Dispatches sets the words of the moment beside the photographs of 2026 — one account from each side, as each was written.
On August 27, 1776, General William Howe marched his army around the American left in the dark and attacked at daybreak from the rear. The line broke, and a few hundred Maryland and Delaware men held at Gowanus Creek long enough for the rest to get away.
"Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose!"
— General Washington, as reported in an extract of a letter from New York, September 1, 1776, printed in the Virginia Gazette (Purdie), Williamsburg, September 13, 1776
"The Rebels, finding this, did not stand a Minute, but all-amazed run with Precipitation to their Lines."
— Ambrose Serle, secretary to Vice Admiral Lord Howe, to Lord Dartmouth, off the City of New York, September 5, 1776
Photographs: Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York, August 21, 2026. Rev250 living history photography by Thomas Musante.
Sources
If you'd like to learn more about the reporting of the day, below are the original newspaper article and the letter from Lord Howe's secretary describing the events at Brooklyn, along with modern accounts of what took place.
