First shots fired, nightwatch found two foraging redcoats spitting seeds in the watermelon patch near the Devil’s hoofprint, and chased them back to their battalion. A couple hours later they returned with a few hundred reinforcements who endeavored to overtake the outpost, but our front guard fired retaliatory fusillades and retreated back to our lines, which we are now consolidating along the westernmost route from Shore Road to Gowanus creek. We expect the full brunt of their forces to advance here as it is the closest route to the Sound River, where they could fall back on naval support if needed. Scouts have located the position of the Hessian mercenaries advancing up Flatbush Road, where we have a redoubt with two guns and have chopped the old Dongan Oak and laid it across the path to impede their artillery. It no longer appears that this attack on Long Island is a feint, and reinforcements from New York are continuously arriving. We will defend in depth—inflict casualties and whittle down British numbers while impeding their progress among the hills and slowly retreating back to the town of Brookland. Currently we are on high alert, positioned on hill peaks, marksmen with long rifles have climbed trees as if stag hunting back home, and we have vacated barns and farmhouses for cover as the local denizens have fled with their livestock to somewhere their animals won’t be commandeered for provisions. The nighttime fog of war is heavy, and to make uncertainty worse I am loathe to report General Greene has fallen ill with the contagious camp fever forcing him to retire from field command for convalescence. We know not what we will find at dawn, though it seems there will be a major bloodletting on the morrow. For now, I will try to find a moment’s rest.