To George Washington from Major General John Sullivan, 23 August 1776
From Major General John Sullivan
Long-Island Augt 23d 1776.
Dr Genll
This Afternoon the Enemy formed & attempted to pass the Road by Bedford a smart fire between them and the Rifle Men ensued, the Officer sent off for a Reinforcement which I ordered down Immediately, a number of Musketry came up to the Assistance of the Rifle Men whose fire with that of our field peices caused a Retreat of the Enemy our Men followed them to the House of Judge Lefferds, where a number of them had taken Lodgings drove them out and Burnt the House and a number of other Buildings Contiguous, they think they kill’d a number & as Evidence of it they produce three Officers Hangers a Carbine & one Dead Body with a considerable Sum of Money in Pocket, I have ordered a party out for Prisoners to night— we have driven them half a Mile from their former Station, these things argue well for Us and I hope are so many preludes to a General Victory.1 Dr Genl I am wt. much Esteem Yr Very Huml. Servt
Jno: Sullivan
Copy, in Samuel Blachley Webb’s writing, enclosed in GW to Hancock, 24 Aug. 1776, DNA:PCC, item 152; LB, MHi: Sullivan Papers; copy, DNA:PCC, item 169. The text of Webb’s copy is fuller than the LB and apparently closer to the text of the letter that GW received and read.
1. For other accounts of this day’s skirmishing about the village of Flatbush, see Extract of a Letter from New York, 24 Aug., in , 5th ser., 1:1144; , 26–27; James Chambers to his wife, 3 Sept. 1776, in , 2d ser., 10:306–8; and the diary of a Hessian officer in , 60–61. The road running north from Flatbush to Bedford went through one of the four strategically important passes in the Heights of Guana, beyond which lay the American line of forts and parapets that defended Brooklyn. The houses that the Americans burned in Flatbush belonged to Leffert Lefferts, Jeremiah Vanderbilt, and Evert Hegeman.