505 for the schedule of hours and programs. From here, proceed a little further into the park until you reach the East Drive. Turn right and go north, past the Zoo, to a point where the paved road rises between two wooded hills. This is the Flatbush Pass, now called Battle Pass, where General Sullivan commanded the center of the American line. Three plaques mark the site. As you approach from the south, the first is on the Dongan Oak Monument, a granite pedestal topped with a bronze eagle just to the right of the road. In the pass itself, on your left, a boulder bears another bronze tablet, entitled Historic Marker of Battle Pass. You will see a third tablet on a boulder to your right as you come out the other end of the pass.
From here go west across the Long Meadow and proceed past the Picnic House (see bus map) to Prospect Park West at 5th Street where the Litchfield Villa houses the park offices and the Prospect Park Alliance, which sells a detailed map of the park. Be sure to look at the smaller maps--and the text--on the reverse. These show the terminal moraine and the original farms of Brooklyn in relation to today's streets and parks. On the largest map, locate Prospect Lake at the southern end of the park. Just north of it, find Lookout Hill and the Maryland Monument (designed by Stanford White). The monument honors the Marylanders who fought under Lord Stirling and joined him in the rearguard action against Cornwallis in the Vechte House, which is later in the tour. From the monument, climb the hill and look across Brooklyn, to the southwestern horizon, where you can see the Verrazanno Bridge projecting above the landscape. Now you can grasp the proportions of the battle--from the point where the British landed to the hills where they clashed with the Americans. Peering through the trees, perhaps with a woodpecker tapping overhead, you get a sense of what it must have been like waiting for the British to come up from the south (while they were circling to the east).
Now let's proceed to the American right, where General Grant's forces engaged Lord Stirling's men and the first shots of the battle were fired, in today's Green-Wood Cemetery. Exit Prospect Park at Prospect Park Southwest and 16th Street. Turn right and walk northwest to 10th Avenue and then turn left and walk south to 20th Street. Make a right onto 20th Street and proceed to the 9th Avenue entrance of the cemetery. In the cemetery, turn right onto Border Avenue, left onto Hemlock Avenue and right onto Battle Avenue. Bear right onto Border Avenue and immediately pick up Battle Path on your right. You are now on Battle Hill, the high ground on the American right wing where Stirling dispatched Parsons and Atlee and the patriots made their best stand of the day. See the bronze statue of Minerva and the Altar to Liberty. Minerva is the Roman goddess of battle who was born full grown in armor from Zeus's head. Here with one hand she lays a wreath on an altar while she looks across the harbor and salutes the Statue of Liberty with a wave of her other hand. Through the trees, across the Brooklyn docks and waterfront, you can see the Statue of Liberty perfectly aligned--using a surveyor's transit--with Minerva's gaze.
Go west on Battle Avenue towards the main entrance at 5th Avenue. At the office, located in the Gothic brownstone gatehouse, you can get more detailed information about the Battle Hill monument and a map of the grounds, which cover 478 acres. Founded in 1838, Green-Wood Cemetery was a major tourist destination in the 19th century, because it contains many Civil War memorials as well as graves of historical figures and celebrities. These include Boss Tweed, the original Brooks Brothers, Horace Greeley and more recently, Leonard Bernstein. The lakes and wildlife are an added attraction. Call (718) 768-7300 for the schedule of hours.
While the Americans at Battle Pass fled down the Porte Road (today's First Street) towards Gowanus Creek, Lord Stirling retreated northward from the area around Battle Hill in Green-Wood to the Vechte House at today's 3rd Street between 4th and 5th Avenues in J.J. Byrne Park.. Leave through the cemetery's main gate, walk straight on 25th Street one block to 4th Avenue, and take the M, N or R train two stops to 9th Street. Walk along 4th Avenue until you see the fences around the basketball courts in the park. At the center of this playground stands the Vechte farmhouse, now known as the Old Stone House Historic Interpretive Center. (The present structure is a reconstruction of the house using the original stones). During the Battle of Brooklyn Cornwallis occupied the house and turned into an artillery position on which Stirling and the Marylanders made their heroic attack, which saved hundreds of Americans who escaped across Gowanus Creek. Call the Old Stone House at (718) 768-3195 for the schedule of hours and special programs.
