Ominous thunder, lightning, and torrents have suppressed the firefight that turned this bucolic paradise into scorched earth, and now a dense fog has descended and shrouds death in a grey veil. Though we fought well and held ground despite mortar and cannon fire, our position was compromised as we were outflanked to the east, their main body marched around the hills at night unbeknownst to us, getting behind our lines and attacking from the direction of Bedford, causing our collapse in a haphazard and rushed retreat. The majority of our troops would have been killed or captured if not for the heroic deeds of the few hundred Marylanders who held the rearguard against overwhelming opposition like the Spartans at Thermopylae, retaking the stone house at the crossroads twice before succumbing, thereby allowing time for the rest of us to escape through the bloodied and sullied Gowanus creek and back behind our breastworks around Brookland. Stragglers continue to limp into camp soaking wet in mud and mire and unable to warm by campfires which will not stay ablaze in this downpour which spoils our munitions. We are running low on our rations of biscuits and pickled pork so some have gone across the picket to scavenge, and have come back reporting the British advancing by approaches with their own picket now less than a quarter mile from our own.

The danger is that we will be penned in between their army to the east, and their navy to the west, but the heavy northern winds have not allowed their ships to sail upriver, and that must be the reason that Washington has started our retreat for the island, despite official word that it is a flanking maneuver. Fishermen from Marblehead Massachusetts with cloth wrapped around their oars paddle batteaux full of silent soldiers and their baggage across the swift currents of the mile-wide passage, and pray that the enemy does not catch wind and aim to sink our escape. Currently my battalion and I maintain our post keeping steady fire in the direction of their position to provide some semblance of defense. We are anxious of being left behind if time runs out, though Washington says he will be the last to cross the river as he makes the rounds on horseback. Our war for independence balances on a knife’s edge. - - -