From the Old Stone House walk down 3rd Street to the Gowanus Canal, which used to be Gowanus Creek, the marshy tidal inlet that the soldiers crossed at the end of the battle, seeking safety behind the line of American forts guarding the Brooklyn peninsula. Now the steel bridge over the canal at Union Street hums and shakes with traffic. The water is a dark, dirty green soup with trash floating in it. The walls of the canal are cement and lumber or corrugated steel covered with thick moss. The zone around the canal is now full of warehouses, lumber and marble yards, bus depots, razor wire and guard dogs. Next to the bridge, earthmovers dump their loads into a sifter and conveyor belt that separates dirt from rubble. Industrial sounds drown out any echoes of the 18th century battle. However, efforts are under way to clean up the canal and reintroduce oysters, which commonly grew to a foot in length in the 17th and 18th centuries. For more information about clean-up efforts, development plans and for boat tours of the canal, call the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment at (718) 788-8500.
Cross the bridge, turn right on Bond Street and walk north, parallel to the canal. No traces of the forts remain, but we will now walk the route along which they were constructed until we reach some bronze tablets and a major monument near the end of the line with sweeping views of Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. The other reward for all of this walking is a very clear understanding of the dimensions of the battlefront and how it corresponds with the cityscape of today. The canal ends at Douglass Street. You are now in the residential neighborhood of Carrol Gardens. Keep going on Bond, past several blocks of public housing, all the way to Pacific Street. You are now in Boerum Hill, where the streets are lined with brick and brownstone row houses. At Pacific and Bond stood Fort Box, the first in the line that stretched all the way to Wallabout Bay, today the Brooklyn Navy Yard. About a thousand feet to the left of Fort Box, on Bond between State and Schermerhorn Streets stood Fort Greene, the largest of the forts on Long Island. (It should not be confused with today's Fort Greene Park, called Fort Putnam in 1776 and renamed in 1812. This is later in the tour).
Continue on Bond past Fulton Street to De Kalb Avenue. Make a right and go to the intersection of Flatbush and De Kalb Avenues. On the northeast corner, across Flatbush from Junior's delicatessen, stands the main building of Long Island University. Go into the lobby and turn left towards the elevators. On the wall hangs a curved plaque with a bas-relief, which confirms that you are indeed walking the line of the American fortifications during the Revolution--the phantom line of forts interlaced in space and time with the bustling downtown neighborhood, passing through the lobby of the LIU building. Continue on De Kalb for one block to Hudson Avenue. At this intersection stood a circular fort called the Oblong Redoubt. Together with Fort Greene it defended the center of the line and was intended to stop the British if they approached along the Jamaica Highway.
Keep going on De Kalb, on the left-hand side, to Fort Greene Place. This is a path that will take you to Myrtle Avenue and the front of Fort Greene Park. The path leads to several flights of steps and the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument at the top. This was the site of Fort Putnam, the fourth in the chain of works. Because of this commanding position Fort Putnam was the most important in the line and the one the British tried to seize first during the battle. The Prison Ship Martyr's Monument that occupies the site is a soaring Doric column topped by a bronze lantern and an observation deck (which is now closed to the public). It is a stunningly beautiful memorial that commemorates one of the worst atrocities in American history. An estimated 11,000 American prisoners perished on the overcrowded ships. Their bodies were buried in shallow graves along the shore and the remains were eventually gathered and placed in the crypt below the monument. Extending the line even further east towards Wallabout Bay was another fort called simply the "redoubt on the left." This was on today's Cumberland Street between Willoughby and Myrtle Avenues. The five forts--Box, Greene, Oblong, Putnam and the last one on the left--were all connected by trenches, and additional ditches led to the marshes on either end of the line.
Behind this defensive line were three more forts designed to stop the British if they landed at Red Hook or crossed Gowanus Creek and got around the main line of forts. Fort Defiance was on Red Hook and is not on the tour. Fort Stirling, on Brooklyn Heights, comes later in the tour. Near the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street stood the third structure, Fort Cobble Hill. To reach the site, take the B38 bus on De Kalb Avenue. It takes you through the Fulton Mall shopping district and then to the heart of Downtown Brooklyn's civic center at Court and Joralemon Streets. Get off at Court Street behind Borough Hall.
Turn left onto Court Street and walk several blocks to Atlantic Avenue. The modernist, cast concrete, multi-level parking garage on your left looks like a fortress, but the real 18th century fort at this intersection has been replaced by a bank--which looks like a Renaissance palace. A plaque on the front wall of the Independence Savings Bank shows Washington on horseback pointing into the distance. From here Washington looked south towards the Old Stone House and lamented the brave men he was about to lose. He could see that far in part because the fort was built on a conical hill, which has since been leveled. It was known by its Dutch name, Ponkiesberg.
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